pradeep bnvBDE| Semantic Space technologiesHyderabad, India
Hi All,
Before, I go ahead with the discussion…I would like to introduce myself as Pradeep, working as BD E for a PPM tool called PPM Studio (www.ppmstudio.com)
The other day I was going through the basic waterfall or any other traditional project mgmt process and what I found is, it’s a long plan where we can break up into small tasks and deliverables.
I was also going through Agile Project mgmt (Since my product supports traditional, AGILE, PRINCE2...), I do not find much difference in the process between traditional PM and AGILE Methodology….except in terms of Nomenclature like in AGILE we call it as sprints, iterations….
Certainly there is a difference, but not so much as we believe…Isn’t it??
People say that when you work in AGILE environment, the risk is shared as we deliver the sprints on a regular and short term basis. But, looking at the real scenario, what I found is there are lots of backlogs which are again piling up to the next sprints and causing the same level of uncertainity/risks that we see in traditional waterfall project management.
Few others say, there is good amount of involvement of stake holders in AGILE process, because we have a sprint release often…but, looking at the traditional models, I see many of my project managers have a weekly meeting with the client, where he updates the complete tasks/work done in that week
My question here is…Are we just in the Trans of new methodology which is taking us back to traditional ways of managing a project???
Please correct me if my observations are wrong, as I am not a hard core Project manager
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Elyse NielsenSenior Project Manager| Ascension Health Information ServicesHaines City, Fl, United States
Hi PraDeep,
I think the main difference between agile project management and traditional project management is the specificity of scope. If scope is fully discovered and mostly known, a traditional methodology will be successful for the project. If scope is not fully uncovered, and only partly known, then an agile methodology will be successful for the project.
Peter WrightProgramme Manager| BAE SystemsSouthport, Merseyside, United Kingdom
Hi Pradeep,
Agile is more aligned with the traditional V model where there is verification at each stage and new items re-viewed and adapted into the delivery model.
In my opinion - As with all of these models it is the way they are used which differs mostly. Prince 2, Waterfall, XP, Agile can all be tailored in ways to be similar in process if needed. Waterfall may have the scope defined up front, but if you do not include the users throughout the process (e.g. like in agile) then you will likely deliver something that will not be used by the customer/user.
In your example with the traditional approach Weekly meetings reviewing project progress is not the same as the customer/user reviewing and being involved in the design/development outputs. For traditional I have seen this on a government project were 30 project team members of varying skills attended a weekly project meeting but additional review needed to be held outside of the meetings to ensure the customer was happy with what was being developed.
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Peter WrightProgramme Manager| BAE SystemsSouthport, Merseyside, United Kingdom
Hi Pradeep,
Agile is more aligned with the traditional V model where there is verification at each stage and new items re-viewed and adapted into the delivery model.
In my opinion - As with all of these models it is the way they are used which differs mostly. Prince 2, Waterfall, XP, Agile can all be tailored in ways to be similar in process if needed. Waterfall may have the scope defined up front, but if you do not include the users throughout the process (e.g. like in agile) then you will likely deliver something that will not be used by the customer/user.
In your example with the traditional approach Weekly meetings reviewing project progress is not the same as the customer/user reviewing and being involved in the design/development outputs. For traditional I have seen this on a government project were 30 project team members of varying skills attended a weekly project meeting but additional review needed to be held outside of the meetings to ensure the customer was happy with what was being developed.
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