Managing Projects Better

Agile, PRINCE2, Waterfall … and FREEFALL!Shoaib Ahmed

AgileAre we agile or is it simply another name for chaos?

The Agile Manifesto

0 Individuals and interactions over processes and tools0Working software over comprehensive

documentation0Customer collaboration over contract negotiation0Responding to change over following a plan

Agile consensus

0Works well in teams of 5 to 70There is a minimum and maximum velocity (throughput)

required0Resources are constant0Timelines are constant0Scope is NOT constant0What is started is finished … sprint content is not

changed in flight, resources are not re-assigned to other tasks

0 Is this us?

Reflection

0 Ideal for product teams0 Ideal for in-house development teams0NOT suitable for fixed price delivery on fixed scope

PRINCE2Monitor and Control to given tolerances – scope, cost, timeline,

risks, quality, benefits

Pros & Cons

0Does not prescribe a methodology for “specialist products” – i.e. development0 Good – nothing stopping

us Agile practices0 Bad – Higher PM effort …

is it bad?0 In PRINCE2 project we’re

really playing a team role … is it worth the effor + $

WaterfallDo we really want to go back to bad old days?

Pros & Cons

0Long pre-sales0 Can be mitigated somewhat by structuring

Requirements then delivery0Milestone based payment

0 Can be mitigated somewhat by % billing to milestone0Death by Change Reuqests

0 Is this not what we’re doing in Agile?0 Change in scope has consequence in scope and cost

How do we prevent FREEFALL!

How do we truly remain Agile?

Do we have to pick a methodology?

0No0What do we do then?

0 Pick the best of all – as it applies to our situation0Does that not leave us to chaos then?

0 No0 We must apply uniform reporting mechanism0 We must review project health as a practice

What do we report?

0Earned Value0 How much did we plan to complete by now?0 How much have we completed?0 Difference is schedule slippage or advance0 How much time did we plan to spend by now?0 How much time have we spent?0 Difference is cost slippage or advance

What do we measure

0More achieved than planned is not necessarily all rosy0 We may have spent more than planned to achieve that

0More time spent than planned is not necessarily bad0 We may have achieved more for that time

Are PMs forever going to be number crunching?

0PMs #1 job – plan0PMs #2 job – monitor and control0So why should we be afraid of that?

Are Management forever going to read reports?

0No0Use dashboards0 If health is good, nothing

needs doing0 If ailing, then management

applies appropriate remedy - early

Will this ensure all projects succeed?

0Not necessarily0 It will depend at how good we are at monitoring and

controlling0This method succeeded in IRIS

0 a project that was potentially going to be the biggest loss leader of all time

0 we brought it in time and within budget