PM Network - August 2009

VOICES ON PROJECT MANAGEMENT
LOOKING FOR

Agile is emerging as the new weapon in the battle against the economic slump.

BY JESSE FEWELL, CST, PMP

What used to be a buzzword is quickly evolving into a competitive advantage. For almost a decade now, the agile movement has garnered much attention for individual project successes in specialized project domains such as software development.

Now the economy is sparking steady growth in agile adoption across sectors. Around the world, organizations are facing the new reality that delivering on-schedule and on-budget is no longer enough to stay competitive. Sponsors aren’t asking, “What does it take to implement this scope?” These days it’s, “What can I get for this fixed budget?” Project managers, in turn, are being forced to adapt.

At the same time, the individual successes of agile have become much more frequent and much larger in scale. In the last two years, the sin-gle-most discussed topic among agile practitioners has been how to scale this more competitive management approach across all departments and all skill sets in the enterprise.

But what is agile, really? Consultants and trainers
will tout their pet method as the true example of the
ideal process. Articles and blogs ramble on about funny
terms like “sprints,” “scrums,” “spikes,” and “stories.” And
although the best place to start is the Agile Manifesto, I’d
like to offer two key areas to focus on.
First, a project leader must have a ruth-
less commitment to value delivery over
performance to plan. No longer can you
be content to deliver your full scope by
the final deadline. Instead, deliver the
highest risk and/or highest value require-
ment as soon as possible. Then, engage
the sponsor to evaluate the deliverable
and reprioritize what should be the next

high-risk/high-value item to be delivered. As each priority is delivered, the sponsor is given permission to reprioritize or replace the remaining scope.

Although this kind of living project plan is compatible with best practices we’ve learned in the classroom, it’s certainly not how things are generally done. We’re told that a project plan must endure an extensive change-management process to reflect the latest shifts in business needs. Breaking the project up into vertical slices like this maximizes ROI.

Second, a project leader must create high-performing teams. Consider that the entire value of a project is generated not by the project manager, but by the project team. As project managers, we’ve been trained to engage in “monitoring and controlling” the team to ensure project results. What if we invested all our energy into accelerating and empowering the team?

We’ve been trained to perform lessons learned at the closeout of a project. What if we conducted lessons learned in monthly meetings and then held the team accountable for implementing those lessons right away? The only way to aggressively deliver on

On PMI.org/voices

>>Get more information about the PMI Agile Community of Practice at finance.groups. yahoo.com/ group/pmiagile.

SPEAK UP—BUT LOSE THE JARGON

Agile continues to be a hot topic on the blog. Here’s what Bob Fischer, a principal consultant at Enagility, had to say about the role of agile advocates:

Projects where there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding what you are going to build and how you are going to build it are the best candidates for agile. I've been a very successful agile advocate, and I start by understanding the nature of the projects people are working on and what they are struggling with. I use that to make recommendations. I completely agree that agile advocates need to speak to their audience's needs, not agile jargon.