Agile in the waterfall

Agile in the WaterfallA look at hybrid Agile

1Copyright 2012 Square Peg Consultiing LLC, All Rights Reserved

Produced bySquare Peg Consulting, LLC

Orlando, Florida www.sqpegconsulting.com

Photo: John Goodpasture

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Here’s our theme: Agile in the waterfall is about encapsulating work and synchronizing outcomes, while respecting architecture and narrative


Iteration 1 First Principles and Requisite

Conditions


Here’s our operating principle:

Agile projects are simultaneously:Strategically stationary ….Tactically iterative and emergent


Strategically stationary

Whenever and wherever you look, the project has the same strategic intent and predictable business outlook• Strategic intent – opportunity, vision

• Strategically predictable – mission satisfaction


Business Case

Business

scorecard

Project Charter

Project

scorecard

Mapping strategically


MissionOpportunity

VisionNarrative

DriversMilestones

ArchitectureFunctionality

Optimism Confidence

Envisioning, Vision Delivering, Throughput

Risk

Mapping

Risk response: Be emergent and iterative


Photo: US Navy

Tactically agile

Tactically agile environment


Small teams

Redundancy

Local management

Photo: US Navy

Instinctive action

Proven protocols and practices

FrictionlessConfident

Overlay strategy with tactics

Tactically responsive to circumstances

Emergent plan as conditions develop

Tactically respectful of strategy as an overlay


Tack to strategic objective

Iteration 1 Reflection

Opposite ideas coexist – stationary, and emergent

Stationary: strategic predictability, a traditional quality

Emergent: reactive to circumstances and conditions, an Agile quality

The tactical overlays the strategic

Local, instinctive, redundant, frictionless

Respectful of strategy


Iteration 2 The Black Box, Interfaces, and

Connectivity


Strategic architecture; strategic functionality


Your scopeNavigation and location

My scopeAuto-pilot

Vision and narrative mapped to architecture and functionalityArchitecture and functionality allocated to work streams

Work streams WIP according to methodology

Encapsulated scope: Yours, mine


Stationary, open

Interfaces Your black boxYour methodology

My black boxMy methodology

Encapsulation enables co-existent methodologiesEncapsulation enables synchronized scheduling

My piece of the architecture

Yours, mine with transparency to me


Scope agile and changeableTransparent only to me

My white box Your black box

Your scope: your choice

Yours, mine, ours


Open network, stationary protocols, and responsive connectivity

Stationary &open

Your black boxMy black box

Refactor internally


Internals encapsulated from meInternally agileRefactor

Respect functionality at the interface

Work streams


Your traditional work streamMy Agile work stream

Network: Planning, physical, virtual (sneaker net) or combinations

Portfolio agreements


Your traditional projectMy Agile project

Network: Planning, physical, virtual (sneaker net) or combinations


Vision and narrative map strategically to architecture and functionality

Architecture and functionality allocated to work streams

Work streams WIP according to methodology

Encapsulation enables co-existence of methodologies

Encapsulation extends to project and program management


Iteration 3 Governing


Governance is the elephant in the room

Traditional:

• Confidently predict input and outcomes

– Proven process between them

– Controlled input: predicted outcome

• Overbalanced toward input

– Cost, schedule, scope dominate

• Faith in planning as the answer to risk

– Structured analysis; requirements traceability


Shifting allegiance

Agile: shift of allegiance

• FROM: Faithful adherence to a plan

– Planning is good; plans do not survive

• TO: Faithful response to customer need

– If customers are not more successful because of the project, what’s the point of the project?


Shifting dominance

Agile: shift of dominance

• FROM: dominated by consumption according to plan (Input, business)

• TO: dominated by value-added throughput (output, customer)

How is the PMO measured?

• Cost, schedule, scope (input, consumption)

• Customer satisfaction (outcome)


The shifting thing—four conditions

1. Works only if strategic intent is held stationary

2. Works only if scope can be tactically emergent

3. Works only if quality of outcomes is deemed more important than control of inputs

4. Works only if Agile and traditional work streams can be synchronized at milestones


Three planning elements dominate


Chart: US NOAA

1. Stationary milestones

2. Change?

3. Are we DONE?

Where are we going?

When will we get there?

How will we know when we’re there?

Milestone planning dominates


Slack or buffer to the milestone

Interfaces commitments:• Work as agreed• Available at the

milestone

Traditional

Agile

Time boxes or WIP or releases synchronized to the milestone

Everything can change? Not exactly

Change? It depends …• Architectural changes (Stationary; PMO controlled)

• Customer-facing changes (Tactically emergent; delegated)

• Construction changes (Non-functional; interior structure)

– Policy and regulatory management

– Refactoring change


Are we DONE?

Why is DONE in play? Tactically emergent scope

Are we DONE when

• The money runs out?

• Some milestone is reached?

• The customer is satisfied?

• Some predictable outcome is achieved?

• We finished the backlog

– Ooops! We never finish; imagination is boundaryless


We are DONE when …

When BEST VALUE is delivered

The most, and the most valuable scope deliverable within the available resources

And without compromises of quality as judged by the customer



Governance buy-in is the key to everything

• Allegiance and dominance shift

– From traditional input dominance to agile output dominance

• Synchronized milestones

– Slack, buffers, etc guard milestone commitments

– Traditional work streams and Agile work streams work to the same milestones

• Commitment to best value

– Get the most of the most important for the available resources, without compromise of quality



All done and ready for questions!

Read more…


Large scale projects

in large scale

organizations

Photo: J. Ross Publishing

Learn more…

PMI® eSeminarsWorldsm

instructor

• Agile Project Management

• Advanced Risk Management

and

• Understanding Organizational Change

33Copyright 2012 Square Peg Consultiing LLC, All Rights

Reserved

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John C Goodpasture, PMP

Program manager, author, and

instructor

34Copyright 2012 Square Peg Consultiing LLC, All Rights

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[email protected]

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