There is a recurring theme used by PM’s converted to Agile when asked to explain why Agile is superior to the ‘dreaded’ traditional project management approach.
Not dissimilar to the airline passenger whose belief in the supernatural is strengthened by a single experience of being saved from the clutches of death – while being flown through a horrifying thunder-storm – such are the horror stories told by the new Agile evangelists and the implications these have had on their life views.
Their story, usually, includes the following predictable elements:
- I had a terrible experience while working in a project that was executed using the traditional waterfall approach
- As a customer no one consulted with me. IT has just gone out there and built the ‘thing’ withoug obtaining my input
- It did not meet my requirements
- It took too long to deliver
- Too much time was dedicated to writing up documents without noticing that the scope or requirements have already changed
- Yada yada yada…
- Look how wonderful the Agile Manifesto is.
- More yada yada yada…
Convincing someone to change from ‘traditional’ to ‘Agile’ based on a bad experience is like convincing someone to move a house because they’ve had a bad experience with a neighbour. Clearly not a convincing argument. The so-called ‘traditional’ approach has moved a long way since the 60′s and the 70′s and using arguments based on experiences related to a period whose practices are no longer considered main stream is foolish and misleading.
This post was ‘inspired’ by a recent blog post titled “Why you should use Agile for project management“.
Think about it!
Very good point indeed. More than often great ideas/methodologies/decisions are being labeled as unsuccessful only due to poor implementation. Delivery method should be chosen diligently based on relevant to circumstances details and not based on personal taken out of the context experience.
Anya Faingersh recently posted..“Why do you need Long-term goals?” – From Ask Anya mails
Well said, couldn’t agree more Anya. I haven’t considered the fact that this type of behaviour is relevant to other human endeavours, your comment makes absolute sense, thanks for that.
The picture made me laugh.
I’ll be mean and say that many Agile proponents have never been in a traditional project management setting. They just happened to work in an environment where projects were initiated (kind of), managed (kind of) and assessed, at the end, to be disasters (unexpected? I think not).
That of course does not mean that “traditional” project management doesn’t work. It means that projects that are rudderless end up in their normal end position; nowhere. At most often, the road to nowhere is long and bumpy.
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The organization development/change management world I am bound (like a spectre unable to ascend to a higher plain) one of two views set change management plans:
1. make the current-state so uncomfortable people demand the future-state. Highlight the upgrade over the current situation.
2. make the future-state so desirable the current state is willingly left behind. Highlight the upgrade of user experience.
I fall in the second camp who look to highlight the future state. This means I need the voice of the customer as involved as I can: it is their world. In this, Agile is a welcome project management method.
Change management is so much easier in the way the Agile/Scrum methodology accounts for customer involvement as well as opportunity to show the future state far more quickly, particularly a near-term, future-state that is working.
Agile, for me, is about the possibility of what could be.
Easy to get a waterfall gang to step into an Agile world? No. But just as a project provides either something new or a new way of doing things there is an opportunity the future state is a lot more productive.
I look forward to your thoughts. Where has Agile been most easily adopted in your project work? Is there a lot of times a hybrid is created? To what benefit or detriment?
Toby Elwin recently posted..Change management is dead — the rumor