Identifying project delivery patterns: could that resolve the conflict between the Agile and Waterfall software practices?

Discussion title:

Identifying project delivery patterns: could that resolve the conflict between the Agile and Waterfall software practices?

Discussion details:

Patterns are being used in architecture (see Christopher Alexander’s work), in software development, in movie scripts, etc.

When it comes to project management, the PMI or PRINCE2 processes are patterns, as they are providing generic solutions to generic problems. However, these could be considered as being low-level patterns from a project end-to-end delivery standpoint.

Let’s think about project management patterns that are above the PMI or PRINCE2 distinct processes (patterns). For example, let’s consider different kinds of sailing trips:

• A barge going up the river to deliver some material
• A fishing boat going to fish commercially salmon in the ocean
• A kayak going out for a vacation day fishing trip in a relatively small lake
• An icebreaker ship going to save another ship that’s stuck
• A cruising ship, going to off shore with or without a predefined destination
• A ship going on a scientific expedition up the Amazon river for fauna and vegetation research in the river and nearby shores

The above examples need different upfront preparation, they have or not a clear destination, they have a clear or fuzzy achievable goal, they could have a clear timeline or not, they need a different type of cost management. I guess that we can find more examples like these. We could start transforming all kinds of “project tips” in delivery patterns and to name them (e.g. project type: “barge up the river”, “salvage expedition”, “scientific expedition”, “cruising to destination”, etc.).

I am suggesting that creating various project delivery patterns, we could also help stepping above the noise and resolve the polarized conflict in the software industry between Waterfall and Agile...

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Project Manager Community - Best Group for Project Management

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The Project Manager Network - #1 Group for Project Managers

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What can an organization do to entice the business process users & and their beneficiaries to propose more business process improvements?

Discussion title:

What can an organization do to entice the business process users & and their beneficiaries to propose more business process improvements?

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What Project Manager Community - Best Group for Project Management

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Harvard Business Review

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Are the project management tools “wagging the dog”?

Discussion title:

Are the project management tools “wagging the dog”?

 

Discussion details:

I was able to run software development agile projects using Clarity/OpenWorkbench, a planning/PPM application from the same family with MS Project and Primavera; this approach is sometimes ridiculed... However, I had to find a way of executing agile projects in a Waterfall-oriented PMO environment. I used effort-based planning, using the least dependencies possible among tasks (if any), assigning priorities to task, using resource assignments (and reassignments), and leveraging the auto-scheduling tool’s capability (resource leveling in MS Project). This approach offered an amazing flexibility, allowing me to run iterations, while helping me to forecast, and respect the higher-level PMO constraints.

 

If we consider that we should choose and adjust the development project management processes to the given environmental context/forces, it would be great to have support from a project management tool that is capable of handling/scheduling the whole spectrum of activities with respect of various constraints: using progressive elaboration, attached to a periodic cycle, time constraints, interdependencies (or not), etc.

1. Do you know any tool that can handle the spectrum of activity constraints mentioned above?
2. Do you feel that sometimes the tool existing in your company/department/team is limiting/forcing the choice of project management processes (wagging the dog)?

 

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How flexible are your processes?

Discussion title:

How flexible are your processes?

 

Discussion details:

Clayton Christensen says in his book “The Innovator’s Dilemma” that “a process that defines a capability in executing a certain task concurrently defines disabilities in executing other tasks.”, meaning that if an activity’s goal or procedural requirements are changing (thus, becoming a different activity), keeping its process unchanged creates business impediments: a process that is losing its business alignment turns from a benefit to a cost.

 

This seems to be common sense; however, Christensen says also that “to ensure consistency, they [processes] are meant not to change—or if they must change, to change through tightly controlled procedures”. This means that the (automated) processes are prone to resist changes.

 

Christensen concludes that “typically, inflexible processes are where many organizations’ most serious disabilities in coping with change reside”.

 

1. Did you observe Christensen’s assertions happening in organizations?
2. Do you think that organizations are aware of this conflict between process stability and agility?
3. Is the processes’ tendency/requirement for stability impeding (your) organization’s need to adapt against environmental changes (competition, market needs, and economic fluctuations)?

LinkedIn links to this discussion:

Harvard Business Review

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Project Manager Community - Best Group for Project Management

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Business Process Management Professionals Group

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The Project Manager Network - #1 Group for Project Managers

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ITIL & ISO20000 Service Management + ITSM Subgroups

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Project Management – Continuous Investment Appraisal

Discussion title:

Project Management – Continuous Investment Appraisal

 

Discussion details:

Some of the large projects are sinking in quicksand (search for "sunk cost fallacy”) for reasons that are being related to the human behaviour (search for agency problem”). However, I’ll leave the human factors away from this discussion. In many situations the project’s investors/governors have enough motivation and power to cut their losses as soon as a project shows credible signs of failures.

As a common practice, a project appraisal (ROI, NPV, IRR, Payback Period) is being done discontinuously at its initiation and periodically, at project gates, escalations, etc.

 

 

With you contribution, I would like to find more about:

1. Besides time schedules, what other triggers are being used in your environment to reassess the project’s outstanding-viability? Are these triggers monitored as KPIs?
2. Would you find valuable to have the project continuously monitored against the initial appraisal criteria?
   

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