AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT How to Succeed in the Face of Changing Project Requirements Gary Chin American Management Association New York • Atlanta • Brussels • Chicago • Mexico City • San Francisco Shanghai • Tokyo • Toronto • Washington, D. Special discounts on bulk quantities of AMACOM books are available to corporations, professional associations, and other organizations. For details, contact Special Sales Department, AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. Web site: www.org This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered.
It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chin, Gary. Agile project management : how to succeed in the face of changing project requirements / Gary Chin.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019. Printing number 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 CONTENTS Preface vii CHAPTER 1 Defining Agile Project Management 1 CHAPTER 2 Determining When to Use Agile Project Management 13 CHAPTER 3 Projects Are the Business 22 CHAPTER 4 The Cross-Functional Team: Organizing for Agility 37 CHAPTER 5 The Project Manager’s Role 65 CHAPTER 6 The Agile Project Team 87 CHAPTER 7 Planning for Agility 98 CHAPTER 8 Approaching Risk in an Agile Environment 123 CHAPTER 9 Management: Creating an Environment of Agility 141 CHAPTER 10 The Operational Project Management Infrastructure 152 v vi C ONTENTS CHAPTER 11 Agile Portfolio Management: Aligning Tactical Projects with Business Strategy 171 CHAPTER 12 Integrating Portfolio and Project Management with the Product Development Process for Business Success 193 Conclusion 202 Appendix A: Project Status Reporting Process 204 Appendix B: Issue Tracking Process 209 Appendix C: Action Item Tracking Process 214 Appendix D: Portfolio Prioritization Process 219 Index 225 About the Author 230 P R E FA C E Today’s innovative minds are constantly pushing the envelope: New and often disruptive technologies are filling the product development pipelines of both large and small companies.
The business landscape is fast-paced and competitive, and product lifecycles are shorter. Natu- rally, product development and launch times are also shortening as companies aggressively develop new products and services to com- pete. This emphasis on speed forces teams to make quick decisions with incomplete information or in an environment of uncertainty. This, in turn, leads to frequent changes in project requirements and direction.
Teams need to be light on their feet. they need to be agile! The need for agility is magnified in highly innovative businesses that are pushing the limits of current technology and thinking, and where key parts of projects often involve discovery or problem solving never encountered before. These types of projects have an inherent uncertainty and involve multiple paths, decision points, and iterations before they can be successfully completed. Technical teams know that it is impossible to precisely plan new discoveries far in advance.
Con- sequently, they only use project management for administrative sup- port, if they use it at all. Their resistance to using project management is, in fact, often valid. The classical project management technique that they have experienced is cumbersome and not as effective in a fast-paced and uncertain environment. Additionally, project manage- ment is more often than not perceived as bureaucratic overhead that vii viii P R E FAC E will probably slow the team down rather than make it more agile.
While I don’t fully agree with this viewpoint, I see that many of the commonly known PM practices and tools are geared toward large and relatively slow-moving projects. On a broader scale, companies realize that they must continue to change and remake themselves to remain competitive—to hit their financial targets and drive the business forward. These business-level changes include not only developing new products and services, but also creating the innovative HR practices, marketing messages, part- nerships, acquisitions, and reorganizations that will keep them ahead of the competition. In all of these cases, projects are the engines that power the business transformation and, in turn, enable the organiza- tional flexibility necessary to survive in today’s world.
To this end, most companies recognize that effective and agile project management is essential for their survival. The problem is getting there! Modern project management, as developed in the post–World War II era, was initially employed to manage large government proj- ects for the military and construction and space industries. It has subse- quently evolved and been widely adopted in some form by most large commercial companies. Nowadays, these same project management techniques are well on their way into many medium and small compa- nies.
However, as you may guess, what works well for a huge govern- ment project may not be the optimal solution for an innovative start- up or even a smaller entrepreneurial group within a large company. Those early projects had many unique challenges, such as efficiently managing hundreds of subcontractors, that project management was able to address. The ability to meet these challenges created the mo- mentum that carried project management into the mainstream. While many of these original characteristics are still present in to- day’s projects, most have evolved along with business in general, and some have changed radically.
For the most part, the science of project management has kept pace with the evolution of business over the past few decades. However, in certain areas, project management has not evolved in step with business and therefore cannot effectively address its challenges. It is some of these areas that are the focus of this book. If we fast-forward from 1950 to 2004, we will notice a dramatic P ix economic shift in business—an increase in the number of small com- panies versus large companies.
This shift was driven largely by the advent of the knowledge-based economy. At one time, only large companies with significant financial capital controlled the resources required to compete in business. Their resources were physical assets, such as buildings, material, and equipment. As knowledge and intel- lectual property became increasingly more valuable assets, entrepre- neurs with little financial capital but significant intellectual capital were able to start small businesses and carve out niches in this new market space.
In their quest to grow and compete, these smaller businesses are looking to PM as a possible competitive advantage. They realize that good PM can add tremendous value to their projects; however, they also recognize that the familiar, classic PM approach is not quite right for them. Yet, they press on, with the understanding that their PM processes will have to undergo optimization over time. The organizations that need new ideas in (agile) project management the most are likely to be investing the least in developing them.
There are a few subtle points related to this evolution that are worth noting. First, the sponsors and managers of projects generally know that one-size project management does not fit all, so they look to tailor classic PM processes to their particular situation. This ap- proach will address some, but not all, of their challenges. Second, spe- cialized and dedicated process development resources are required to develop, implement, and maintain robust project management proc- esses, especially ones tuned to a unique and dynamic environment.
Third, these process development resources quickly dwindle as com- pany size shrinks, yet this is where customized project management processes have perhaps the biggest impact. In some ways, project management has become a more or less rote mechanical process because it has been proven to work effectively on x P R E FAC E more or less rote mechanical projects. However, when applied to the more creative, uncertain, and urgent projects, classic PM practices often falter and need assistance. It is in these situations where we will explore various new thinking that will supplement the current body of knowledge on project management and, hopefully, extend its effec- tiveness into agile environments.
Acknowledgment For my wonderful family, Cara, Maddie, and Garrett, who gave me the time and support to write this book, and whom I love dearly. Also, thanks to my friends Mark and Anne, who provided encouragement and helped me think through the many details. 1 DEFINING AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT Those of you who have managed projects in a technology environ- ment know that balancing the needs of the project management (PM) process against those of a creative technical team is something of an art. You risk stifling innovation with too much process.
With too little process, you risk never getting the project completed. The mismatch occurs when you try to employ classic PM methods in an agile envi- ronment. While many companies have spent significant money and energy customizing common PM processes to their specific situations, they are still finding that it is more of an art than a science, where certain project managers thrive and others struggle. Building on classic PM methods can take you only so far in the uncertain environment that’s so typical of projects pushing the boundaries of technological and business innovation.
Agile PM will provide some new concepts and techniques that I’ve seen to be effective in dynamic environments and that, hopefully, will help you advance your project management foundation in these challenging areas. Overextension A primary reason that expanding on classic PM methods is not as ef- fective in certain areas is that it is simply being overstretched. Over 1 2 A G I L E P R O J E C T M A N AG E M E N T the years, classic PM has evolved into a wide and solid platform for delivering all sorts of projects in all kinds of environments. People have taken comprehensive, classic PM methods and customized them for their unique situations.
In turn, this has further validated and ex- panded the classic PM platform. I have yet to encounter a company that hasn’t done some type of PM customization for its specific busi- ness, yet the core methods always come back to the classic fundamen- tals. However, like any platform, classic PM has its constraints, and as we stretch it to address the new scenarios that lie on the fringe of the platform edges, it becomes less effective (see Figure 1-1). It is in these fringe areas at the edge of the classic PM platform that agile PM comes into play.
As you continue to advance your project management methods to keep pace with your changing project and business requirements, it is generally easier to build off an established idea or concept, rather than starting from scratch. In the agile environment, the problem is that there isn’t a good foundation to start from because classic project man- agement has been overextended. This book will attempt to correct that situation. Agile PM can be viewed as a new foundation element, perhaps just a single post, that will help support the extensions of the classic PM platform in such a way as to enable its practitioners to more effectively manage projects in an uncertain environment.
Planning Versus Execution When the term project management is mentioned, the image that most often pops to mind is that of the Gantt chart, also known as the project timeline or schedule. From an academic perspective, we know that project management encompasses the end-to-end project lifecycle. Yet in practical application, there’s a strong emphasis on the planning stage, perhaps at the expense of other important process areas.