Learning From Agile
Categories:
Agile
Categories: Agile
| The Agile community has some good ideas to pass down to conventional project managers, including: Customer Engagement While it may not be possible to iterate the building of a piece of machinery, engaging and explaining to the customer in their language--no jargon--what's happening will highlight issues early. If the customer doesn't like something, the sooner you know, the better. One of the key tenets of Agile is to engage effectively with your customer and end-users, understand their needs and problems, and then deliver an effective solution. This requires regular and effective communication, openness and accountability, and a good measure of trust to support robust relationships between the project team and their key stakeholders. It's a pity so many project managers put their energies into fighting the client rather than collaborating. Going Light and Lean Those are hardly new ideas, but they've been embraced by the Agile philosophy for a good reason: They work. Lean was developed by Toyota as a manufacturing philosophy and has been adapted to many other areas. Some of its key principles--such as minimizing unnecessary movement, simplifying process and continuous improvement--have huge potential in project management. Light is focused on the minimizing unnecessary overhead. Complex plans and processes should be simplified, but only to remove excess complication, not to remove core requirements. Slimming down the project management overhead to its optimal level is probably the easiest way to free up the resources needed to engage your stakeholders more effectively and is definitely supported by the A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). For more information, see Light Versus Lean -- Steps to Improve Project Efficiency from PMI's Community Post. |
Proving PMO Value: Think Thin
Categories:
PMO
Categories: PMO
| Amidst all the talk about the value of project management offices (PMOs), maybe organizations should be looking at size. "PMOs do not have to be big", says Ardi Ghorashy, PMP, PgMP, a partner with 80/20 Consulting Inc., Markham, Ontario, Canada, told me in a recent interview. "The biggest mistake I think that companies make is that they create a monster organization with a lot of overhead and they also bring all the project managers to report into a PMO. That creates a big lump sum of cost sink that becomes very visible at the executive level every year when you review your finances. Then the question will always get asked, 'What's the return value on this investment.' And project management has traditionally been very difficult and notorious at quantifying its ROI. ... By its nature, a PMO has such an encompassing impact on the organization that it affects a lot of things. You can't really measure it very easily. .... These days we say PMOs need to be implemented extremely thinly. [Thin] PMOs will demonstrate the value very, very easily." What do you think? Are "thin" PMOs the way to go? |
The Gentle Art of Managing Agile
Categories:
Agile
Categories: Agile
| A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)--Fourth Edition has nine technical knowledge areas plus the overall integration processes. By aligning these processes to the Agile delivery methodology, effective project management will enhance the probability of success. But you must recognize the processes are applied differently. Some of the areas that need an Agile approach include: Project Scope Management Traditional project management expects scope management to define the output. The final outputs in an Agile project should be defined in terms of achieved capabilities--how the capability will be achieved will be discovered along the journey. Change control will be more challenging, as is configuration management. The overall project needs a really good systems architect to keep each iteration or sprint focused on contributing to the big picture. Project Time Management In an Agile project, scheduling and workflow become closely aligned. The overall system architecture optimizes the sequence modules needed to be built in to allow progressive testing and implementation of capability. This defines the schedule. Scheduling should be at a much higher level; each sprint is likely to be a single activity of one to two weeks' duration. Project Cost Management Agile projects should be based on either a cost-reimbursable system, or the client accepts scope is a variable based on achieving the maximum improvement possible for a pre-set budget. This is a totally different philosophy to traditional project governance. Project Quality Management This is probably easier under Agile. Quality is continually assessed by the involvement of the client and the iterative release of modules to production. Project Communications Management The level of trust needed to run an Agile project is much higher than a traditional project. Effective communications in all directions are essential. Project Procurement Management Agile works in a collaborative partnering space. In the engineering world these are called alliance contracts. Traditional contracts do not support Agile delivery methods very effectively. More later.... |
The Simple Definition of Value
Categories:
Researching the Value of Project Management
Categories: Researching the Value of Project Management
| A lot of energy has been spent investigating the "value" of project management. My question is: value to whom? Doesn't it all boil down to what the projects' decision-makers do with their project management information? Imagine a project manager who pays a very small amount for a very advanced cost and schedule control system, and the system reliably produces accurate information in a timely manner. If that project manager ignores that output, and instead acts out of impulse, then the value of the project management information system is zero. And, to be blunt, no amount of eat-your-peas hectoring from our side of the debate will lead such a project manager to have an epiphany and turn away from his or her nefarious ways. Conversely, a project manager who pays a great deal for a system that barely reports projected costs at completion and forecasts completion dates, but uses that information to avoid a massive overrun or delay, has an extremely valuable system. Not to abrogate the debate, but, in my opinion, the value of project management is like the macro-economists say: It's what somebody's willing to pay for it. |
Raise Your Voice
Categories:
PMI
Categories: PMI
| No one knows project management better than you, the practitioners in the trenches. For months, you've been weighing in on the blog. Well, here's your chance to have your voice heard in PM Network. Every month, the magazine will run a Voices on Project Management column. Project managers will share ideas, experiences and opinions on everything from trends to new methods of doing things. If you're interested in contributing, please e-mail us your idea. Check out the debut column by Peter Taylor, PMP, weighing in on the pressure for PMOs to perform in tough economic times. |
