My presentation at SPICON 2011, SPIN Chennai's annual conference on 29-30 Apr, 2011

1. Innovative IT Project Management Practices
– Faster, Better, Cheaper 2.0
Tathagat Varma, Sr. Director
Corp PMO and Business Ops
30-Apr-2011

2. 2 5/2/11

3. Disclaimer
 These are my personal opinions on the subject, and in no
way represent that of my employer
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4. Work then…
Blue-collar, Manual, Repetitive, Worker exploitation, Long hours,
Unsafe work conditions, Individual productivity driven, Huge capex
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5. …and now!
White-collar, Knowledge-worker, Gender equality, Work-life balance,
Virtual teams, Globalised, Gen Y, Diversity, Multiple careers
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6. Computers then…
Specialized equipment, Voluminous, Very costly, Not user-friendly,
Required experts to operate, Forklift upgrades, Hardware-heavy
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7. …and now!
Multi-device, Kids to Old users, Business to Entertainment to
Lifesaving, Portable, User-friendly, Affordable, Rapid upgrade cycles
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8. Adoption of computers
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9. Cycle time today
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10. Component cost today
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11. Incomes and Consumption today
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12. Nokia Timeline (number of handsets)
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13. 500
400
300
200
100
0
Feb-04
Jul-04
Dec-04
May-05
Oct-05
Mar-06
Aug-06
Jan-07
13
Jun-07
Nov-07
Apr-08
Sep-08
Feb-09
Jul-09
Dec-09
Facebook timeline (users in millions)
May-10
5/2/11

14. iPod, iPhone, iPad – first 3 years sales
40
30 28.0 40.0
14.8
iPod
20
1.4 11.6 20.7 iPhone
10 iPad
iPad
0.4 iPhone
0 0.9
4.4 iPod
Year1
Year2
Year3
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15. Growth in Social Network Patents
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16. Where are we headed with all this?
 The world is your consumer –
› rare use-cases to be the norm
 Innovate at light-speed or die –
› obsolescence at unprecedented rate
 Faster, Better, Cheaper –
› this is serious this time!
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17. Faster, Better, Cheaper (FBC) 1.0
 The real Holy Grail
of Software
Development
 Pick any two!
 Pick any one!!
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18. How do we deliver software Faster?
 By cutting quality?
 By cutting features?
 By cutting process?
 By latest technology and tools?
 By shortchanging user
experience?
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19. How do we deliver software Better?
 Formal methods?
 ISO / CMM / CMMi?
 PMP / PRINCE2?
 Open Source?
 Agile / Scrum?
 Hire smart engineers, build smart
teams?
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20. How do we deliver software Cheaper?
 Outsourcing?
 Quick and dirty methods?
 Reuse?
 Cloud?
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21. Cost Overrun over the Years
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22. Schedule Overrun over the Years
How does a
project get
late by a
month ???
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23. Chaos Report 2009
 The most authoritative and comprehensive survey on IT project
performance since last 15+ years
 "This year's results show a marked decrease in project success
rates, with 32% of all projects succeeding which are delivered on
time, on budget, with required features and functions" says Jim
Johnson, chairman of The Standish Group, "44% were challenged
which are late, over budget, and/or with less than the required
features and functions and 24% failed which are cancelled prior to
completion or delivered and never used."
"These numbers represent a downtick in the success rates from the
previous study, as well as a significant increase in the number of
failures", says Jim Crear, Standish Group CIO, "They are low point
in the last five study periods. This year's results represent the
highest failure rate in over a decade"
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24. Chaos Report over the years
 Successful: deliver on-time, on-budget, with required
features and functions
 Challenged: late, overbudget, and/or with less then the
required features and functions
 Failed: cancelled prior to completion or delivered and
never used
2009 2006 2004 2002 2000 1998 1996 1994
Successful 32% 35% 29% 34% 28% 26% 27% 16%
Challenged 44% 19% 53% 15% 23% 28% 40% 31%
Failed 24% 46% 18% 51% 49% 46% 33% 53%
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25. Is there a ‘Silver Bullet’?
 No Silver Bullet (NSB): there is no single development,
in either technology or management technique, which by
itself promises even one order-of-magnitude
improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability,
in simplicity – Fred Brookes, 1986
 High-level languages ?
 4GL?
 OOP?
 Reuse?
 Offshoring?
 Rapid Prototyping?
 What next ?
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26. Why is it, considering that…
 We improved the process from waterfall days
 Individuals are smarter than ever before
 Teams are highly empowered
 Tools have never been better
 Languages support faster development
 QA automation levels are all-time high
 Customers are highly ‘educated’
 Why…why…why…???
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27. Where is the missing piece?
People Process Tech ???
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28. The missing piece is...the Interlock
SUCCESS
People Process Tech ???
!!!
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29. Faster, Better, Cheaper 2.0
 Tighter alignment of People, Process
and Technology
› Program management vs. Delivery Management
› Empowered teams vs. guided teams
› Situational Leadership vs. Command and Control
 Optimize Whole, not just the Parts alone
› Lean vs. Agile
 Fail fast to succeed faster
› Innovate, Iterate, Improve
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30. Process Ideas to achieve BFC 2.0
 Agile
 Scrum
 Lean
 TOC
 Kanban
 Scrum-ban
 Program Management
 …let’s discuss them…
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31. 31 5/2/11

32. Scrum
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33. Lean Principles
 Identify customers and specify value
 Identify and map the value stream
 Create flow by eliminating waste
 Respond to customer pull
 Pursue perfection
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34. Wastes (“muda”) in Lean
 Identified by Taiichi Ohno, these are:
› Overproduction
› Delay
› Transporting
› Over-processing
› Inventory
› Motion
› Making Defective Parts
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35. Kanban-based production
 Limit WIP (Work in Progress, aka “Inventory”)
 Move from ‘monolithic releases’ to ‘phased releases’
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36. Kanban-based software engineering
 Identify product’s MMF (Minimum Marketable
Features)
 Prioritize their value
 Plan your releases around them
 Release highest-value features first to maximize
ROI
 To accelerate delivery, have the entire team
collaborate on one feature at a time and perform
releases as often as possible
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37. Kanban Board
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38. Scrum-ban
 Software production model based on
Scrum and Kanban
› Scrum practices + Kanban workflow
 Especially suited for maintenance
projects with frequent and
unexpected user stories or
programming errors
 Major difference between Scrum
and Kanban are derived from the
fact that in Scrum work is divided
into timeboxed sprints whereas in
Kanban, the workflow is continuous
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39. Theory of Constraints (TOC) in PM
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40. Program Management
 Centralized coordinated management of a program to
achieve program’s strategic objectives and benefits that
are not available from managing the sub-projects
individually
 Focuses on the project interdependencies and helps to
determine the optimal approach for managing them.
Action related to these interdependencies may include:
› Resolve resource constraints and/or conflicts that affect multiple
projects within the system
› Align organizational/strategic direction that affects project and
program goals and objectives
› Resolve issues and change management within a shared
governance structure

41. Project Management Office (PMO)
 A PMO is an organizational body assigned various
responsibilities related to the centralized and
coordinated management of those projects under its
domain
 Responsibilities can range from providing project
management support to actually being responsible for
the direct management of project
 Project supported or administered by PMO may not be
related, other than being managed together
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42. Primary Functions of PMO
 Managing shared resources across all projects
administered by PMO
 Identify and develop PM methodology, best
practices and standards
 Coaching, mentoring, training and oversight
 Monitor compliance with PM standard policies,
etc.
 Develop and manage project policies, etc.
 Coordinate communication across projects

43. Project Manager vs. PMO
 PMs and PMOs pursue different objectives and, as such,
are driven by different requirements. All of these efforts,
however, are aligned with the strategic needs of the
organization. Differences:
› PM focuses on the specified project objectives, while the PMO
manages major program scope changes which may be seen as
potential opportunities to better achieve business objectives
› PM controls the assigned project resources to best meet project
objectives while the PMO optimizes the use of shared
organizational resources across all projects
› PM manages the constraints (scope, schedule, cost, and quality,
etc.) of the individual projects while the PMO manages the
methodologies, standards, overall risk/productivity, and
independencies among projects at the enterprise level
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44. Right-size the process for innovation?
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45. Conclusions
 Your Customers expect top-quality
innovative solutions in less time and
lesser dollars than ever before!
 Competing on ‘cost arbitrage’ or ‘part
quality’ is necessary but not enough!
 Your project management processes must
mirror the real world
 Process improvement is a journey, not a
destination
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46. References
 http://www.poppendieck.com/
 www.lean.org
 https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/7807/2005-
tatum.pdf?sequence=1
 http://www.lean.org/common/display/?JimsEmailId=63
 http://ectd.du.edu/source/uploads/12702675.pdf
 http://leansoftwarepractices.com/
 http://scalingsoftwareagility.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/enterprise-agility-the-big-
picture-9-the-agile-product-manager/
 http://leansoftwareengineering.com/2007/10/27/kanban-bootstrap/
 http://www.slideshare.net/RossC0/kanban-for-software-engineering-apr-242
 http://jamesshore.com/Articles/Business/Software%20Profitability%20Newsletter/
Phased%20Releases.html
 http://softwarebynumbers.org/
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47. References
 http://www.infoq.com/articles/hiranabe-lean-agile-kanban
 http://blogs.imeta.co.uk/tquinn/archive/2009/08/19/kanban-board.aspx
 http://leansoftwareengineering.com/ksse/scrum-ban/
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(development)
 http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/web/
product_detail.seam;jsessionid=8D8BACDD4CC4F2F87B3CD58D2ED10332?
R=86116-PDF-ENG&conversationId=22181&E=48834
 http://javamaster.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/scrum-based-task-management/
 http://aaron.sanders.name/agile/naked-planning-explained-kanban-in-the-small
 http://www.dennisstevens.com/2010/06/07/kanban-and-when-will-this-be-done/
 http://availagility.co.uk/tag/kanban/
 http://managewell.net
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48. Questions
 Mail: tathagatvarma@yahoo.co.in
 Blog: http://managewell.net
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