Mixing it up with Agile & PMI – Shifting Focus
Many PMI project managers are looking for help in introducing Agile techniques into largely traditional organizations to help better manage today’s projects. Especially for non-software development projects where Agile teams are looking for help in gaining acceptance of their approaches and integrating what has been working well for them.
I’ve seen Agilistas criticize the command-and-control nature of some PMI approaches….I’ve also seen Traditional managers condemn the seemingly unstructured techniques practiced in Agile.
TIME TO MIX IT UP !
Have you ever seen a purist in either of these approaches? In reality, a smart mix of approaches can bring success to projects and organizations that so desperately need to start doing more with less.
I truly believe that there is not a single perfect way to do a project. Project Manager’s need to leverage their bag of tools on each new project – stepping back to decide what is the best approach for each project. If you don’t have the experience yourself, then learning from others who have been mixing it up for some time now can enable you to start mixing it up too.
How could Agile help in a typical PMI process flow? I can hear the Agile zealots shouting: “Iterative and incremental development is not supposed to be a series of overlapping waterfalls”. Hold on now – I absolutely agree with you and hope you’ll discuss anything you see in this and the following articles that you agree or disagree with. That’s how we all learn from one another. I look forward to these discussions to come.
EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY — PLAN TO ADAPT
Traditional PMI metho
ds tend to assume that with enough up-front-planning that we can make projects predictable….locking in our requirements too early when we know the least about what we want to do. The less certain we are about our requirements, the more we need to plan to adapt. And the cost of change management is too high in traditional PMI projects; they tend to restrict our ability to be responsive to our customers.
…because not all projects are predictable. Agile embraces this uncertainty and is a different way of looking at project control – factoring in the chances of change management and basically expecting it to happen (which it normally does).
Move away from ACTIVITY-BASED Project Management
…toward VALUE- BASED Project Management
When we talk about Agile – we are actually talking about a family of methodologies of “best practices”, “Leadership philosophy” and “PM methodologies”. For example: XP, Scrum, DSDM are all part of this family. Agile believes in…
- Individuals and Interactions – over processes and tools
- Working Solutions – over comprehensive documentation
- Customer Collaboration – over contract negotiation
- Responding to Change – over following a plan
By leveraging Agile you still answer the typical project questions…
- When will the project be done?
- How much will it cost?
- Do we all agree on what done looks like?
- What are the risks to getting done on time and on schedule?
- How will we mitigate these risks so we can get done
…but Agile takes a difference approach…
- Deliver working solutions in short cycle
- Keep the evolving solution highly visible
- Inspect outcomes frequently
- Change our solution or processes as we learn more to ensure acceptable outcomes
- Do less work that will change
…and a shift in focus…
- Focus less on predictive up front planning
- Focus more on delivering value
- Focus more on collaboration with the customer
- Focus more on engaging the project team
SHIFTING F
OCUS – WHAT TO ASK
If “value-based” Project Management needs to be our focus, then ask yourself a few questions:
- “WHO drives value?” Isn’t it our customers? Many PMI projects gather input from customers at the very beginning through tons of up-front-planning. But there never seems to be enough time allocated to this up-front-work to get the value clearly from the customer. We’ll see how Agile can take this up-front-planning and leverage to deliver solutions to the customer with time for the customer to provide feedback so any changes needed can be managed much earlier in the process to meet the customer’s value.
- “WHAT drives value?” Isn’t it our customer’s pain points…especially the most painful ones? And seeing their reaction to the solution being delivered to them in response to these pain points? Many PMI projects will create use cases or requirement documents in some detail – but rarely in enough detail for the project team to implement to meet customer expectations. We’ll see how Agile involves the project team in mapping out the solution.
- “WHO delivers value?” Isn’t it your project team? So, what is going to explain value to the team effectively? Is it a list of features, use cases, business analysis flow charts or requirements in a bunch of documents – or is it the project team understanding what causes the customer pain and what the customer values in priority order? We’ll see how Agile not only involves the team in mapping out a solution – but how they are involved with the customer.
Before someone writes me a nasty comment or email – please let me say something to the PMI PM’s & PMP’s out there, as a fellow PMP. I am not telling you to throw out everything you’ve been doing. Nor am I saying that what you’ve been doing doesn’t work. What I’m saying is that you can get better at what you are doing by shifting more focus to the delivery of value to your customers and to the enabling of your teams to deliver this value by leveraging Agile techniques.
….We’ll talk more about these items in the articles to follow.
AGILE TRAINING
There are great ways to learn about Agile out there, such as Classes, FREE webinars, White papers, and more. Click here to see training coming up soon that could help. Also check out the links below where you can find great resources, local groups, and more training opportunities.
- PMI Agile Community of Practice WIKI: http://agile-pm.pbworks.com
- PMI Agile Community of Practice Group: http://agile.community.pmi.org
- PMI Agile Yahoo Group: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/pmiagile
I welcome any questions or feedback on this article – please take a minute to share your thoughts below.
Excellent post! I agree that the best way to implement Agile in more traditional orgs is to think of it as a toolset of best practices that allow you to adapt better to change. It’s easy to try to go too far too fast, and it usually ends in a lot of trouble when you do. That’s especially true in virtual and cross-cultural teams.
Interesting perspectives – thanks for putting this together.
I agree that one never has sufficient time to fully document requirements and frankly, these requirements are bound to change over time. I’ve seen Agile handle this level of change much better. I heard a recent analogy to this; as of early October, none of us really has a handle on who will be in the Super Bowl in February. Nevertheless, we’re all beginning to formulate an idea as to who will be in the World Series later this month. As the time horizon grows, outcomes become much more difficult to predict and the “state of the world” is pretty uncertain. Therefore, requirements assembly, use cases, etc. become less accurate. Again, I think Agile’s iterative approach addresses that well.
My question is, how does one introduce Agile into larger projects? I’ve heard one approach is to break activities down into smaller components and organize multiple Agile teams to focus on these components. If true, what kinds of challenges does this present to the Program Manager (who may be used to a “Command and Control” style of management)?
Thanks again.
Tim
Donna
I think your argument about striking a balance between agile and more traditional approaches is a very strong one and I am having a lot of success over here in the UK with a similar approach (using DSDM and PRINCE2).
Agile doesn’t usually scale well in corporate environments and the ‘upfront’ stuff needs to be done – it is the most vital part of a project in my opinion.
One slight nuance I would suggest is that you should be product focused as opposed to activity focused – this fits easier with a value focus too.
Thanks for the article
Regards
Keith Richards (UK)
Hi Keith –
Thanks for your feedback. I will be sure to emphasize “product” as well as “value” focus.
Having been a Product Manager for 18+ years, I tend to use both product & value to mean the same thing. You don’t build a product unless you can bring more value to the customer. I’ve also have started saying “solution” focus ……so no matter if it is hardware, product, application, IT projects……”solution” is what you are building/doning to bring the customer “VALUE” !
What are you doing to help PMI/Waterfall teams learn how to become more Agile?
Can you share some things you’ve done to use Agile in the more traditional environments?
INTRODUCTING AGILE INTO LARGER PROJECTS…..
Tim, I will suggest something that has worked for many in the past. I just heard it at an Agile PM Dinner last night again…..
PILOT it ! Pick a part of a larger project to try Agile out. Use it to “educate” the team on how Agile works – how the team should work – etc. Look for the traits such as:
– you can deliver something demonstrable in 8 weeks
– there is some URGENCY
– what you build affects most fuctional areas
– limited 3rd Party interaction
– limited customer interaction as well
….then keep PILOTING more and more until the Agile way is learned by the team.Who says you have to do all Agile? Gradually work it in.
A quick way to failure is to slam dunk Agile into a company all at once. Gradually piloting and educating the teams will bring you much better results. It is a shift in focus that can take time – especially for the large projects.
How do you think that would work for you?
The debate on traditional Vs Agile is old, but the view points provided are refreshing. I especially liked the view on the ‘customer value’ through the pain points. Focusing on the customer value will probably remove many of the redundant activities of the traditional PM such as unnecessary documentation which may be of no use to the customer or the service provider !
Will look forward to other articles on this topic.
Rama
Hi Rama –
I’m sure the Traditional -v- Agile debate will continue for years to come. But Agile is here to stay and picking up momentum to help organizations do “more with less”. Our economy in the USA requires us to “WORK SMARTER”…..not just harder.
By moving to more of a “just enough” model that Agile promotes helps this tremendously. And all of us can help this wave forming in PMO’s by speaking up and suggesting this in the Traditional worlds. Most PMO’s will welcome the idea.
What types of projects are you using Agile ?
DONNA REED
http://www.DonnaAReed.com
donna@DonnaAReed.com
The agile approach sounds promising… But I want to see the agile approach work in a project other that software development – Say Infrastructure deployment or Service delivery etc. Anyone who have done some significant work in those areas out there?