Traditional projects get converted to Agile

after programs burn the budget. A project

that could not be managed using a

traditional approach is way out of its

league using Agile

Agile

Projects and

their

Cowboy

Reputations DAVID HILCHER HILCHER

Agile Projects and their Cowboy Reputations

The first time many people on business or IT projects hear the term ‘Agile’ is following a failure. Any

somebody read somewhere on Google that Agile will speed things up, and maybe they even have

someone on their team sprouting its virtues.

Poor program and project management has blown the budget, and now the business is looking for a

panacea for its ailment. The executive, too afraid to admit defeat and fire those responsible, believes

the next piece of spin doctoring and whole heartedly supports it, after all, there is a Power Point

demonstration to go with it, and maybe even a little pilot project to prove its worth.

FACT: Agile is generally unsuitable for a large enterprise project using commercial off the shelf

products.

FACT: Agile is great for little development projects where the focus is on ‘user-requirements’ and

not ‘business requirements’.

FACT: Every project that has implemented Agile after failing using another method fails using Agile

as well.

FACT: If you could not manage a traditional project, you are way beyond your capabilities managing

an Agile project.

Here is why:

1. Your traditional project failed because:

a. You did not have business requirements. That is, you did not correctly gather

business strategy, decompose it, create the future state business and operating

model, understand the problems and issues and constraints

b. You hired the wrong people. They simply did not have the skills to cut the mustard

c. You failed to manage your responsibilities

2. Your Agile project will fail because:

a. You still do not have business requirements

b. You still have the wrong people

c. You are now passing your inefficiencies off to other people

3. You still have the same project leadership you previously had

4. You have not built credibility among your peers

5. The business is not structured to deal with the change in project approach

6. You will not have the decision makers in the room

7. You still have not broken requirements into a work breakdown structure, decomposed them

to work packages, sequenced the activities

Is there a possibility you could use Agile for an enterprise commercial off the shelf project? Yes, a

remote possibility. That is, you have correctly gathered business requirements, created exacting and

capability level architecture and solution building blocks. The vendor has been involved in creating

the building blocks, and now the approach is about getting the build complete.

So it becomes an IT project, not a business project. A simile is building a project house. A project

builder does all their architecture and engineering up front. Everything is costed correctly, all the

plans are completed, the purchase orders are done. The job now is to build the house. Agile is simply

the approach tradespeople normally apply to the construction technique. Huge building companies

do not even employ project managers, they are not needed. The tradespeople meet, decide which

bit goes first, second and third. They have all the purchase orders and get to work. A 200 square

metre home is easily completed in less than four months.

Now imagine the above situation without all the architecture, engineering and preliminary works …

it would be chaos. The output would be rubbish, and the customer would not be happy. Yet this is

what happens on most Agile projects.

This is why the vast majority of IT and business projects fail. They do not do the preliminary work

and jump straight to the solution. They have no clue of what the business problem is, and rarely do

any of these projects take into consideration market forces and strategy.

Moving to Agile will not save your arse, it will make things worse.

You will burn through the money at a faster rate, believing that if you look at the big picture (Epic,

aka Epic Failure), and then break it into sprints everything will come off better.

NO IT WON’T

You have not escaped your responsibility to gather your requirements and create the right roles.

And in doing so, you lead more people to believe that Agile really is something for project cowboys.

Unfortunately the business and IT project industry is a place in which project management is at its

lowest ebb.

Techniques like Agile will continue to come and go and until such time as project and program

managers are forced to start their careers in areas such as construction and engineering, nothing will

change. Project and program managers are like the majority of people, they simply cannot

conceptualise, and without this ability, they far too often jump the queue on what needs to be done

next. Unless they have the experience of building something physical, they do not learn the lesson of

having walls falling down, or poorly dug foundations which create a mess for the owner many years

down the line.

Unlike those physical industries, there is no legislation or watchdogs to oust the cowboys. In

business and IT they are free to create one train wreck after another.

Look forward to your comments. Please share.

© Copyright 2014 David Hilcher