Take Your Time to Go Faster

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Agile   Organizational Project Management  

It seems odd to be thinking of organizations that are only now incorporating agile as “late adopters,” but the truth is the rapid expansion of agile in recent years has created a situation where that is the case. While agile may not be the only—or even main—project approach in most organizations, it is certainly an important element of project execution. Organizations that are yet to embrace it are losing out on the benefits it can deliver.

There is increasing recognition of this, and those organizations who are now embarking on agile adoption are feeling pressure to “catch up” with their competitors. That can be a healthy driver for agile acceptance, but it can also drive bad practices—and that’s what I want to look at in this article.

Realistic goals, realistic timelines
Part of the problem is the perception among many inexperienced organizations that agile is going to deliver significant improvements very quickly and with little effort. Certainly, agile methods have demonstrated they can improve many project elements in a fairly dramatic way, and those improvements can happen in early iterations of agile execution.

However, that doesn’t mean an agile implementation is quick and easy. Most organizations recognize they need some outside assistance when they first start, sending staff for training on their method …

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