Analytical-Mind

Eric’s great posts on project management, comparing Scrum and PMI

One of my preferred antagonists was the all mighty monolithic Project Management Institute (PMI) and its PMP disciples. In an attempt to keep my friends close and my PERCEIVED enemies closer, a colleague and I decided to attend the PMI bootcamp – a five day course to prepare for the PMP certification. - An Agile coach’s journey into PMI country – Day 1 – I’m very disappointed! | Pyxis blog.

What we’ve got here is process number 3.4.4 in the PMBoK and this, I believe, is where the PMI got cocky. WBS is so central to the PMI that our trainers would actually say that if you don’t have the answer to a certification question and WBS is one of the options – choose it! - An Agile coach’s journey into PMI country – Where PMI got cocky. | Pyxis blog.

Isaac’s post on why CIO should love Agile Development

In agile, the CIO is getting the following significant advantages: Low up front business investment (…) Frequent delivery leads to better execution (…) Allowing Sponsors to prioritize at the beginning of each iteration leads to better Business / IT alignment (…) . - Social, Agile, and Transformation: Why the CIO Loves Agile Development.

Israel’s post on why the Agile triangle should replace the Balanced Score Card

My recommendation to clients who do Agile as a strategic initiative is to drop the Balanced Scorecard and use the Agile Triangle instead. - Use the Agile Triangle Instead of the Balanced Scorecard « The Agile Executive.

On the value of building trust and respect within teams

This is because people are the engine that drives a high performance project. Without a good team that embodies trust and respect, the best process and tools in the world will not help you. I am as geeky about process as the next agilist, I love experimenting with Kanban and Lean and know that they offer better ways of executing projects. However, bigger improvements can be had from the people side of things. - LeadingAnswers: Leadership and Agile Project Management Blog: Building Trust and Respect.

On Recruiting “Normal” employees

I want/need to hire someone. Not a difficult task, right? I've been doing this for years and it's a simple process. I mean let's be honest – I'm not trying to launch the Space Shuttle into outer space – I just need to hire one “normal” employee. And therein lies my problem: “Normal Employee” wanted. - Fistful of Talent: Wanted: Normal Employee.

On Communication

John Gottman’s pioneering research found that marriages are much more likely to succeed when the couple experiences a 5 to 1 ratio of positive to negative interactions whereas when the ratio approaches 1 to 1, marriages are more likely to end in divorce. Additional research also shows that workgroups with positive to negative interaction ratios greater than 3 to 1 are significantly more productive than teams that do not reach this ratio. - Jon Gordnon’s Blog: The Power of Positive Interactions

Nicholas’ post on Ergonomic design

People will not care how well something is built if it is not appealing to them first and easy to use. Car designers and software designers alike are victim of this reality. - Ergonomy lessons learned : Ergonomy sells. | Pyxis blog.

Jim Highsmith on the book “The Starfish and the Spider“

Is there a person in charge? Completely decentralized organisms have no head, as in there is no “head” of the Internet. They relate a funny story circa 1995, when a CEO looking for startup funding couldn’t convince a room of potential investors that there wasn’t an Internet president — the concept was beyond them. - The Cutter Blog » Blog Archive » Understanding the Nature of Self-Organizing Teams.

In the spirit of sharing, below is an example of  a Project Charter we use to launch a Agile Projects. Do you use a similar document? In which context? Are there sections that are more critical for the success of your projects?

The Electronic Balanced Scorecard (EBS) project for Company Y is designed to develop and implement a simple tool to aid the decision making process of all managers and to help them evaluate the impact of their actions and determine if it is in line with corporate strategy.

Objectives of the EBS Project

• Total transparency of the information for all managers;
• To generate conversations among managers with regards to the performance indicators;
• The tool should be easy to use by everyone;
• To monitor the performance of the organization with respect to the strategic objectives;
• Supporting the decision making process of all managers;
• Guide and adjust the strategic discussions.

Success Conditions

To have implemented all the key performance indicators (highlighted in green in the definition document) in time for the strategic meeting that will take place in November 2009.

• The information must be accessible by everyone;
• The information must be understandable by everyone;
• The information must be updated within a pre-defined timeline;
• The information must be relevant and practical for managers to use;
• The strategic objectives must be defined, communicated, measurable and measured regularly;
• The strategic objectives must be communicated to all managers prior to launching the project;
• The ESC supports the decision making process of the managers on a daily basis.

Priorities and Compromises Matrix

• Scope: Not Negotiable (priority 1)
• Schedule: Negotiable (priority 3)
• Budget: Difficult to Change (priority 2)

Risks

• Adoption of the new decision-making tool by all managers;
• Introduction of several new processes;
• Incomplete and / or erroneous information
• Availability of key managers;
• Implementation of a Human Resource Management System;
• Integration of financial systems from various countries.

Risk Mitigation

Implementation of a change management program.

Role of the various team members

• Product Owner: Paul Bergeron
• Scrum Master: Christine Clark
• Team Members: Patrick Allen, Christopher Green, Anthony Stephanopoulos, Cynthia Martin
• Ergonomics Expert: Francis Albert

Wikipedia defines time box as “In project management, a timebox is a period of time in which to accomplish some task. (…) If the team exceeds the date, the work is considered a failure and is cancelled or rescheduled“.

When using an Agile approach to software development, this is exactly the dynamic we are looking for. We use time boxes to ensure commitment by the project team to meet the defined time lines. As such, the objective of time boxing is to limit the efforts and activities of the project team to fit to an agreed upon time frame. The longer the time box, the least commitment you will get from the team.

In addition to commitment, time boxing has the amazing effect of creating a sense of urgency. We have all seen development projects
scheduled to be completed in 12 or 18 months with a big time box – a milestone – to deliver the complete application.

When this happens, the project team typically has a more relaxed approach during the early stages of the project only to spend nights and
week-end toward the end of the project to complete their tasks.

Implementing shorter time boxes forces a different team dynamic. If a team only has 2 or 3 weeks to complete their iteration, they cannot delay their activities too much and potential delays will more quickly come to the surface. Time boxing has the benefits of increasing the visibility of such situation.

Short time box also can be used as motivational factor allowing the team to frequently see the result of their work instead of waiting until the
end of the project.

In addition when using Scrum, time boxing also forces the team to work backward to accomplish their objective. In order to deliver working software, the team cannot spend superfluous efforts on the analysis and planning phases and need to start on the development tasks early. Since the development approach is iterative, the team doesn’t have to worry about every single details up front but can address them as they move forward.

Of course, there needs to be control mechanisms to ensure the team delivers working software since meeting time lines with incomplete components would defeat the purpose of time boxing.

In combination with other engineering practices, time boxing is a great way to get the entire team focused and motivated and achieve better results with your software development projects.