Why projects are the wrong model for software development and what to do instead

1. Beyond Projects
Or The End of Projects
and what happens next
Allan Kelly
allan@softwarestrategy.co.uk
http://www.softwarestrategy.co.uk
Twitter: @allankelly.net
Skills Matter, London, March 2014

2. Allan Kelly…
Chapters in…
• Business Analysis and Leadership, Pullan & Archer
2013
• 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know, Henney,
2010
• Context Encapsulation in Pattern Languages of
Program Design, vol#5, 2006
 Consulting on software
development & strategy
 Training for Agile
Author
– Changing Software Development: Learning to be
Agile (2008, Wiley)
– Business Patterns for Software Developers (2012,
Wiley - ISBN: 978-1119999249)
– Xanpan: Reflections on agile (work in progress)
https://leanpub.com/xanpan

3. Audience participation
How many of you …
• Adequately identify & quantify project
benefits?
• Know someone who overstates the
benefits of a project to obtain
funding?
• Think project review & evaluation is
adequate?

4. • 70% believe they are failing to identify and
quantify the benefits adequately
• 38% openly admit they overstate the benefits in
order to obtain funding
• 80% report that the review and evaluation of
completed projects is also inadequate
• due to the focus on whether the project achieved cost,
time and quality objectives and not on whether the
intended benefits were realized.
Delivering value from IS and IT investments, John Ward,
Cranfield School of Management, 2006
http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/dinamic-
content/research/documents/deliveringvaluereport.pdf
Survey of 100 IT/IS &
Business managers in UK
and Benelux, 2006

5. Successful software doesn’t stop
• Successful software continues to change
• Only dead software has an end-date

6. Successful
software?
Moodle
Weekly downloads: 23,239
Last update: 3 days (16 Jan)
Web Torrent
Weekly downloads: 0
Last update: 17 April 2013
PerlLORD
Weekly downloads: 0
Last update: 25 May 2013
1) If they use it,
it will change
2) Only Dead
Software Stops
changing
Data from SourceForge search
for “WebBrowser” 19 Jan 2014

7. A Project is…
“A temporary organization that is needed to
produce a unique and predefined outcome
or result at a pre-specified time using
predetermined resources.”
PRINCE2 definition
of project

8. Temporary Organization?
• Storming
• Norming
• Forming
• Performing
• Destroying
}Takes time &
money!
Yes!
Why destroy performing teams?
Why spend that money?
Why loose knowledge?

9. • Stop killing performing teams
• Keep the team together
• Flow the work to the team
• The Team is the Capability
Corporate Psychopathy
Process by which corporations
disband performing teams and
release staff

10. Pre-determined resources?
• In the ideal world…
– You get the resources you ask for?
– They are dedicated to your project? And stay?
• Back in the real world…
– Resourcing allocation is politics
‘Nuff said

11. Pre-defined outcome?
• Requirements change
• The world changes
Compound to
~27% per annum
The observed rate of change
in the US is about 2% per
calendar month
Capers Jones, 2008

12. Pre-specified time?
• Pre-specified time is
not chosen rationally
• When does it start?
• When does it end?
– Last bug fixed?
– Last CR done?
– Thrown over last wall?
In the US more than half of
the large projects …
predetermined end date is
selected, and it is forced on
the project by arbitrary
decree.
Among the most difficult
… measurement of
project & task schedules.
The initial difficulty… is…
identifying the start point
of any given project!
Capers Jones, 2008

13. End Date considered harmful
• Late requirements considered inferior
• Quality cut to meet date
– Harder to maintain
– Harder to fix bugs
– Harder to enhance
– Harder to live
• Goal deferment
– The End
When will it be
done?

14. The End of Projects
• Projects are accounting codes
• Finished Software is Dead Software
– Living software changes
– Dead software doesn’t
– Living software doesn’t end
• Project thinking kills software

15. Wait a minute….
Project
Manager
Not fair!
You misrepresent us!
We don’t
- Break up teams
- Stick doggedly to
requirements
We do
- Allow change
- We do work
continually
So what is “A project”?
Why does P2 contain
this definition?
And what does a “Project
Manager” actually Manage?
This is confusing!
Confusion causes
problems
People have different
expectations

16. What next?
• Putting the jigsaw together

17. Work with no end
• Work to short term goal & deadline
– Human’s are good with deadlines
– (Very bad with estimation)
• Work to deliver value
• Work as if this is your last goal
– But: Work be ready for another round
• Do work you will be proud of

18. What to do about it…
• Keep teams together
• Flow work to the teams
• Work in the small
• Work continually
• Demonstrate value

19. Focus on Value not The End
Ask not, “When will the
software be done?”
But ask: “When will the
software deliver value next?”
Think: Stream of Value
(which might stop one day)
Not: An end date

20. Software development…
• Does NOT have economies of Scale
• Development has DISECONOMIES of scale
Therefore
• Stop thinking BIG
• Start thinking SMALL

21. Batch Size
Build this! Make lots of this!Deliver this!
Wait Wait

22. Feature Yes, Projects No
• Project = Set of Features
– Some features are very
valuable, some less so
– Some risky, some not
• Project -> All of this
– Or nothing
• Organize yourselves to do lots
of small features

24. Consider a large project
Against several small
projects
Project A: Risk = 30% Value at risk = £1m
Therefore risk weighted value = £300,000
Prj B: Risk = 15%
Value @ risk = £½m
Therefore … = £75,000
Prj C: Risk = 15%
Value @risk = £½m
Therefore … = £75,000
E: Risk = 6%
@risk = £200k
Therefore = £12k
F: Risk = 6%
@risk = £200k
Therefore = £12k
G: Risk = 6%
@risk = £200k
Therefore = £12k
H: Risk = 6%
@risk = £200k
Therefore = £12k
I: Risk = 6%
@risk = £200k
Therefore = £12k
J: Risk = 6%
@risk = £200k
Therefore = £12k

25. Ask not, “What is the end date?”
But ask: “When is the next
delivery?”

26. We have the Technology

27. Waterfall 2.0
Jonathon’s Run Fall, Pennsylvania by Hubert Stoffels (http://flickr.com/photos/22195940@N00)
Creative Commons License
Continuous Flow

28. Continuous flow
• Work in the small
• Get good at doing small things
– Deliver small increments of value
– And evaluate results
• Go fast
• Don’t stop
• Value seeking

29. Think Product
• Products go on
– and on
– and on….
• Think multiple releases
• Think continuity

30. Constraints
31
Features
Resources
(People)
Time
Cost =
Resources x Time
Quality = free
Time boxedAll the action
Fixed over
short run
(Brooks Law)

31. Functionality, the only flex
• Negotiate features
– Deliver, Evaluate
– Repeat (every 2 weeks or less)
• Keep quality high
– Cutting quality slows work
– Cutting quality increase cost
– Cutting quality upsets
customers
Time fixed

32. Change Governance
• Base Governance on actual
delivered benefits
– Not milestones completed
– Not documents
– Not budgets
• Align work with strategy
Picture from Picasa - Creative Commons License
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:House_of_Parliment_6_201
2-07-08.jpg
What have
you delivered
for me lately?

33. Change the Start
• Start small
• Overlap discovery & development
– From Day-1
• Fail fast, Fail cheap
• Grow the successful

34. Active Portfolio Management
• Start, Stop, Shrink, Grow work teams/streams
• Balance risk/reward
• Sustaining/Innovative
• CLOSE UNDER PERFORMING WORK

35. Could this ever work?
• Governance by results?
• Fail fast, fail cheap
Seems to work
well for Sand
Hill Road
Venture
Capitalists….

36. The End of Project Management?
• Projects are for accountants
• Organize work by
– Work streams and/or
– Products
– Manage queues
• Aim for stable teams, continuity
– Occasional personnel changes
– Living, changing code bases

37. Management work to do
• “Manager” -> More authority to fix
• Dealing with fuzzy world
• Keep team running effectively
• Supplier / Client relationships
– Contracts to discuss & police
– Role shoot out
• Stuff
– Admin, reporting, Line Management
“they have an B
manager so we need
an B manager”

38. John Smith
Project Manager (Aries Project)
Big Corporation
John.smith@bigcorp.com
Tel: +123 456 7890
Payments Manager
• “Project Manager” becomes:
– First Line Manager, Junior Manager, Development
Manager, Team Manager, Team Leader, or or or
• You have continuity
– Projects end; Products don’t

39. http://leanpub.com/xanpan
Or half price till end of March@
http://leanpub.com/xanpan/c/SkillsMar2014
Remember
• It ain’t ever over
• BAU is not a dirty work
allan kelly
www.softwarestrategy.co.uk
www.allankelly.net
allan@allankelly.net
Twitter: @allankellynet