Project Management

Transformational Roadmap in Adopting and Embedding Agile Project Management, what are the challenges?

CURRENTLY, there is a tremendous appetite from industry to adopt and embed agile way of delivery of products and services. Agile has a very strong focus on product delivery. Agile also works well in both project environment as well as business as usual (BAU). When chosen project methodology and agile are combined, project direction, project management and project delivery are optimized to create a complete project management solution.

Organizations thinking of adopting and embedding agile in their business units as a way of delivery of product and services, need to carefully understand that embedding of agile is the ‘adoption’ of agile across an organization whereas the adoption may require the necessary buy-in from senior executives to support and agree the agile way of working and delivery of products and services.

It is therefore important that organizations and particularly project managers become more and more aware of the side effects likely to be encountered when adopting the agile frameworks. Common agile frameworks available are SAFe, SCRUM are KANBAN and a combination of the last two known as SCRUMBAN. They are also other existing agile frameworks used commonly in software development.

Most agile flavours are having some common behaviours, techniques, concepts and frameworks and the question is how much of each can be used or how little of each can be used in projects. It is therefore important to have some mechanism to determine some level of agile maturity or optimum usage with associated risk areas. It will also be helpful for project managers to know when and how to measure how much of agile is being used or to be used. This measurement can form part of the risk assessment of organizations of teams using agile.

The best time to assess or measure the suitability of agile in the team or organization is when you are determining the project approach. Project approach is part of the section of the project charter or project brief. Under project approach section, project manager determines or makes a decision in consultation with the team and key stakeholders whether work will be sub-contracted or built by the project team (Make or Buy analysis and decision). Project manager also develops project strategy or methodology to be used in order to deliver the project’s objectives and meet customer expectations.

Agile has risk areas of its own which needs to be addressed and assessed during project chartering and at subsequent milestones or end stage or phase. Generally, there is relatively less prominence given to the area of risk in agile however agile concepts mitigate many risks associated with other approaches (e.g. waterfall). The level of formality should be appropriate and risks should be addressed during stand-up meetings.

In this discussion we will focus on risks associated with the adoption and embedding of agile way of working for the delivery teams. The areas of risks may be scaled e.g., from 1 to 5 where 5 is the optimum ideal situation. The exercise of assessing risks may be done collectively as a team facilitated by the project manager. Here are some of the risk areas which can be considered for measurement:

1.

2. 3. 4.

5. 6.

Flexibility on what is delivered

Level of collaboration Ease of Communication Ability to work iteratively and deliver incrementally Advantageous environmental conditions Acceptance of agile

This approach is known as Agilometer and pronounced as Agile-O-meter used as a risk assessment tool specifically to address the risks as a result of using agile. It is not advisable to average the scales across the risk areas but rather consider them in isolation. The risk areas can be increased or decreased depending on the situation.

The agile risk areas can be managed or mitigated by the agile team by practicing or using the following 5 five behavioural areas: 1. Transparency; 2. Collaboration; 3. Rich communication; 4. Self-organization and 5. Exploration.

Projects are difficult and in order to create the right thing you need to work out what the right thing is first. Frequent iteration and rapid feedback provide an opportunity for the team to learn.

It is also important for the agile team as well as the project manager to monitor that these behaviours are happening in the team and update respective risk dashboard for enhanced visual reporting. The format of the reporting dashboard can take the traffic lights format to highlight any behavioural area which needs attention.

Final thoughts: Analogously, just like when we embark on a long journey by car, we normally check and assess the car and road detours, terrain, weather and mitigate by having for example misty lights, spare wheels or winter tyres. We also need to take the same pre-caution with projects as the project is considered a journey from start to finish, especially when determining the project approach during project chartering or assembling the project brief. Project approach on methodology could be waterfall, agile or hybrid depending on whether the project is simple where outputs are fairly simple to predict and document. Complicated project is where there is enormous amount of sub-contracted work or inter-connected components. Complex project is where project outputs are evolving and difficult to predict with certainty. Agile would be recommended in both complicated and complex project environments. Nevertheless, it is also a good idea to assess the use of agile itself at critical points during the life of the project in order to provide assurance that the project is on course to deliver the right product rightly.

This article was written by Dr Laban Mwansa, MSP®, PMP®, PRINCE2® Practitioner, P2Agile®, COBIT®, ITIL®. Laban is a consultant and trainer in project management and specifically trainer/coach in Agile, PMP®, PRINCE2® Practitioner, PRINCE2 Agile® in Zambia, South Africa and Europe for many years. He is also the managing partner of Betaways Innovation Systems and can be reached at: Laban.Mwansa@ betaways-innovations.com or WhatsApp +27817029669.