The Hard-Nosed Project Manager

The Agile Estimating Revolution

I just read “The Agile Estimating Revolution” in PM Network, April 2012.  Let me punch a few holes:

• “a smaller project could get only slightly bigger, while a large project could have more variance”.  So, project with more features can go wrong in more ways than smaller projects?  Who would have thought?
• “A team identifies the smallest user story for the group, called a backlog, and associates a number – 2, for example – with it.  Next they determine other stories similar in size and nature that could be given the 2 estimate”.  That’s Agile?  That’s a revolution?  Estimating by analogy as been around forever.
• “With story point estimates, a 5 is a 5 no matter who is doing the work”.  Total nonsense!  If I have more experience and skills than you and you agree that my 5 is equal to your 5, someone is going to get hurt if you get the job.

Again, pronouncements without numbers to back them up.

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.

Updated: Innovation and New Product Development CoP webinar; 4/17 at 13h00 Eastern - Four Skills You Need to Survive an Agile Project

Just to let all know that this webinar has been pushed again to 4/17.  I will not make an easy joke about agile scheduling...

Innovation and New Product Development CoP webinar; 2/21 at 13h00 Eastern - Four Skills You Need to Survive an Agile Project

There will be an Innovation and New Product Development CoP webinar titled "Four Skills You Need to Survive an Agile Project" on 2/21 at 13h00 Eastern.  I'll try to attend and, if not, listen to the recording.  Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.

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.

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

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.

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

 

Traditional Agile

I’m no fan of religious wars like the one around waterfall and Agile so episode 190 of The Project Management Podcast was refreshing.  Among other things there was this concept that you take what fits you from two or more methodologies.  I can go for that.  No more one size fits all…

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, please mention the blog in your request.

Webinars on 9/14-15 (updated)

There will be a Pharma CoP webinar called “Manage Projects using SharePoint and Microsoft Project” today, 9/14 at 12h00 EDT.  Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinars.

There will also be a PMI Agile CoP webinar called “Fixed Price Agile Products” tomorrow, 8/15 at 12h00 EDT.  I'll watch the recording and issue my comments.

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

 

Introduction to Agile Planning and Project Management webinar

I finally had to listen to the recording instead of the live webinar.  Work sometimes sucks…

One of the assumptions laid out at the beginning of the webinar was that we’d be talking about large project involving single and multiple teams.  This is interesting because most of the Agile case studies I’ve seen are for small projects.

The presentation continued into a review of the Agile manifesto.  I don’t want to be nasty (well maybe I do…) but nothing new here and the manifesto is basically just good common sense applied by most good project managers, Agile or not.

There was some silliness about “reversing” triple constraints.  Again, time boxing is not new and using it in Agile does not make for a new approach.  The presenter then stated that “known” projects are more suited to the predictive (traditional) approach while an empirical (agile) approach works more for discovery type projects.  It flies in the face of the definition of a project doesn’t it?  If you know everything that you are going to face I would contend that you are in an operations setting not a project one.

The presenter went into a couple of notional graphs; one on Emergence or Convergence for which there was a Y axis but no X axis, and one burndown chart.  Both looked good but meant very little; no scales equal no real number hence no metrics.  What is the point?

The presenter then stated the Agile is team based.  Compared to what?  I don’t work in an Agile environment and I sure as hell have teams.  The presenter also contended that in Agile PM brings people together while in traditional projects the PM is a hub through which all must go to communicate to each other.  Really?  Who the hell does that?

A couple of interesting statements

• “You look for the presence of teams…”.  What the hell is that supposed to mean?
• “Linking resources between Agile teams diminishes Agility”.  Doesn’t it invite resource problems regardless of you approach?
• “Agile PMs manage the system not the people”.  Old PMs manage tasks and lead people…

I could go on and on.  Show me how Agile is different from the existing approaches.  Don’t tell me and expect me to drink the Kool-Aid...  All I hear about Agile would be recognized by anyone with some experience as a rehash of existing methods.  I am getting bored about this entire thing, real fast.

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, please mention the blog in your request.

 

Agile webinar on 8/22

There will be a PMI Agile CoP webinar called “Introduction to Agile Planning and Project Management:” tomorrow, 8/22 at 12h00 DST.  Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.

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