Archive for Project Management
Agile Development Processes of Relevance
Posted by: | CommentsThe Unique Development Processes of Relevance video was submitted by Eric Hagan on the Agile Zone dzone page. I was impressed with the clarity of Justin’s explanations of the Agile process. He made it sound almost to easy.
Relevance does agile consulting with their own unique process which mixes and matches many agile methodologies. Their standard workflow involves 2-week iterations, daily stand-ups, and they pair on everything as much as possible (QA, programming, management, etc). They also build in a small amount of time to experiment for every iteration, but each experiment must have metrics to see if it was beneficial. Relevance also has "open source Fridays" where they take some time to work on open source or non-profit software.
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Holistic approach to the Theory of Constraints
Posted by: | CommentsThe Business901 Podcast featured John G. Schleier, Jr. and James F. Cox III authors of the upcoming book, Theory of Constraints Handbook
Theory of Constraints concepts and tools are aimed at one overriding objective: bringing about a process of ongoing improvement in enterprises. That said, the purpose of this book is to provide “hands on” guidance from the world’s top experts on how to implement these TOC capabilities. This guidance is buttressed by clear definition on how they work, why they work, what issues are resolved and what benefits accrue. Leading practitioners provide guidance based on their hands-on implementation experience. Academic authors give a review of the wealth of literature on why to move from the traditional discipline to each TOC discipline and a review of the TOC literature in that discipline. Indeed these ideas are of such a scope that this Handbook required 44 authors to explain them.
James F. Cox III
John G. Schleier, Jr.
This podcast was such a great selection of stories, insights and TOC theory that I ended up splitting it in half. This weeks podcast centered on TOC and the holistic principles that drive it. Next week, part 2 will discuss TOC thinking principles and how they apply not only in industry but on the personal level.
Can you Manage a Program, a Global Program?
Posted by: | CommentsIn this Business901 Podcast I had the pleasure of interviewing Paul Wagner, co-author of Global Program Management
Paula’s book is an in depth study of today’s Global Program Management arena. Very few organizations make only local decisions. It seems in today’s world no matter what size the company is that we all are somewhat global. Is your program or even project manager ready for this kind of challenge? How does a classic program and project management change as a result of this global influence? Paula did a great job of answering these questions as they applied to both small and large organizations. With the increase pressure on project managers the book provides insights on handling resources at a macro-level. During the interview, Paula appeared to be a pro (I am sure she is) at defining goals and objectives realistically no matter the multitude of environments that needed to be aligned.
Program management is growing as a discipline. So, we spent time talking about some of the decisions that had to be made as a program manager and the type of individual that makes a successful program manager. I think the book could be quite useful for someone that is considering this career path not only globally but on a local level.
Paula Wagner’s Website: http://pwdita.com/
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Can you have Agile Marketing?
Posted by: | CommentsRecently, I’ve become quite intrigued with agile project management. It was developed in the software arena in an effort to replace the traditional project management methods of define, design, and build to one based on adaption. They moved away from that linear thinking to a more adaptive culture allowing continuous innovation throughout the development process.
Jim Highsmith, the author of Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products (2nd Edition)
“The departure from which additional phase names such as initiate, plan, define, design, build, test is significant. First, Envision replaces the more traditional initiate phase to indicate the criticality of vision. Second, a Speculate phase replaces up plan face area words convey certain meanings and visual images that arise from systematic use over time. The work plan has become associated with prediction and relative certainty. Speculate indicates that the future is uncertain. Many traditional project managers faced with uncertainty try to plan that uncertainty away. We have to learn to speculate and adapt rather than plan and build.
Third, the actual project management model replaces the common design, build, test phases with explore. Explore, with its iterative delivery style, is explicitly a nonlinear, kind current, non-waterfall model. Questions developed in the speculate phase are explored. Speculating implies the need for flexibility based on the fact he cannot fully predict the results. The APM model emphasizes execution and his exploratory rather than deterministic. A team practicing EPM keeps his side of the vision, monitors information, and adapt to current conditions therefore the adapt phase. Finally, the APM mode ends with a close phase, in which the primary objectives are knowledgeable transfer and, of course, a celebration. To sum up, the five phases of agile project management are: envision, speculate, explore, adapt, and close.”
I think this style of thinking lends itself to the marketing process very well. Traditional marketing systems resist the linear thinking approach of a traditional project management process. Agile projects develop value quickly and incrementally during the life of the project. Capturing value like this early in the process can significantly improve buy-in and utilizing iterative principles then improve on the process during delivery. 
I have constructed an agile marketing development diagram that probably goes against many of the agile principles since I am incorporating the DMADV process of Six Sigma. But this is actually my intermediate step in applying agile to marketing. Since my roots are in the Six Sigma process and in linear thinking that jump to collaboration and iterative principles is quite a chasm to cross. DMADV is my bridge for the present as I learn and apply Agile Project Management thinking to the marketing process. It is also interesting to note that many of the principles have developed from the Lean thinking process. It kind of reminds you of a U-shaped work cell doesn’t?
Photo Credit: by rAmmoRRison
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