Hi, I'm Ray Sheen.
There's been a recent shift in project management thinking, and
it's based upon Adaptive and Agile project management approaches.
Let's look at these.
Let me first describe Adaptive and Agile.
I will start with adaptive, which is the broader and more inclusive term.
The adaptive lifecycle is incremental or iterative.
That means that it occurs in waves or phases.
That also means it can easily accommodate changes,
because it stops at the end of each wave or phase, so
an update can be incorporated at that time with minimal impact.
Another way of putting this is that the adaptive lifecycle
relies on progressive elaboration.
That means details for
a phase are not planned until the previous phase completes.
So insights and changes from the previous phase can be incorporated
incrementally at the start of the next phase, when the details are developed.
While this provides great flexibility and opportunity for
continuous improvement, it also means that there's a need for
a lot of project management integration activity.
Essentially, each phase of the project is its own mini project.
Agile is a special case of adaptive projects,
particularly the variety Agile known as Agile Scrum, which is the most popular.
Since it is adaptive, it is iterative and incremental.
But Agile will create a release at the end of one or more phases or sprints, and
that capability and features of that release are expanded with each new sprint.
The deliverable is not a one and
done, instead it continually grows in features in performance.
This is becoming the most common method for implementing the adaptive approach,
with standard methodology and tools becoming commercially available.
A critical success factor for Agile that is different from traditional project
management and other adaptive approaches is that the Agile team is 100% dedicated
to the project for the short duration of the sprint, usually only several weeks.
At that time the sprint ends the deliverables are evaluated and
the remaining work required to fully complete the deliverable is identified.
This becomes the outline of the scope for the next sprint.
In case you are still a little confused about what adaptive is and
why it's different, let's look at this chart from the PMBOK,
which compares predictive and adaptive.
The left side is the predictive or traditional project management,
the right side is the Agile or Adaptive project management.
Iterative, which is mid left, implies phases, and incremental, which is mid
right on the continuum, implies the progressive elaboration of those phases.
On the predictive side,
the requirements are fully specified before the project starts.
On the Agile side the requirements are frequently elaborated or
changed after each sprint.
And that change is not a change order type of change, it's just the elaboration or
clarification of the requirements.
In the middle the requirements are elaborated at major change points,
such as the end of a phase.
Next, a predictive approach creates plans for
deliverables to be completed by the end of the project.
On the Agile side, the deliverables are delivered
incrementally throughout the lifecycle of the project.
First in a preliminary or minimal form,
and then with more features and attributes, and improved performance.
In the middle, the deliverable is broken up into major subsets
that are completed at different times in the project.
In a predictive project, changes in the project plan is bad,
and is avoided if possible.
In an Agile project, change is being implemented daily at scrum meetings and
is part of the sprint planning process.
In the middle, changes are expected but
are normally only occurring at major gates or phases.
In predictive projects key stakeholders are engaged for
a prescribed task or a defined point in the project.
An Agile project, key stakeholders are also engaged, but
they're conducting regular reviews and their input is sought after.
In the middle, the stakeholders are involved periodically,
usually at the end of each phase.
Finally, in predictive projects risk and cost are controlled by detailed plans and
estimates for known or expected problems and issues.
In Agile projects risk and cost are established upfront as requirements and
the project is changed to stay within the constraints.
In the middle, it's a bit of a hybrid, risk and
cost are controlled by the way the tasks are progressively elaborated, and
that occurs when new information is available.
Let's look at how an Agile Scrum project works.
We start by setting a time box schedule for the sprints and the scrums.
Now, time boxes represent the total time for the project or
a piece of the work to be done.
We set the time box and we let the work expand or
contract to fit within that time box.
Let me illustrate by setting a total project time box duration
that is equal to the length of this bar.
Since this is an Agile project,
we'll divide it into several releases, which will have a project deliverable that
we will expose to a select group of customers in order to get their feedback.
The contents of that first deliverable is known as the minimally viable product,
and may only be a mock up, but it can be used to get feedback from customers.
Each release is divided into one or
more sprints, that usually are several weeks in duration.
I prefer two weeks, but I've seen them as long as four weeks.
A sprint will organize the work from a list of tasks or
deliverables known as the sprint backlog.
The sprint is comprised of a number of scrums.
Usually each day represents one scrum.
And the team has a daily scrum meeting to track progress, identify issues, and
assign tasks to team members for the next day.
The work is done in the scrum.
The scrums combine to create a sprint and results of several sprints is a release
with a minimally viable product to be evaluated by external customers.
If you want to more about how to run an Agile Scrum project,
let me suggest the GoSkills course on that topic.
Let's wrap this up with a quick review of how risk is managed in an adaptive or
Agile project.
First, when there are many risks and unknowns,
an adaptive approach is preferred over the predictive approach.
With many risks, I don't know which ones to predict will occur.
And I can go crazy trying to come up with all the possible contingency plans
at the beginning of the project.
In fact, trying to compensate for all those risk and possibilities and
implement all those plans could increase the overall project risk.
Instead, an adaptive project focuses on the risks
that are present at the upcoming phase or spread of the project.
Once these are resolved, some of the possible risks for
the rest of the project will have been eliminated.
And you may be able to identify some new risks that you had
never even contemplated, as they become much clearer.
Adaptive an Agile projects hold regular reviews with stakeholders,
which will help to identify new or emerging risks.
Adaptive projects practice some of the project initiation processes at
the beginning of each phase or
sprint, which helps to identify risks to deliverables that
may have been overlooked at the time that the project was originally started.
Since the project plans are only for a phase or
a sprint, the impact of a planning error is reduced.
That error can be identified, and a correction implemented in the next phase
or sprint, so the impact does continue all the way till the end of the project.
Generally, adaptive projects will have more team interaction,
such as daily scrum meetings.
So misunderstandings and miscommunication is resolved quickly,
which reduces the impact of that type of risk.
And most adaptive projects work from a prioritized backlog list of tasks and
deliverables that is updated after each phase or sprint.
That way the highest priority task for that phase or sprint are always clear.
In fact, the list is often shown on a project dashboard, providing for
visual control of the project.
There is less likelihood that the team will waste time on unimportant tasks and
miss a critical task that must be accomplished.
When projects have high uncertainty or high risk, the adaptive and
Agile approaches are usually the best methodology for project management.