After many project and program management roles, I have learned to appreciate the attributes of both Classic and Agile development approaches for project delivery management.
The Classic approach, with its emphasis on pre-planning, is appropriate when the entire project value is understood and agreed upon ahead of time. The project plan then becomes the delivery map for the promised scope by a certain date, with payments made at performance milestones, agreed upon by contract.
In our rapidly changing and highly competitive innovation economy, value delivery through technical development sometimes requires more frequent delivery iterations to the customer. The Agile development approach encourages more stakeholder interaction for defining features and flexibility in sequencing features, with the project’s utility released through specific, shorter intervals.
These approaches are intended for different production objectives, but should not be put at odds to one another. One applies more for when you know all your requirements, and are managing to schedule and budget constraints. The other is more appropriate for when you have a vision, but need to determine how outside influences might impact your requirements planning, or when you are faced with incremental funding per value output. Both approaches apply the organization’s talents to deliver value to the customer. Both approaches are resolving the same questions of any project value delivery effort:
- What are we doing?
- How are we doing it?
- When does it need to be done?
- Who’s doing it?
- What resources do we need to accomplish it?
- Where will we obtain the resources?
- Why isn’t it done yet?
These two delivery perspectives also remind us of what is important for managing the organization’s project culture.
Communications – more frequent is better
Team building – through a defined process
Documentation – as little as necessary
Stakeholders – keeping them as team members
Obstacles – removing them to maintain progress
It’s not so important to get stuck on a certain framework or methodology, as long as these basic ingredients of good value delivery management are satisfied. It doesn’t matter whether it’s more Classic or more Agile or a combination of both. Whether sprint releases or waterfall phases, there is really no right or wrong way – there is only what works.
Don’t be afraid to adjust your process to give your organization the best process that works to your success. Organizational improvement is always about finding a better process, so feel free to borrow from either, and create a hybrid approach.
The important thing here is to have a defined process for your organization. A defined process is your best way to get the delivery team working together and participating to their fullest individual ability. If you don’t have a process, then you’ll be relying on personalities for productivity. No need for that proverbial extraverted rock star to run your projects. A defined project delivery process is your best investment for building a more productive team.
Then manage your process with good tools to understand your performance, and keep information about progress flowing back to your team. Information is the fuel of team collaboration.
The winning combination is always about teamwork through process. And having a process is the best way to build collaborative teams for better productivity.