The Hard-Nosed Project Manager

Does Risk Management have a place in an Agile Lifecycle webinar

Today I listened to the PMI Agile CoP webinar called Does Risk Management have a place in an Agile Lifecycle.

 They introduced agile risk management as an alternative to "traditional" risk management.  They reviewed the "traditional" approach and then the Agile approach. 

Traditional approach:

• Identify the risks
• Estimate the Impact
• Estimate the likelihood
• Calculate the risk rating = impact * likelihood
• Categorize
• Decide on how to react to the risk
• Done once in a project.  Really?  Look at their slide 17 for more pearls like this one.

The Agile approach:

• Same beginning.
• Do life risk management throughout the project.  Now that is new!
• Be collaborative. Newer!!
• Involve the client.  Newest!!!

The lady presenter backtracked a little when she said that there is bad and good "traditional" but then continued without saying there can be good and bad Agile too.  Is Agile perfect?  There are no crappy Agile risk management.  I say BS.

The guy presenter go to taking about percent complete and risk.  Agile is a binary thing; done or not.  None of that 99% done and the 1% takes forever.  Who works like that in "traditional" project management and gets results?  I do % complete on a macro level; for example, my project is 53% done, at 50% of its budget.  Clients love that while they usually don't care about individual tasks (nor should they).

The guy presenter then goes on to say that you should do "traditional" risk management when there are big upfront risks because the project is very innovative, experimental, or you're out of your comfort zone.  I don't know, but I don't start a project for making chocolate chip cookies.  My clients do not hire me to do what they could do themselves with their eyes closed and their hands tied behind their backs.

I'm an old ape.  When someone states the obvious and what a good project manager would do on projects and tells me its new, I think they think I am a fool.  Maybe I should rename this blog "The Agile Hard-nosed Project Manager".  Same old, same old but it would appear to be new and shiny.  As a plus I'd get to make even more borderline pronouncements...

Good thing that the webinar format used did not allow live interactions.  There would have been a hell of a shouting match I think.  The webinar finished 7 minutes early.  Thank God!

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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A Project Manager’s resolutions

I just decided today that I should have project manager’s resolutions.  Luckily I thought about that today (honest!) and that makes me late, not a procrastinator.

First, I resolve to listen to the following podcasts:

• The Project Management Podcast.  The granddaddy of project management podcasts, hosted by Cornelius Fichtner.  I don’t always agree but it always makes me think.
• The PMO Podcast.  Mark Perry’s thoughtful interviews and viewpoints.
• The Mentisor Soapbox.  I’m biased; I’m in the show pretty much every week.  Quality content provided by others.

Second, I resolve to catch up and read the following blogs:

• Herding Cats .  For Glen Alleman’s encyclopedic knowledge of project management.
• PaperCut Edge.  A different take, through Geoff Crane’s eyes.
• quantmleap.  Project managements and other things.  From down under with Shim Marom.

Third, I resolve to read some business books and find a program management application to their subjects.  Write a book review.

Fourth, I resolve to stop while I’m ahead…

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Agile CoP webinar; 1/27 at 12h00 Eastern - Does Risk Management have a place in an Agile Lifecycle

There will be a Agile CoP webinar titled "Does Risk Management have a place in an Agile Lifecycle" on 1/27 at 12h00 Eastern.  Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.

January 2012 PM Network – Agile special report

The January 2012 issue of PM Network contains a special report on Agile.  I read it to get a different take (hopefully) to an approach I see as a fad.  I’m not saying it doesn’t work; I’m saying prove it works.  Prove it with hard numbers, the scientific way.  If you don’t, you may be seen as a snake oil salesman…  If the benefits of Agile are tangible then they are measurable.  If they are measurable, spill the beans and show your numbers.

The first article on Agile (“The Evolution of Agile”) talks about creating hybrid approaches between hardcore Agile (my expression) and hardcore waterfall (again my expression).  Pepper this with a little bit of Kanban, etc. and voilà!  Maybe this is new, but I’ve heard this before (see my Traditional Agile post).  It also states that a hybrid approach would free you from excessive paperwork and documentation.  Sorry but hybrid approaches did not cause this change, cost pressures did that.  I work in a very regulated industry and cost pressures forced some sense into documentation as well as testing.  Everything is now risk based as a way of mitigating cost.

The second article “Agile to the Rescue” makes Agile a major contributor to the relief effort in Chile in 2010.  I’ll agree that having a platform to recruit people rapidly or to find missing people rapidly sure does help.  We are extremely dependant on our existing infrastructure and when it falls, we need a replacement quickly.  Of course if you throw a website together enough some infrastructure must remain to make it accessible; Katrina proved that I believe.  However a statement like “People were coming and going, and at any given time 100 volunteers working together in an office that typically is occupied by 20” as nothing to do specifically with Agile.  NGOs and armies sent to do relief work are in those types of situations every day and they are not following the Agile manifesto.  They’ve been like this for years.

I’m old enough and I’ve been around the block often enough to think that we are being served the same old, same old renamed and warmed over.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Does Earned Value Work on All Projects?

The joke about project management as well has Earned Value is that we use the same words to describe a mouse as we do a herd of elephants.

- Roger Kent in the January 2012 edition of PM Network, Feedback page

Wow!  That is quite a statement.  I started reading this issue because I wanted to read the articles about Agile (more on that in future posts) but this pearl almost made me choke on my sandwich.

Project management is not a one size fits all activity; actually pretty much nothing is.  Project management is also not about dogma.  If someone needs to comfort themselves in project management fundamentalism I suggest they find something else to do.  You don't want to do EV?  Though, it is not because something is difficult for you to do that you just can forget about it.

As for the military saluting and doing as they’re told (another pearl from the same letter), I’ll take that as a compliment.  Soldiers get the job done.

I’ll go back to doing me EV on my crappy, short term, sub $1M, non-defense and non-aerospace project…

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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PMI IS CoP webinar - Tearing down Project Barriers between the Business and I.T. on 1/18

There will be a PMI Learning IS CoP webinar on Tearing down Project Barriers between the Business and I.T. on 1/18 at 12h00 Eastern. I will not be able to attend live due to a previous engagement but those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar recording becomes available.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

 

Deceivingly not simple

Which project is the most valuable is always clear, isn’t it? What constitutes a successful project is always clear, isn’t it?  Plainly, the answer is resounding MAYBE.

Listen to Mark Perry’s PMO Podcast episodes 218 and 219 and play the game.  I really like these kinds of tales where things are not as clear as they appear to be.  It does take more than technical or program management excellence to find the right answer; it takes a good dose of business acumen.  Business acumen is one area where your business stakeholder can help.  Be sure to ask the right questions to allow yourself to make the right decisions.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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PMI Project Risk Management CoP webinar 12/19 - Integrating Earned Value with Risk Management

There will be a PMI Project Risk Management CoP webinar titled “Integrating Earn Value with Risk Management" on  12/19at 12h00 Eastern.  This subject is very interesting and was the subject of a post by Glen Alleman.

I won’t be able to attend due to other commitments but will review the recording when it becomes available.

Innovation Leadership

Yesterday I listened to Phil McKinney’s Killer Innovations podcast on innovation leadership and if you replaced “innovation” with “project management”, I think it still applies.

I listen to every episode of the podcast.  It looks like Phil will be increasing the frequency of his podcasting as he is moving on from HP.  I’ll say that that is bad for HP but good for his listeners.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Take the Stairs - IS CoP webinar

Today I listened to the PMILearning IS CoP webinar called Take the Stairs.

Basically it was a self help / motivational talk.  Think Tony Robbins and the likes.  Not specific to project management but not bad.  Something to listen to if you have some free time (or need PDUs).

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

Connect with me on LinkedIn.  I am a LinkedIn Open Networker (LION); you can use “Friend” to add me to your network.