How to Make Agile Project Management Work in Your Organization

How to Make Agile
Project Management
Work in Your Organization

© Global Knowledge Training LLC. All rights reserved. Page 2
Presenter
Brian D. Egan
BSc, MSc, MBA, PMP
Photo of
Presenter

Agenda/Overview
● What is agile project management?
● Terminology
● Waterfall life cycle
● Agile life cycle
● Link between agile and waterfall
● Attributes of an agile environment
● Ad hoc versus agile project management environments

What is Agile Project Management?
• Agile project management means responsibilities are shared among a
team.
• Scrum = Agile framework (example of team structure)
• Scrum master – Team coach – main function to remove impediments from
the team – no traditional responsibilities such as scope, cost, risk
management
• Product owner – responsible for business aspect of the project – scope
and schedule trade-offs
• Team – Self-organizing – collaboratively divides tasks to decide how to
best achieve the goals defined by the product owner – quality is a shared
responsibility

Terminology
1. Role of project management
2. Agility explanation
3. Waterfall life cycle
4. Agile life cycle

Role of Project Management
Project management is:
• Investment management
• Stewarding change, implementing improvements
• Developing new stuff
An effective PM system is one that helps an organization to choose and then
implement internally-managed investments that represent change.

Agility Explanation
Agility = responsiveness to change.
An organization’s agility is its ability to rapidly revise execution strategies in
response to:
 External forces
 Internal forces
 Revelations
 Preferences
 Discoveries

Classic Waterfall Project Management Life Cycle
• One-way flow.
• Each step occurs once.
Analysis
Design
Implementation
Testing
Deployment
Maintenance

Characteristics of Waterfall Life Cycle
• Heavy upfront planning followed by careful execution of the plan.
Plan the work – work the plan.
• Assumes that project work (scope) can be unambiguously defined prior to
work starting.
• Assumes that planning can and will lead to discovery of everything that
needs to be known in order to forecast future outcomes.
• Requires a stable, predictable environment.

Classical Agile Project Management Life Cycle
• Minimum upfront planning followed by a series of short iterations.
• Between iterations, plans are revised in response to discoveries.

Agility Results From Having Inflection Points
• Revising plans between iterations is what makes the system agile (responsive).
• Documentation and planning systems are designed to support rapid revisions to plans without
losing sight of objectives.

Fundamental Ingredients of Agile Systems
• Ability to react quickly and easily to change, discoveries and lessons learned.
• Agility comes from regularly revising execution plans.
• Agile project management methodologies are designed to support the ability
and willingness to adapt to change between iterations.

Link Between Agile and Waterfall Practices
• Agile projects are actually a series of short waterfall-style projects.
 Each iteration is a separate “project.”
 Each iteration is rigidly planned and executed.
• There are no change controls in a classic agile system.
 Change is managed episodically, not continuously.

Agile PM is the Solution for What Problem?
• The inability to define and lock down the entire scope of work in advance of
starting.
• Waterfall project management requires a stable environment. However, the IT
environment is characterized by rapid change and a large number of unknowns.
• This inability to rigidly define scope in advance of starting work is caused by:
 Urgency/desire to get started quickly
 Lack of experience – lots of unknowns
 Complexity of the problem

Attributes of an Agile PM Environment
1. Minimum, detailed long-term planning
2. Short iterations with rigid plans
3. Documentation system that supports just-in-time planning
4. Documentation system that supports adaptability
5. Control/management systems that support short projects
6. No change controls
7. Motivated teams that understand how they contribute

1. Minimum Long-Term Planning
Starting with clearly defined objectives is not the same as having detailed
plans of how to achieve them.
Clear objectives are great. Rigid predictions of events far in the future are
not.
Tactical (near-term) clarity – Strategic (long-term) realism
Not “no plans,” just not plans that create false expectations of outcomes far
into the future.

2. Short Projects
• Short planning windows
• Realistic expectations about how far into the future you can predict
• Complexity is managed by minimizing the planning horizon

3. Just-in-Time Planning
• Just enough planning to use in the immediate future most wisely
• Fast, flexible and adaptable system of documentation and planning
 Examples: user roles, personas, user stories

• Changing a plan that took months to prepare is difficult for people to accept (and
probably difficult to do).
• Changing a plan that took a day to prepare is easy for people to accept (and
should be easy to do).
4. Planning Systems that Support Adaptation

5. Management Systems that Support Short Projects
• Senior management needs to accept that accurate long-term forecasts
of cost and time are impossible.
Waterfall-style projects create a “fixed
price” relationship with sponsors.
Agile-style projects create a “cost plus”
relationship with sponsors.

6. No Change Controls During Iterations
• Iterations are given inflexible targets (scope, time cost).
• Change is managed between projects, not within them.

7. Motivated Teams
• Motivation comes from understanding how you can contribute.
• Understanding how you can contribute comes from understanding the iteration
plan and your part in it.
• Give the team clearly-explained, achievable, short-term goals and then let them
decide how best to fulfill those goals.

Ad hoc Versus Agile
In an ad hoc project management environment:
• Change is adapted to at any time
• There are no rigid plans of any duration
• There is a lack of centralized coordination
• The overall strategy, and individual contributions, are not
understood by team members
An ad hoc project management environment does not necessarily
deliver greater agility.

Summary
• Attributes of an agile project management environment:
 Progressive planning – not big bang
 Minimum documentation – just enough
 Short, rigidly planned projects (iterations) – 7 to 30 days
 No long-term commitments – requested or given
 No change controls – what gets planned gets built

Courses
2923
Agile Project
Management
2501
Transitioning from
Waterfall to Agile
2506
Introduction to Agile
2401
PMI Agile Certified
Practitioner (PMI-ACP)®
Boot Camp

Learning More
www.globalknowledge.com
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How to Make Agile Project Management Work in Your Organization

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