The Need for Agile Methodology in Project Management

Over the years several methods have been devised in the field of project management for successfully monitoring and controlling the project. A successful project management approach is necessary for the project completion. The project methodology can be thought as the collection of rules and principle that guides the project in it of its phases (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). Although all kind of project shares several similarities in terms of execution, the scope and standards varies across the project field. The traditional approach for the project has not been so successful in managing IT project. Hence the search for the new method was initiated and the result was the introduction of the agile method (Palmquist, 2015). The agile method has been present in the IT project management for several years as it helped to overcome certain drawbacks which the waterfall method was not successful at (Conforto & Amaral, 2016).

The one of the major problem with the SuccessMaker was that the all the decision regarding with the product development was being made by the development team only. The product management has a very little or no scope in making the product related decision. This resulted in a product that was not considering the major requirements of the consumer and this made the product less successful for the market (Alertlogic-hb4e.hbsp.harvard.edu, 2018).

Another problem with the waterfall model was that it requires to set the scope at the very beginning of the project. It therefore required to create a road map without considering the variation in the project that is likely to come during the project execution (Larson & Gray, 2015). But this approach did not worked very with the recent version of the SuccessMaker releases. Although the newest version intended to address the previous issue that was critical to market success but it was not successful as expected. The problem was the development process itself. Hence a shift was need that could provide a new approach for the product development. Hence, Pearson was considering agile method. There were certain benefits that the method could provide and Pearson was seeing it as a potential toll for the project.

One of the major benefits of the agile method is that it does not require to set the scope of the project which was the case with the waterfall method. It basically follows an iterative approach. The whole project is first divided into iterations. Each iteration needs to be taken one at a time. There is no need to be focus on the next iteration until the current phase of the iteration is completed. In each iterations, the customer is involved as important stakeholder and the feedbacks are incorporated into the development (Turner, 2014). This is possible as the method does not work with any fixed scope, it allows variation in the project scope throughout the project progress. Now the consequences is that Pearson will be able make the SuccessMaker more consumer and market oriented.

Benefits of Agile Methodology over Waterfall Methodology

Although the introduction of the agile method will improve several shortcomings of the product design, there are still several drawbacks that needed attention. The first challenge was to make all the teams familiarized and involved with the method. It was seen that only the software development team was fully accounted with the transition from waterfall to agile approach. However other cross functional teams were still in favour of the waterfall method. This created a confusion among the QA teams like how the product testing will be done and how the end to end integration will be performed. It was seen, many a times there was a testing needed there was a tendency to follow an approach that might be thought as the mini waterfall method (Alertlogic-hb4e.hbsp.harvard.edu, 2018). For realising the final product, several sprints or the iterations must be integrated. This made the product owner satisfied as it gave them the option to plan for up to two sprints for each of the team assigned for the product development.

 With the increasing level of maturity in adopting the agile method, the teams were confident to plan for three or four sprint accurately. However the process might seem beneficial for the development and achieving speed in the project, but it has certain challenges as well. The first challenge was the stability and predictability. In order to be successful for the planning it requires a greater amount of stability and predictability.  The sprints are dependent on each other, though managed independently and requires for the actual integration of the connected sprints. Hence, if there is any issue with one of the sprints, it will create issues when all the iterations must be combined together for completing the development.

While working with the iterations, the problem as identified is that there might be lack of consistency among the teams in realizing the velocity of the progress in completion of the iteration. This will make things difficult in terms of planning and teams might not sure like exactly how many stories should be developed for a particular planning period while maintaining accuracy and synchronization. Another problem identified is that if the teams put too much emphasis on estimating the static backlog in respect to the agile method, there is a chance to focus on the development features that does not comply with the market requirements and customer need.

The agile method is particularly effective for the projects where customer need is a critical aspect for the product success in the consumer market. Products which are extensively consumer driven needs agile method for managing the project. Industries where innovation is a major requirement and where the scope of the project varies a lot along with the technology and standards, should consider agile method. If any project needs to work with aggressive deadline, and needs to incorporate a high degree of complexity, then agile method is best suited. If the project is new or the team working on the project does not have prior experience on the development of that particular project should be introduced with the agile method. Hence, an expert advice is always a requirement for this method. Even if the team is experienced, but working with a trial and error approach before deciding or finalizing the actual development strategy, then agile method is a wise choice. On the other hand, if the project where the scope as well as the requirements is clear, then waterfall model might be considered. However, if any need for modification arises at any phase of the project, it is not possible to incorporate that. Even if the modification is intended, it is costly as a complete makeover of the entire process is required. Hence the method is not effective in large scale projects.

Drawbacks of Agile Methodology

In order to consider agile method over the waterfall model for continuation of the SuccessMaker, it is important for Greg to note down whether there is any confusion regarding the requirements of the project issue or it is clear to all the teams and the higher authorities as well. Once this is decided the next thing to consider is that if it is possible to predict the efforts that might be required for the project execution like solving the problem with the SuccessMaker. The next question arises if there is any completed project and any similar problem identified in another project that is already completed. If all of this question yields a positive response, then plan driven process as the waterfall model is appropriate for developing the SuccessMaker product further. . However, if there is any need for complete makeover or need alternative approach to a project problems of the SuccessMaker, then agile method should be needed. Apart from these things that need to be considered further while choosing agile methods is customer preference in the projects, evaluation of client and stakeholders’ feedback, requirement for communication between the developer and product manager and flexibility in project timeframe. If all of these things need to be incorporated into the project to give it a complete makeover, then agile method should be adopted.

Greg should pursue the agile initiative. In order to optimize the approach Greg should identify whether all the team is accustomed with the process or there is any confusion. If there is confusion then it should be resolved as in order to make the approach efficient and effective all the teams should address the change. Otherwise there will be coordination problem between the teams. The team should not always focus on the speed of the planning while considering the iterations for the agile process. It should be made sure that proper planning is followed for the iterations, then it will be possible to integrate the iterations perfectly while considering the final release of the product (Bowes, 2014). Another important thing that need to be considered is that while working with iterations the market and the consumer needs are properly followed.

References:

Bowes, J. (2014). Agile vs Waterfall: Comparing project management methods. Retrieved April, 15, 2016.

Conforto, E. C., & Amaral, D. C. (2016). Agile project management and stage-gate model—a hybrid framework for technology-based companies. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 40, 1-14.

Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Larson, E. W., & Gray, C. F. (2015). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: PMBOK (®) Guide. Project Management Institute.

Palmquist, M. S., Lapham, M. A., Miller, S., Chick, T., & Ozkaya, I. (2015). Parallel worlds: Agile and waterfall differences and similarities (No. CMU/SEI-2013-TN-021). Carnegie-Mellon Univ Pittsburgh Pa Software Engineering Inst.

Turner, J. R. (2014). Handbook of project-based management (Vol. 92). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Vba.vic.gov.au. (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.vba.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/29063/Guide-to-Standards-and-Tolerances-2015.pdf [Accessed 11 Aug. 2018].