An Agile PRINCE? Successful project delivery with PRINCE2 and Agile

Transcription

1 An Agile PRINCE? Successful project delivery with PRINCE2 and Agile

2 Guy Hancock in an AP nutshell Project Manager / Business Analyst / Product Designer & Owner / Service Designer / Techie (dev) I like PRINCE2 a lot - an advocate not evangelist 1. Product Based planning 2. Plan-to-plan (see iiba BABOK too) 3. Emphasis on business case To date: no drawbacks using or leveraging PRINCE2 Worked with applied purist Agile: Business PM / Product Owner / BA NOT an Agile expert or evangelist Frequently implemented Agile tools and techniques as hybrid

3 Overview No detailed knowledge of PRINCE2 or Agile required PRINCE2 or Agile will not be covered in detail Re the byline: Successful project delivery with PRINCE2 and Agile Not a formula to deliver projects successfully See logical PRINCE2 & Agile intersects (realise the benefits of both) Assumptions: You have some project management and iterative development concept knowledge You are not an evangelist who ll lynch me for criticising Agile

4 Agile and PRINCE2 RED corner Agile Blue corner PRINCE2 Once an Us versus them heated philosophical or dogmatic battle for hearts and minds. I believe: Rational minds have prevailed and hybrids evolved because of experience, thought and pragmatism (PRINCE2 / Agile method) Not the result of poor knowledge or skill sets

5 Is it a project? You could say a project is. A temporary organisation structure that consumes resources, time and money to deliver a new product or service to realise business benefits* Projects need project management (the temporary manager). Agile is not project management. *Seize opportunities, counter threats Support & maintenance capability / pipelines are not projects

6 Project delivery success Completed within the constraints of Time, Cost, Quality (P2) Agile : Why not sacrifice some arbitrary goals until the requisite quality is achieved? Because there are more than one important stakeholder in a project. Spending over a certain amount of money or time may delay benefits or diminish metrics such as NPV removing justification for the expenditure PRINCE2 Planning to deliver a fit-for-purpose solution at the time to realise benefits Monitor the business case to respond to internal and external forces

7 PRINCE2 myths PRINCE2 is NOT waterfall or PMP!!!! PRINCE2 says do just enough to plan / estimate to within accepted tolerances. PMP Says 70% of cost should be planning PMP how-to s HR financial mgmt. etc. in detail. PRINCE2 does not say how, it says what, when, why. PRINCE2 describes product descriptions in detail (templates etc.), not how to get the information. PMP really wants those requirements up front!

8 Agile pro s & con s FOR Agile iterations provide clear time boxed chunking of work Teams develop discipline to deliver usable value with regularity (cadence / sausage machine). Self-organised teams deliver real productivity and problem solving benefits (collective intelligence). Sprints make regular checkpoints Release, with full review, is something done Perfect approach for system enhancements / maintenance It is growing up (SAFe) but creating waves in the community AGAINST It may become all about the vibe! (the thongs, geek t-shirt, FussBall) Business does not owe workers a high entertainment workplace sometimes you just have to do boring stuff like doco!!! A project is about more than the user, broader benefit myopia Team feels under pressure to constantly show evidence of customer visible work (interface) Team focuses only on product owners wishes Don t bring in the Product Owner until the foundation work is done. 80/20 or Occam s Razor Technical debt & deferring decisions Flaky software Slow to evolve in response to failings

9 The Agile PRINCE2 approach As in Lean. Act as fast as possible but slow as necessary Be pragmatic. Please!!! Don t be a slave to an approach Use Agile where it makes sense and adds real value Use PRINCE2 where Agile needs rigour or control Don t be precious about terminology You don t need to call it Agile to be agile Use tools and techniques that suit the team and the work Is your management style compatible

10 Are you an unknowing victim? Your vendors may have been using Agile or iterative development with your projects already

11 Product Break Down (PBS) Identifying components of specialist products is done in the Product Breakdown Structure (PBS). My HR Yes, it s an upside down WBS! Software Training Communications Authentication User Interface design Training material Logistics Newsletter Front-end Application Database PRINCE2 uses constraints and product based planning Agile uses Themes, Epics, Stories

12 Agile eligible components My HR Authentication User Interface design Front-end Application Database Software What could Training benefit from or is compatible Communications with Training material Logistics Agile? 1. Where specifics unknown but risk is low (superficial work) Newsletter 2. Where > SV is small 3. Where build requires close feedback loop with a stakeholder 4. Where work can be chunked into logical, interindependent components 5. Where a vendor is doing the work

13 Epics / Specialist products My HR Software PRINCE2 says do just enough to plan / estimate to within accepted tolerances. Training Authentication Training material Newsletter Make 1st level decomposition into epics User Interface design Manage employee Logistics Front-end Application Database Manage system users Control theme Epics: Are groups of related stories that deliver chunks of meaningful value. * Stories too granular to exist alone

14 Prince2 Framework We are here

15 PRINCE2 delivery* *Delivery of specialist products that solve the business problem, not plans or project artefacts

16 Agile process Problem statement Vision Often 3 sprints

17 The work package The products acceptance criteria (the what) defined up front (test driven development) Specialist products are defined in terms of fitnessfor-purpose PRINCE2 explicitly assigns responsibility for how the work package is executed to the one accepting the work package (technical PM / Scrum Master / Iteration manager / team lead etc.)

18 Agile focus (Manage Product delivery) Define next release backlog at Stage Boundaries Work Package [WP] Epics: Epics: Accept execute deliver Plan next stage (SB) Retain the Agile focus on development and delivery, not backlog negotiation Quality & non-functional requirements are constraints, not readily negotiated

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