Let me rephrase your question: "Is Agility applicable to all types of projects?". The answer is YES. If you can use a practise like Scrum depends more on people skills, organizational maturity and readiness.
There are no "agile results". What you achieve is higher flexibility to changes, higher customer involvement, better transparency and earlier visualization of deliverables. But you cannot expect all being perfect on step 1. There will be a learning curve in the project.
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1 reply by Carlos Eduardo Escobar Muentes
Sep 20, 2017 4:33 PM
Carlos Eduardo Escobar Muentes
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I understand and agree that progressive adoption by a company is important and fundamental in agile practices
Agile o scrum methodology applies to evolutive products. I believe and in my experience I have seen it work well where the final result is not defined well or the final result may change over a period of time.
For example: I want to create a mobile app with face recognition which I can use for the internal process activities. I think it should be done with agile ways.
I want to create a mobile app with facial recognition which I will use only for login to my internal portal - I think this should use traditional methods.
I agree with Peter, that agility has to be applied to all projects.
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1 reply by Carlos Eduardo Escobar Muentes
Sep 20, 2017 4:36 PM
Carlos Eduardo Escobar Muentes
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Thanks for the reply. Among colleagues discussed this topic, I think that everything is that scrum started in software development projects and the applicability to other types of projects is not yet fully received, at least in my country not yet.
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
There is a big problem here. Agile is not a method, process, life cycle, IT or software related only, did not start with the Manifesto. Agile is a practice or discipline then you can apply it including your personal life, Scrum is not a method or methodolgy. Scrum is a framework. For better references go to the new PMBOK Guide version.
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1 reply by Carlos Eduardo Escobar Muentes
Sep 20, 2017 4:39 PM
Carlos Eduardo Escobar Muentes
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agreeing that scrum is not a methodology is a framework, the question was whether this framework serves for any type of project?. thanks for the reply
Scrum is not applicable to all types of projects, and even where it is, there is a certain amount of readiness required to realize any benefit from it, as Peter mentioned.
You can expect "results" as soon as you are able to deliver work that creates value. How long does it take to deliver work that creates value? Some projects never do, regardless of the framework or methodology used. Whether or not you are using a flavor of agile is just one of many factors that needs to be considered. By itself, it is not a determining factor. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Sorry but I have to disagree here. Scrum is applicable to all type of projects IF AND ONLY IF after an impact analysis the organization understand is ready for it. (so, you can argue that "all" is not applicable here- hehehehe) I can talk about my personal experience but you can find others examples outside there. On of the Scrum creators wrote a new book and I have the opportunity to participate in a workshop he dictated in USA. And along the workshop, while is not the topic of the book, he used a practical and real life example using Scrum in non IT project. But at the end I agree with Aaron in general.
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1 reply by Aaron Porter
Sep 20, 2017 4:58 PM
Aaron Porter
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I guess the burden of proof to identify some projects where Scrum won't work falls on me.
* This is a generalization, but Construction. There are probably some construction projects where you might be able to make Scrum work, but not all. Unless, for example, you want to stretch the definition of a spike and call it a sprint while the foundation cures. Construction does not fit nicely into sprints.
* Some software upgrades and implementations. For example, an SAP CRM upgrade. You might be able to cobble something together that resembles Scrum, but you can't deliver part of an SAP upgrade. If you were doing a greenfield upgrade, you might be able to call it Scrum. If an upgrade project involves development, you could use Scrum processes during the project, but then you're moving into hybrid territory.
* Manufacturing. Most manufacturing, in the mass production sense, is not a project. However, if I, as an amateur blacksmith, had a project to create a custom knife, Scrum would not work. I could probably come up with something close, but again, hybrid, at best.
I will agree with something you have said on many posts - agile principles and practices can be applied to every project. But, and this is where I disagree, if you try to apply Scrum to every project, you will, in some cases, end up with a process that nobody would confuse with Scrum.
Let me rephrase your question: "Is Agility applicable to all types of projects?". The answer is YES. If you can use a practise like Scrum depends more on people skills, organizational maturity and readiness.
There are no "agile results". What you achieve is higher flexibility to changes, higher customer involvement, better transparency and earlier visualization of deliverables. But you cannot expect all being perfect on step 1. There will be a learning curve in the project.
I understand and agree that progressive adoption by a company is important and fundamental in agile practices Saving Changes...
Agile o scrum methodology applies to evolutive products. I believe and in my experience I have seen it work well where the final result is not defined well or the final result may change over a period of time.
For example: I want to create a mobile app with face recognition which I can use for the internal process activities. I think it should be done with agile ways.
I want to create a mobile app with facial recognition which I will use only for login to my internal portal - I think this should use traditional methods.
I agree with Peter, that agility has to be applied to all projects.
Thanks for the reply. Among colleagues discussed this topic, I think that everything is that scrum started in software development projects and the applicability to other types of projects is not yet fully received, at least in my country not yet. Saving Changes...
There is a big problem here. Agile is not a method, process, life cycle, IT or software related only, did not start with the Manifesto. Agile is a practice or discipline then you can apply it including your personal life, Scrum is not a method or methodolgy. Scrum is a framework. For better references go to the new PMBOK Guide version.
agreeing that scrum is not a methodology is a framework, the question was whether this framework serves for any type of project?. thanks for the reply Saving Changes...
Sorry but I have to disagree here. Scrum is applicable to all type of projects IF AND ONLY IF after an impact analysis the organization understand is ready for it. (so, you can argue that "all" is not applicable here- hehehehe) I can talk about my personal experience but you can find others examples outside there. On of the Scrum creators wrote a new book and I have the opportunity to participate in a workshop he dictated in USA. And along the workshop, while is not the topic of the book, he used a practical and real life example using Scrum in non IT project. But at the end I agree with Aaron in general.
I guess the burden of proof to identify some projects where Scrum won't work falls on me.
* This is a generalization, but Construction. There are probably some construction projects where you might be able to make Scrum work, but not all. Unless, for example, you want to stretch the definition of a spike and call it a sprint while the foundation cures. Construction does not fit nicely into sprints.
* Some software upgrades and implementations. For example, an SAP CRM upgrade. You might be able to cobble something together that resembles Scrum, but you can't deliver part of an SAP upgrade. If you were doing a greenfield upgrade, you might be able to call it Scrum. If an upgrade project involves development, you could use Scrum processes during the project, but then you're moving into hybrid territory.
* Manufacturing. Most manufacturing, in the mass production sense, is not a project. However, if I, as an amateur blacksmith, had a project to create a custom knife, Scrum would not work. I could probably come up with something close, but again, hybrid, at best.
I will agree with something you have said on many posts - agile principles and practices can be applied to every project. But, and this is where I disagree, if you try to apply Scrum to every project, you will, in some cases, end up with a process that nobody would confuse with Scrum.
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1 reply by Sergio Luis Conte
Sep 20, 2017 6:01 PM
Sergio Luis Conte
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I agree with you Aaron. I have applied Scrum (and DSDM) in the projects you list above. Including the organization where I am working today. BUT I have applied it after we make an impact analysis to understand if the organizational architecture is ready to apply it. Here is the part where I think I am said the same than you in your last paragraph just adding something from my personal experience. I mean, if you try to apply Scrum to every project you will fail unless you perform an impact analysis. And in my personal experience is the same for anything you try to use. In actual days, to make some reference to something the PMI has started to put focus, is a matter of business analysis (and the project manager must help indeed) to select the process to do things because it is an strategical decision. In the business analysis field that is made in the process named "Needs Analysis" for the PMI and "Strategy Analysis" for the IIBA (former Enterprise Analysis). Inside those process definition into the correspondent guide there is an activity related to select the life cycle/method to do things.
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Sep 20, 2017 4:58 PM
Replying to Aaron Porter
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I guess the burden of proof to identify some projects where Scrum won't work falls on me.
* This is a generalization, but Construction. There are probably some construction projects where you might be able to make Scrum work, but not all. Unless, for example, you want to stretch the definition of a spike and call it a sprint while the foundation cures. Construction does not fit nicely into sprints.
* Some software upgrades and implementations. For example, an SAP CRM upgrade. You might be able to cobble something together that resembles Scrum, but you can't deliver part of an SAP upgrade. If you were doing a greenfield upgrade, you might be able to call it Scrum. If an upgrade project involves development, you could use Scrum processes during the project, but then you're moving into hybrid territory.
* Manufacturing. Most manufacturing, in the mass production sense, is not a project. However, if I, as an amateur blacksmith, had a project to create a custom knife, Scrum would not work. I could probably come up with something close, but again, hybrid, at best.
I will agree with something you have said on many posts - agile principles and practices can be applied to every project. But, and this is where I disagree, if you try to apply Scrum to every project, you will, in some cases, end up with a process that nobody would confuse with Scrum.
I agree with you Aaron. I have applied Scrum (and DSDM) in the projects you list above. Including the organization where I am working today. BUT I have applied it after we make an impact analysis to understand if the organizational architecture is ready to apply it. Here is the part where I think I am said the same than you in your last paragraph just adding something from my personal experience. I mean, if you try to apply Scrum to every project you will fail unless you perform an impact analysis. And in my personal experience is the same for anything you try to use. In actual days, to make some reference to something the PMI has started to put focus, is a matter of business analysis (and the project manager must help indeed) to select the process to do things because it is an strategical decision. In the business analysis field that is made in the process named "Needs Analysis" for the PMI and "Strategy Analysis" for the IIBA (former Enterprise Analysis). Inside those process definition into the correspondent guide there is an activity related to select the life cycle/method to do things. Saving Changes...
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