Have you been work(ing)ed, as an agile professional, in transforming the concepts of the "old school" (waterfall) followers to this approach as a project of your company/organization? What is the percentage of success and at which pace/time that is being reached? Are there resistances from different generations and economic sectors, in your opinion? Saving Changes...
Waterfall has nothing to do with "old school" methods. It is just one example of a predictive life cycle which is perfectly suited to certain types of projects.
However, transforming leadership behaviors and delivery approaches to realize stakeholder value faster and to be more responsive to change is a true organization transformation whose success depends a lot on the willingness of leaders to eliminate organization dysfunctions (such as taking on too much concurrent work), decentralize decision making, and find the right balance between speed of delivery, product/process quality and putting people first.
Most organizations which are moving from a traditional perspective will find the journey a long one.
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
I fully agree with Kiron. Waterfall is not old school and as a matter of fact, these days being Hybrid is the best approach which is an Agile/Waterfall approach. It differs depending on the project, organization and other factors.
Sometimes you may face resistence and there are many ways to resolve it. Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
There is room for both predictive and adaptive approaches in an organization and, in fact, a project. Usually your project is the catalyst for organizational transformation. (In fact, the goal of a project is to move an organization to a better state.)
You will usually start with a small project to introduce organizational transformation. Once the value of the transformation can be quantified, you will then scale up the transformation through a larger project. Don't underestimate the need to manage senior managers' expectations.. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
The problem is the big misunderstanding outside there: agile is not a life cycle then you can use agile with waterfall life cycle. The second misunderstanding is confusing sequential life cycle with waterfall life cycle. People has to go to Royce paper about waterfall where feeback loops and things like that can be found. The third is thinking that agile is a mindset or using a method. Agile was created in 1990 in manufacturing trying to search an alternative to Lean and it is based on systemic theory then agile is a matter of enteprise architecture. Indeed, mindset is one of the components usually located into business layer inside the enterprise architecture. But trying to implement agile without understanding that "I am me and my circumstance'" (were words of the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset) is the first step to fail.
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1 reply by Stéphane Parent
Nov 16, 2022 1:08 PM
Stéphane Parent
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Hey Sergio! I'd say Agile was defined before 1990: it just wasn't called Agile then. They used terms like skunkworks back then. Check out "A Passion for Excellence" by Tom Peters and Nancy Austin (1986). You'll notice a lot of agile themes: increment, iterate, improve.
I agree with Kiron. Sergio made a valid point as well. Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
Nov 16, 2022 8:23 AM
Replying to Sergio Luis Conte
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The problem is the big misunderstanding outside there: agile is not a life cycle then you can use agile with waterfall life cycle. The second misunderstanding is confusing sequential life cycle with waterfall life cycle. People has to go to Royce paper about waterfall where feeback loops and things like that can be found. The third is thinking that agile is a mindset or using a method. Agile was created in 1990 in manufacturing trying to search an alternative to Lean and it is based on systemic theory then agile is a matter of enteprise architecture. Indeed, mindset is one of the components usually located into business layer inside the enterprise architecture. But trying to implement agile without understanding that "I am me and my circumstance'" (were words of the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset) is the first step to fail.
Hey Sergio! I'd say Agile was defined before 1990: it just wasn't called Agile then. They used terms like skunkworks back then. Check out "A Passion for Excellence" by Tom Peters and Nancy Austin (1986). You'll notice a lot of agile themes: increment, iterate, improve.
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1 reply by Sergio Luis Conte
Nov 17, 2022 4:59 AM
Sergio Luis Conte
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Hi Stéphane. The place where Agile was created in 1990 was the USA DoD/NSF Agility Forum inside the Leihigh University. We can say "formal creation" at least. That was after making a prospective about the future world searching for an alternative to Lean. At the same time Japan was working in Halonic Manufacturing. So, Agile was created inside the manufacturing field and as other reference they took a paper that was published in 1980 called "Agile Manufacturing". The Forum is still active but the work for defining Agile took 3 years. That´s because Lean and Agile are not the same. In fact, they are totally different in essence. I was there. But at the end, if you ask me, it does not matter. What matter is to take clear understanding about what Agile really is. To understand that my humble recomendation is going to the papers. And by the way, time after I was part of the movement that took agile to software. But in this case, few people know that it was an evolution of object orientation then myself and others worked each year inside the OOSPLA with the people that today are considered "gurus" and wrote the Manifesto for Agile Software Development.
That's because the PM and PMI environment are especially motivators in understanding the particularities of these processes being used both by experienced and fresh managers in organizations. The learning from part to part is always reached once the points of view, although maintaining a foot in the tradition, need to adapt to the circumstances where applied. Different stakeholders and schools, different approaches intending to deliver the outcomes needed. Thank all of you for your contributions. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Nov 16, 2022 1:08 PM
Replying to Stéphane Parent
...
Hey Sergio! I'd say Agile was defined before 1990: it just wasn't called Agile then. They used terms like skunkworks back then. Check out "A Passion for Excellence" by Tom Peters and Nancy Austin (1986). You'll notice a lot of agile themes: increment, iterate, improve.
Hi Stéphane. The place where Agile was created in 1990 was the USA DoD/NSF Agility Forum inside the Leihigh University. We can say "formal creation" at least. That was after making a prospective about the future world searching for an alternative to Lean. At the same time Japan was working in Halonic Manufacturing. So, Agile was created inside the manufacturing field and as other reference they took a paper that was published in 1980 called "Agile Manufacturing". The Forum is still active but the work for defining Agile took 3 years. That´s because Lean and Agile are not the same. In fact, they are totally different in essence. I was there. But at the end, if you ask me, it does not matter. What matter is to take clear understanding about what Agile really is. To understand that my humble recomendation is going to the papers. And by the way, time after I was part of the movement that took agile to software. But in this case, few people know that it was an evolution of object orientation then myself and others worked each year inside the OOSPLA with the people that today are considered "gurus" and wrote the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. Saving Changes...
"Nearly every great advance in science arises from a crisis in the old theory, through an endeavor to find a way out of the difficulties created. We must examine old ideas, old theories, although they belong to the past, for this is the only way to understand the importance of the new ones and the extent of their validity."
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