Why Agile Project Management?

Daniel R. Jenie
History of Project Management

 Project management, in its modern form, began to take root

only a few decades ago
 Snyder and Kline (1987) noted that the modern project
management era started in 1958 with the development of
CPM/PERT
 Early development of project management practices,
processes and tools focused more on management of
physical/tangible projects, such as infrastructure projects
(buildings, bridges, etc.)
Physical Work/Projects

 Tangible nature of the work/project

 Scope must be clearly defined up front, since time and cost
will be significantly impacted if there are scope changes
 Easier to estimate volume of work, and monitor/measure
project progress (visual checking, measuring volume of work,
etc.)
Complexity in Managing Stakeholder
Knowledge Based Economy
The Rise of Knowledge Workers

 A knowledge worker is one who uses knowledge as the

capital for work and who uses brain power rather than brawn
power to get the job done
 The rise of the knowledge worker has been helped by the
rise of the knowledge economy or the sector that comprises
of Information Technology, Business Process Outsourcing,
Financial Services, and other forms of work that deal with
knowledge as the basis of work
 Knowledge workers think for a living and able to work from
anywhere
 Knowledge Work/Project

Knowledge

Work/Project stored in harddisk

Difficult for managers to know what he/she is doing and what is the team’s progress on the project
(due to intangible nature of the work/project)
Defining the Scope of “Intangible” Work

 In most cases, it is difficult to define the scope of work up

front since the customer himself/herself does not have a
vision/clear picture about the output/deliverables/end
products or services
Manage the “Invisible” Project Team – Work
From Anywhere (WFA)
Summary #1

 Predictive Project Management approach started as a tools

to manage physical work/projects such as infrastructure
work/project
 The rise of knowledge economy and workers requires a
different approach, due to the difficulties in defining the
project scope up front and managing remote project team
Summary #1

 Therefore, there is a need for a new project management

approach to manage knowledge work/projects with the
following characteristics :
 Modularity – project can be started immediately and does not
have to wait until we have complete information to define
scope (start with what you have/partial information)
 Flexibility – welcoming changes/dealing with scope changes
 Visibility – visualization of workflow and progress
 Simplicity – does not require “sophisticated” tools such as
Microsoft Project (CPM-based Project Management Software)
The Birth of Agile Project Management

 In 2001, 17 rebellious software developers met in Snowbird,

Utah, to share ideas for improving traditional “waterfall”
development
 The traditional “waterfall” development focus more on the
documentation
 This approach worked fine in stable environments, but not
when software markets began to change rapidly and
unpredictably
 The meeting result was the Agile “Software Development”
Manifesto. The group called themselves “Agile Alliance”
 Agile Values

Agile Waterfall

Individuals and interactions Processes and tools

Working software Comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration Contract negotiation

Responding to change Following a plan

Source : https://agilemanifesto.org/
Waterfall/Predictive and Agile PM Approaches
Iron Triangle Paradigm Shift
Summary #2

Agile Project Management approaches, offer the following

characteristics :
 Modularity – project can be started immediately and does not
have to wait until we have complete information to define scope
(start with what you have/partial information)
 Flexibility – welcoming changes
 Visibility – visualization of workflow and progress through the use
of Scrum/Kanban Boards, Columns, and Cards
 Simplicity – does not require “sophisticated” tools
Summary #2

…but requires :
 Commitment – daily standup meeting, etc.
 Interaction and Collaboration
 Continuous Improvement
The Right Conditions for Agile

Conditions Favorable Unfavorable

Market  Customer preferences and solution  Market conditions are stable and
Environment options change frequently predictable

Customer  Close collaboration and rapid  Requirements are clear at the

Involvement feedback are feasible. outset and will remain stable.
 Customers know better what they  Customers are unavailable for
want as the process progresses constant collaboration

Innovation Type  Problems are complex, solutions  Similar work has been done before,
are unknown, and the scope isn’t and innovators believe the
clearly defined solutions are clear
 Product specifications may change  Detailed specifications and work
 Creative breakthroughs and time to plans can be forecast with
market are important. confidence and should be adhered
 Cross-functional collaboration is to
vital  Problems can be solved
sequentially in functional silos
 The Right Conditions for Agile

Conditions Favorable Unfavorable

Modularity of  Incremental developments have
Work value, and customers can use them
 Work can be broken into parts and
conducted in rapid, iterative cycles
 Late changes are manageable
 Customers cannot start testing
parts of the product until
everything is complete
 Late changes are expensive or
impossible

Impact of Interim  They provide valuable learning  They may be catastrophic

Mistakes

Source : Harvard Business Review, May 2016 – Embracing Agile

THANK YOU
Agile Project Management Frameworks/
Methodologies
Scrum vs Kanban

 Scrum :
The goal of Scrum is to move all tasks from the “To Do”
column to “Done” column in a fixed amount of time or
“Sprint”
 Kanban :
The goal of Kanban is to move all tasks from the “To Do”
column to “Done” column continuously and (flowing)
smoothly by limiting the number of Work In Progress (WIP)
Scrum Framework
Scrum Board
Daily Scrum (Standup) Meeting
Kanban Principles & Practices
Continuous Flow & Class of Service

Standard – Public, Commercial Vehicles

Expedite – Fire Trucks, Ambulance, etc.

Daily Standup Meeting