Case Study: Project Agility in a Strict Waterfall Organization

Eric Frisvold, PMP, is a program and project management consultant based in Chicago. With nearly 30 years of project management experience, he specializes in SAP and accounting projects in industries ranging from insurance to consumer packaged goods.

  Agile   Governance   Knowledge Shelf  

Abstract
When a project requires an agile delivery model but the organization is tied to strict waterfall methodology, the team needs to be creative in order to meet its goals using all of the tools in the project management tool bag. Agile and waterfall can (and, indeed, should) co-exist to provide outstanding results. This is the story of a team that successfully delivered a project using agile principles while working within a traditional waterfall environment.

Introduction
It is difficult to discuss project management in today’s workplace without having the word agile creep into the conversation. The word elicits passionate responses from many, including those who:

• LOVE IT – Claiming waterfall project management is in its dying days and agile is the future;
• HATE IT – Claiming agile is an excuse for lazy teams to avoid documentation, testing, and disciplined project management; and
• FEAR IT – Wondering if their Project Management Professional (PMP)^® certification or skill set is being made irrelevant and often taking the stance that “agile will never work here.”

A fourth response is a quizzical look from those who have heard the term agile but, honestly, aren’t sure what it is. Is it a new project management approach? Is it undoing decades of work to build structured…

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