Author : Jaiveer Singh
In the last few decades, business has greatly transformed to fulfill customer’s fast changing and increasingly higher expectations in order to to delight them by offering high quality products and services at a price and in a manner that customers sincerely value them.
Information technology (IT) has been a great enabler to make this possible. While the IT journey started by deploying industry-specific standard products, soon it was realized that product customization and bespoke application development are necessary to really connect all the dots in the execution of the new business models. E-commerce, mobile applications (apps), Internet banking, online ticket booking are some examples that have redefined standards for development cycles of business operations and customer facing applications. Nowadays business demands an ability to adopt change at any stage of development, in combination with a much lower cost of execution.
Many organisations innovate themselves by introducing programs and projects to give them the required new capabilities. Unfortunately execution cycles of such programs often run into multiple quarters, if not years, as such delivering business value much later than planned and often with less quality than what was initially expected. Dynamic business changes, including adding or modifying program’ or projects’ initial objectives only add up to further delays and additional cost.
Throughout the years software development departments have applied traditional project management methodologies, which are prescriptive in nature and insist on locking in agreed specifications for entire applications or products to mitigate risks of changes and possible delays. Although the intention was good, traditional project management was unable to deliver business results in cases that business strategies are prone to change, for example every quarter. However, IT solutions are still expected to deliver value to enable the execution of the changing business strategies.
As the saying goes, the only constant in life is change, and it simply can’t be stopped. Instead to needs to be managed effectively. Expecting patience from customers of digital worlds to wait months for your new service, problem resolution, product delivery is nothing else than keeping yourselves blind to changing market dynamics. In our dynamic world, sticking to traditional software development methodologies is highly risky as it will likely fail to meet target user expectations within expected timeframes.
Software products and applications need to be developed in an iterative way while building feature after feature. Edward Deming’s PDCA (plan-do-check-act) is an iterative four-step management method used in business for the control and continuous improvement of processes and products. It is the foundation for lean thinking. This is great if you are in an established market. Colonel John Boyd, a military strategist and fighter pilot, developed a similar concept known as the OODA (observe, orient, decide, and act) loop. This is very good if you are in a highly volatile marketplace. Why? Can you explain more what the difference is?
In the past, organizations used traditional Waterfall SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) methodology in an iterative way to reduce risks and to speed up delivery. Nowadays they are adopting Agile SDLC model to deliver business value to both project sponsor and client.. Agile model is one of the most popular SDLC methods.
in 2010, Gartner’s analysts Thomas Murphy and David Norton predicted that by 2012 “agile development methods will be utilized in 80% of all software development projects”. The authors explained that although Scrum will continue to gain in popularity over the coming years, organizations will not be successful in their transition unless they move towards a team-focused culture. Scrum is one of the most popular Agile methods.
According to the 2011 CHAOS Manifesto from the Standish Group agile projects are three times more successful than non-agile projects..
- The Agile Manifesto emphasizes the following four core values
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
While Agile project management methodologies are set to deliver value, one should perform an organization agile readiness assessment before adopting agile practices to better identify opportunities which can be best served using Agile Practices.
Three main pillars of Agile Assessment are People, Process (incl. organizational structures) and Technology.
– People
Assesses areas like the current people’s capability, the perceived capacity for change, the staff demographics by roles and the organizational recruitment plans. It is important to get an early line of sight in these areas as it is important to develop plans to improve skills and to change the ratio of roles early on.
– Process
Measures the current process capabilities prior to introducing any change. Value Stream Mapping techniques help to get a good understanding of the current process efficiencies and help to identify good places to start improvement activities including portfolio: the blend of projects, size, cost and other related information. It helps the identification of good pilot projects and the identification of challenges that are likely faced with integrating new processes at a portfolio management level.
Agile development is focused on quick responses to change and continuous development. It is based on the adaptive software development methods where as the traditional SDLC models like Waterfall model is based on predictive approach. Agile Methods break the product into small incremental builds.
– Technology
Assessments in this area focus on reviewing the information architecture strategy and standards to identify potential pain points.
Lean management transformed the manufacturing industry. Agile project management offers the same power to transform the software applications development industry.
All organizations in the business of software applications development ought to perform an Agile readiness assessment to find out where they stand and what they need to change to deliver business value to its stakeholders.
About the Author
Mr. Jaiveer holds MBA in International Business, and has completed a Leadership Program from Harvard Business School and Quality Auditing program from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a Certified Project Management Professional and Agile Certified Professional from PMI, USA.
Jaiveer has an enriching experience in Program, Portfolio, Delivery and Practice Management, IT Business Management and Execution Strategies Development. He possesses comprehensive business and technical skill sets in executing large multi-million dollar programs in different technology platforms encompassing development, maintenance and application support for global clients largely for Financial Institutions using onsite, offshore, near shore and Managed IT Services delivery models.
He has almost 2 decades of experience working with diverse clientele in India, UK, USA, Middle East, North Africa, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. He is an expert in conducting trainings for ACP, PMP, SEI-CMMI, Six Sigma, Agile Project Management (SCRUM,XP,KANBAN), PPM & EPM systems etc. He has led PMO, SEI-Metrics Council and PM Forums for multi-nationals corporations.
He has already conducted many Project Management, Project Schedule Development, Risks management, Capacity Planning, Project Budgeting/ Financials Forecasting & Agile Project Management sessions in Singapore, India and as well as globally using Webinar channel.