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Random acts of Project management

Wednesday, 31 March 2010 21:16 Stuart Chick

IT Project management, especially in a waterfall world, is a very predictive discipline. Starting with a set of assumptions about the project, people and the environment, the project manager builds a plan that looks far into the future to predict how the world will at the end of the project and then sets this plan out in a Gantt chart. Dates are defined and published based on the implicit assumptions that are never fully explained, documented or understood by the project team. Time is treated as a linear variable with tasks stacked up end to end and although a number of tasks can be scheduled in parallel the project is a linear progression from start to projected end.

As the project starts and time progresses the predefined assumptions begin to fail, the immediate reaction is for the project manager to build out a number of change requests to the project to be approved by the project sponsors. Each of those change requests is based on a new set of assumptions and very soon the predictive model that started the project has been destroyed but very rarely will the project model be rebuilt and re-approved. This is one of the prime reasons why so many projects fail even though all the change requests have been documented and approved, risks defined with mitigation plans, and issues logged and agreed.The project manager continues to act as a predictive agent working off the assumptions that are no longer valid but trying to make the new world fit the old model. The project manager will make decisions based on these changes that could move the project back on track but the chances of this are much less than taking the project further off target and so each decisions has a random impact on the project.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 12 May 2010 21:43 Read more...

Waterfall transition continues part 2

Friday, 16 October 2009 00:00 Stuart Chick

Training was the next step. The leadership team was at very different levels of understanding of this new agile methodology - even though a lot of the lower level changes were already beginning to take root. Buzz words and phrases were used imprecisely and with mixed understanding. Basic definitions of iterations, user stories, releases were not yet fully understood and the ultimate goal was very grey. We spent many sessions discussing how the methodology could break down under specific instances and rehashing the problems we might encounter.

It was time to make the jump. Clearly. if we are going to move forward we must implement an Agile methodology. The first step was to train the team by bringing in an agile coach / scrum master to help us gain a basic consistent understanding of the methodology. The second step was to get the IT management and PMO on board. The Third step, ensure that this is rolled out at the grass root level and not top down, I have seen enough initiatives stall because it was solely a management push.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 31 March 2010 21:16 Read more...

Project Planning

Thursday, 27 August 2009 20:34 Stuart Chick

The famous Gantt chart, probably the biggest, silent enemy of any software project manager. So many times you see a project manager taking valuable resource time to plan, replan and replan again just to get a project plan (aka Gantt chart) that is 100's of tasks in depth all nicely linked with dates out over 12 months and a finish date that everyone in the room agrees to. After spending all that time the plan is published and it is already out of date as assumptions made days ago are no longer valid. The project manager scrambles daily to find out status of the tasks and religiously updates the plan with % complete and then spends more hours moving the tasks around and trying to level the plan, all for?

Last Updated on Monday, 19 October 2009 20:41 Read more...

The Waterfall transition journey Part 1

Wednesday, 30 September 2009 00:00 Stuart Chick

Traditional Project Management and SDLC methodology is hitting a wall. Working for a mid-size company that is reactive to very fluid business conditions means that all departments and especially IT need to work better, smarter and be more productive with less people. The traditional project management watrerfall and gated SDLC methodologies lose favor very fast when we are telling internal customers that they cannot change the 100 page requirement document without first updating a project charter, documenting a change request and then getting that change approved by a change control board. The customer throws up their hands and says this is crazy or worse silently goes through the motion to get the change in but then complains to everyone how unresponsive IT is to the business.

We have been in that boat for some time and that boat has been sinking. Even applying band aids as fast as possible by calling the Methodology "Lite", taking out steps, and reducing the pages in the documents by 25% has not kept the boat from swaying dangerously between customer demands and the PMO rocks.We need to change the boat!

Last Updated on Saturday, 30 January 2010 16:45 Read more...

The law of unintended consequences

Sunday, 19 July 2009 20:02 Stuart Chick

One of the more interesting extensions of Chaos theory is that it is impossible to plot all the possible outcomes of an action or a series of actions. The "law of unintended consequences" is a statement that should be taken to heart by all project managers. While the act of planning allows a time line to be drawn up along with risks and issues to be identified it should always be remembered that the plan in itself is nothing more than a set of assumptions that reality will blow away.

The use of Agile tools can reduce the impact of this law by building teams and processes that can react to new information and changes in assumptions a lot quicker than more traditional processes.By building teams that can act on information as it arises rather than needing to assimilate that data back into a central plan allows the project to morph and grow and as long as the key principles are maintained then the project will be successful.

Last Updated on Sunday, 19 July 2009 21:00

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