Traditional approaches to project management concentrate firmly on

Case Study

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❯The Project MANAGER’S GUIDE

TO MASTERING AGILE

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❯The Project MANAGER’S GUIDE

TO MASTERING AGILE

Principles and Practices for an Adaptive Approach

Charles G. Cobb

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CONTENTS

PREFACE xiii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xix

1 Introduction to Agile Project Management 1

The Chasm in Project Management Philosophies 2

The Evolution of Agile and Waterfall 3

Definition of waterfall 4

Definition of agile 4

Comparison of plan-driven and adaptive approaches 5

The Evolution of the Project Management Profession 7

The early history of project management 7

Transformation of the project management profession 8

What’s driving this change, and why now? 9

Agile Project Management Benefits 11

Summary of Key Points 13

Discussion Topics 14

Part 1 Fundamentals of Agile

2 Agile History and the Agile Manifesto 17

Agile Early History 17

Dr. Winston Royce and the Waterfall model (1970) 18

Early iterative and incremental development methods (early 1970s) 19

Further evolution of iterative and incremental development (mid- to late 1970s) 20

Early agile development methods (1980s and 1990s) 20

Agile Manifesto (2001) 21

Agile Manifesto values 22

Agile Manifesto principles 24

Summary of Key Points 30

Discussion Topics 31

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3 Scrum Overview 33

Scrum Roles 34

Product owner role 35

Scrum Master role 36

Team role 38

Scrum framework 39

Sprint planning 41

Daily standup 42

Sprint review 42

Sprint retrospective 43

General Scrum/Agile Principles 44

Variability and uncertainty 44

Prediction and adaptation 45

Validated learning 46

Work in progress 47

Progress 48

Performance 49

Scrum Values 51

Commitment and focus 51

Openness 52

Respect 53

Courage 54

Summary of Key Points 55

Discussion Topics 55

4 Agile Planning, Requirements, and Product Backlog 57

Agile Planning Practices 57

Rolling-wave planning 57

Planning strategies 58

Spikes 59

Progressive elaboration 60

Value-based functional decomposition 61

Agile Requirements Practices 61

The role of a business analyst in an agile project 61

“Just barely good enough” 63

Differentiating wants from needs and the “five whys” 63

MoSCoW technique 64

User Personas and Stories 64

User personas 64

User stories 65

Epics 67

Product Backlog 68

What is a product backlog? 68

Product backlog grooming 68

Summary of Key Points 70

Discussion Topics 71

5 Agile Development, Quality, and Testing Practices 73

Agile Software Development Practices 73

Code refactoring 74

Continuous integration 75

Pair programming 75

Test-driven development 76

Extreme programming (XP) 77

Agile Quality Management Practices 78

Key differences in agile quality management practices 78

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Definition of “done” 78

The role of QA testing in an agile project 79

Agile Testing Practices 80

Concurrent testing 80

Acceptance test driven development 80

Repeatable tests and automated regression testing 81

Value-driven and risk-based testing 81

Summary of Key Points 81

Discussion Topics 83

Part 2 Agile Project Management

6 Time-Boxing, Kanban, and Theory of Constraints 87

The Importance of Flow 89

Time-Boxing 90

Time-boxing advantages 90

Additional time-boxing productivity advantages 90

Kanban Process 91

Push and pull processes 91

What is a Kanban process? 92

Differences between Scrum and Kanban 93

Work-in-process limits in Kanban 94

Kanban boards 95

Theory of Constraints 96

Summary of Key Points 98

Discussion Topics 99

7 Agile Estimation 101

Agile Estimation Overview 101

What’s different about agile estimation? 101

Developing an estimation strategy 103

Management of uncertainty 103

Agile Estimation Practices 104

Levels of estimation 104

What is a story point? 106

How are story points used? 107

What is planning poker? 108

Velocity and Burn-Down/Burn-Up Charts 109

Velocity 109

Burn-down charts 110

Burn-up charts 111

Summary of Key Points 112

Discussion Topics 113

8 Agile Project Management Role 115

Agile Project Management Shifts in Thinking 117

Emphasis on maximizing value versus control 117

Emphasis on empowerment and self-organization 119

Limited emphasis on documentation 120

Managing flow instead of structure 121

Potential Agile Project Management Roles 121

Making agile work at a team level 121

Hybrid agile project role 123

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Enterprise-level implementation 124

Using agile concepts in non–agile projects 127

Agile and PMBOK® 127

The difference between explicit and tacit knowledge 127

Relationship to traditional project management functions 129

Summary of Key Points 137

Discussion Topics 138

9 Agile Communications and Tools 139

Agile Communications Practices 139

Information radiators 139

Face-to-face communications 141

Daily standups 142

Distributed teams 142

Agile Project Management Tools 143

Benefits of agile project management tools 144

Characteristics of enterprise- level agile project management tools 145

Summary of Key Points 148

Discussion Topics 149

10 VersionOne Tool Overview 151

Product/Project Planning 151

Product backlog management 153

Manage business initiatives with epics 155

Group your work items by feature groups or themes 155

Deliver according to business goals 156

Release and Sprint Planning 157

Release planning/sprint planning capabilities 158

Sprint detail planning 158

Sprint Tracking 160

Kanban boards 161

Burn-down charts 162

Summary of Key Points 163

Discussion Topics 163

11 Understanding Agile at a Deeper Level 165

Systems Thinking 165

Influence of Total Quality Management (TQM) 167

Cease dependence on inspection 168

Emphasis on the human aspect of quality 170

The need for cross-functional collaboration and transformation 171

Importance of leadership 173

Ongoing continuous improvement 173

Influence of Lean Manufacturing 174

Customer value 177

Map the value stream 177

Pull 178

Flow 182

Respect for people 186

Perfection 187

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CON T E N T S ix

Principles of Product Development Flow 187

Summary of Key Points 189

Discussion Topics 191

Part 3 Making Agile Work for a Business

12 Scaling Agile to an Enterprise Level 195

Enterprise-Level Agile Challenges 196

Differences in practices 196

Reinterpreting agile manifesto values and principles 197

Enterprise-Level Obstacles to Overcome 199

Collaborative and cross-functional approach 199

Organizational commitment 199

Risk and regulatory constraints 200

Enterprise-Level Implementation Considerations 200

Architectural planning and direction 200

Enterprise-level requirements definition and management 201

Release to production 203

Enterprise-Level Management Practices 204

Scrum-of-scrums approach 204

Project/program management approach 207

The role of a project management office (PMO) 207

Project/product portfolio management 209

Summary of Key Points 210

Discussion Topics 211

13 Adapting an Agile Approach to Fit a Business 213

The Impact of Different Business Environments on Agile 213

Product-oriented companies 214

Technology-enabled businesses 215

Project-oriented businesses 215

Hybrid business model 216

Adapting an agile approach to a business 217

Typical Levels of Management 218

Overall business management level 218

Enterprise product/project portfolio management level 221

Product management level 223

Project management level 223

Corporate Culture and Values 224

The importance of corporate culture and values 224

Value disciplines 226

Summary of Key Points 230

Discussion Topics 231

14 Enterprise-Level Agile Transformations 233

Planning an Agile Transformation 233

Define the goals you want to achieve 233

Becoming agile is a journey, not a destination 234

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Develop a culture that is conducive to agile 235

Manage change 237

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater 240

Tools can be very important 241

Adaptive Project Governance Model 242

Executive steering group 244

Project governance group 244

Working group forums 244

Project teams 245

Summary of Key Points 245

Discussion Topics 246

Part 4 Enterprise-Level Agile Frameworks

15 Scaled Agile Framework 251

Team Level 253

Program Level 253

Portfolio Level 253

Program Portfolio Management 254

16 Managed Agile Development Framework 259

Managed Agile Development Overview 260

Macro-level 261

Micro-level 261

Objectives of Managed Agile Development 261

Plan-driven benefits 261

Agile benefits 262

Key differences from a typical waterfall approach 262

Framework Description 264

Project organization and work streams 264

High-level process overview 265

Requirements management approach 270

Project Scheduling Approach 272

Project management approach 273

Communications approach 274

Roles and Responsibilities 275

17 Disciplined Agile Delivery Framework 279

Summary of Enterprise-Level Frameworks 286

Part 5 Case Studies

18 “Not-So-Successful” Case Studies 289

Company A 290

Background 290

The approach 290

What went wrong 290

Overall conclusions 290

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Company B 292

Background 292

The approach 293

What went wrong 293

Overall conclusions 294

Company C 297

Background 297

The approach 297

What went wrong 297

Overall conclusions 297

19 Case Study—Valpak 303

Background 303

Overview 305

Architectural Kanban 306

Portfolio Kanban 309

Project Management Approach 311

Tools, communication, and reporting 312

Challenges 313

Cultural and organizational challenges 313

Technical challenges 316

Other challenges 316

Key Success Factors 320

Top-down support coupled with bottom-up drive 320

Hiring an independent coach 320

Continued support each and every day 321

Senior management engagement/business ownership 321

Results and Conclusions 322

Lessons Learned 324

Forming projects around teams 324

Planning team capacity and developing a sustainable pace 324

Using sprint reviews and “science fairs” 325

20 Case Study—Harvard Pilgrim Health Care 327

Background 327

Overview 328

Impact of outsourcing and vendor partnering 330

Role of the PMO 331

Project governance 332

Role of tools 334

Project methodology mix 335

Project portfolio management 335

Project Management Approach 336

Project methodology 336

Implementation package development 337

Implementation package refinement 338

Project reporting 338

Contractual relationship with Dell Services 340

Challenges 340

Cultural and organizational challenges 340

Contractual challenges 340

Technical challenges 341

Other challenges 341

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Key Success Factors 341

Conclusions 349

Lessons Learned 350

Enormous culture shift 350

Adapting the methodology to fit the business 350

Release management 350

Assigning projects to teams 351

Architectural Design Planning 351

Estimating project schedules 351

QA testing 351

CIO retrospective 352

21 Case Study—General Dynamics UK 355

Background 355

Overview 356

Requirements prioritization and management approach 356

Contract negotiation and payment terms 358

Planning approach 358

Personnel management 359

Communication 359

Management and leadership approach 360

Project Management Approach 360

DSDM overview 361

DSDM principles 362

Challenges 363

Cultural and organizational challenges 363

Contractual challenges 363

Technical challenges 363

Key Success Factors 365

Conclusions 366

Lessons Learned 367

22 Overall Summary 369

Appendices

Appendix A Additional Reading 375

Appendix B Glossary of Terms 377

Appendix C Example Project/Program Charter Template 387

Appendix D Suggested Course Outline 393

Index 399

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PREFACE

THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROFESSION is beginning to go through rapid and profound changes due to

the widespread adoption of agile methodologies. Those changes are likely to dramatically change the

role of project managers in many environments as we have known them and raise the bar for the entire

project management profession.

It is not a simple matter of making a binary choice between a totally plan-driven approach and

totally adaptive or agile approach. There are many alternatives between those extremes, and it takes

a lot of skill to adapt an approach to fit the situation. This book is designed to help project managers

with a traditional, plan-driven project management background understand these challenges and

to develop a more adaptive project management approach for blending traditional project manage-

ment with agile principles and practices in the right proportions to fit a given project and business

environment.

Agile is changing the way we think and work in many industries and application areas. The impact today is most obvious in the area of software and information technology, where an agile approach

is essential to deal with the level of uncertainty in a typical software development project; however,

the rapidly changing and competitive business world we live in today is already beginning to rapidly

expand the influence of agile to many other areas.

This is the third book I’ve written on the subject of agile project management. My primary moti-

vation in all of the books I’ve published in this area has been to help close the gap between the tradi-

tional project management and agile communities. Those two areas have essentially been treated as

separate and independent domains of knowledge with a very limited amount of integration between

the two and some new thinking is badly needed to see both of these areas as complementary to each

other rather than competitive.

If I were to publish this book as an entirely separate and independent book from my two previ-

ous books, it would have either been disjoint or there might have been redundancy with the material

in the two previous books. For that reason, I have decided to merge together some information from

my two previous books into this one book to make it much more comprehensive, well-integrated, and

easy to follow. It is designed to be used as a textbook in a graduate-level Agile Project Management

course and includes a suggested course outline and instructional materials to align with the material

in the book.

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THE IMPACT OF AGILE

I believe that agile is having a profound impact on the project management profession and will cause

us to fundamentally rethink many of the well-established notions of what a project manager is over some period of time. My opinion is that:

◾ Those changes will dramatically impact the role of project managers in many environments and perhaps even eliminate the role of some project managers as we have known them.

◾ It will also raise the bar for the entire project management profession, broaden the definition of what we think of as project management, and require project managers to acquire significant new skills and new ways of thinking.

Some people may see that as unsettling and perhaps even threatening; however, it is very clear

that agile is not a fad, is here to stay, and will bring about some significant changes that we can’t

ignore. I believe that it is critical for project managers and the project management profession, as a

whole, to be proactive and anticipate the most likely impact and adapt accordingly. To me, that means

figuring out how to integrate agile and traditional project management principles and practices to

provide one integrated view of what project management is.

Many project managers are wondering what impact this has on their career path and it can be

confusing because the role of a project manager in an agile environment is not defined. This raises a number of questions including:

◾ What is the role for a project manager in an agile project?

◾ Are traditional project management principles and practices in conflict with agile principles and practices?

◾ How does a typical project manager shape his or her career to move in a more agile direction?

Those are the needs and challenges that this book is intended to address. Learning to become

an agile project manager can be a long and difficult journey, and this book is only a small part of that

journey.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES FOR AN AGILE PROJECT MANAGER

The following is a summary of what I believe are the most important steps in the journey toward

becoming an agile project manager (not necessarily in this order):

1. Develop new ways of thinking and begin to see agile principles and practices in a new light as

complementary rather than competitive to traditional project management practices.

2. Gain an understanding of the fundamentals of agile practices and learn the principles behind

the agile practices at a deeper level in order to understand why they make sense and how they

can be adapted as necessary to fit a given situation.

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3. Learn how to go beyond the traditional notion of plan-driven project management and develop

an adaptive approach to project management that blends both agile and traditional project man-

agement principles and practices in the right proportions to fit a given project and business

environment.

4. Understand the potential roles that an agile project manager can play and begin to reshape

project management skills around those roles.

5. Learn some of the challenges of scaling agile to an enterprise level and develop experience in applying these concepts in large, complex, enterprise-level environments.

HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED

Agile project management is an art that will take time for anyone to develop and master. There’s a

concept from martial arts called shu-ha-ri that is very appropriate here. It outlines the stages of pro- ficiency someone goes through to develop mastery of martial arts techniques. The same concept can

be applied to agile project management:

◾ “Shu”: In the “shu” stage, the student learns to do things more-or-less mechanically, “by the book,” without significantly deviating from the accepted rules and practices and without improvising any

new techniques. This stage is equivalent to a new inexperienced project manager following PMBOK

or other accepted practices “by the book” without necessarily adapting those practices to fit the

situation.

◾ “Ha”: In the “ha” stage, the student begins to understand the principles at a deeper level and learns how to improvise and break free from rigidly accepted practices, but it’s important to

go through the “shu” stage and gain mastery of the foundational principles before you start

improvising—improvisation without knowledge is just amateurish experimentation.

◾ “Ri”: Finally, in the “ri” stage, the student gets to the highest level of mastery and is able to develop his/her own principles and practices as necessary.

Many project managers may think that they are already at a very high level of mastery based on

their knowledge of PMBOK and other well-accepted traditional project management practices, but

agile changes that dramatically and raises the bar significantly.

The way the book is organized follows the shu-ha-ri approach to learning:

◾ The initial sections of the book start out with a very basic understanding of the “mechanics” of agile and learning how to do it “by the book.” That is equivalent to the “shu” level of training.

◾ The book will go deeper into the principles behind agile and why they make sense. It is essential to understand the principles at a deeper level before moving on to the “ha” level and know how to

customize an approach to fit a given situation.

◾ The final goal is to move to the master level or “ri” level where you will learn to go beyond current ways of implementing both agile and plan-driven approaches and learn how to blend them together

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as needed to fit a given project and business environment. That goal is somewhat beyond the scope

of this book and will only come from actual practice in implementing these ideas in real world situ-

ations; however, it is hoped that the information in this book and the case studies that are included

will help project managers move rapidly in that direction.

Part 1 – Fundamentals of agile The first step in learning to become an agile project manager is to learn the fundamentals of agile,

which includes not only the mechanics of how an agile project based on Scrum works, but also under-

standing the principles behind it at a deeper level so that you can go beyond just implementing it by

the book.

Part 2 – agile project management Agile is causing us to broaden our vision of what a project manager is and that will have a dramatic impact on the potential roles that a project manager can play in an agile project. In fact, the role of a

project manager at a team level in a typical agile/Scrum project is undefined. That will cause us to

rethink many of the things we have taken for granted about project management for a long time to

develop a broader vision of what an agile project manager is.

Part 3 – Making agile work for a business There are many precedents for successful implementation of agile principles and practices at a

project team level; however, extending the agile principles and practices to large-scale enterprise

implementations and integrating with a business environment can be very difficult and introduces a

number of new challenges, which include:

◾ Large, complex projects that are commonly found at an enterprise level may require some reinter- pretation and adaptation of agile principles and practices as well as blending those principles and

practices with traditional, plan-driven principles and practices in the right proportions.

◾ Integrating agile principles and practices with higher levels of management typically found at an enterprise level, such as project portfolio management and overall business management can be

difficult. However, if an agile implementation is limited to a development process only and does not

address integration with these higher-level processes it is not likely to be effective and may result in

failure.

◾ This section of the book is intended to address these topics and provide an understanding of the key considerations that need to be addressed for scaling an agile approach to an enterprise level, inte-

grating it with a business environment, and planning and implementing an enterprise-level agile

transformation.

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Part 4 – Enterprise-level agile frameworks Putting together a complete, top-to-bottom, enterprise-level agile solution can be a very challenging

task, especially when some of the pieces are not designed to fit together. To simplify the design of

an enterprise-level agile implementation, it is useful to have some predefined frameworks that can

be modified to fit a given business environment, rather than having to start from scratch to design

an overall management approach. Three frameworks are discussed in this section: the Scaled Agile

Framework (SAFe) (Dean Leffingwell), Managed Agile Development framework (Chuck Cobb), and the

Disciplined Agile Delivery framework (Scott Ambler).

Part 5 – Case studies In any book of this nature, it’s always useful to go beyond theory and concepts and show how com-

panies have actually put these ideas into practice in the real world. Of course, there is no canned

approach that works for all companies—each of these case studies is different and shows how a differ-

ent approach may be needed in different situations. It also includes a chapter on “Not-So-Successful”

case studies, which shows some of the problems that can develop in an agile implementation.

Part 6 – Appendices The appendices to the book include additional supplementary information:

◾ Additional Reading List

◾ Glossary of Terms

◾ Example Project/Program Charter

◾ Suggested Course Outline for a graduate-level course to accompany this book

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I USED A VERY AGILE APPROACH for writing this book as well as my previous books. It was a team

effort of a number of people who worked with me collaboratively as the book was being written to

provide feedback and inputs. I particularly want to thank the following people for their contributions

to the book:

◾ Erik Gottesman, director general management at Sapient—Erik is a significant thought leader in this area. He played a huge role in helping me develop my two previous books on agile project manage-

ment and provided some good advice and input on this book as well.

◾ Dr. Michael Hurst, PMO director at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care—Michael has played a significant role in providing input and advice for both this book and my last book and he also played a key role in

providing a case study on Harvard Pilgrim Health Care that is included in this book.

◾ Andrew Bone, IT program/PMO director—Andrew did a thorough review of the entire book, provided a number of good comments and inputs, and also sponsored a presentation on the book with the Long

Island, New York, PMI Chapter.

◾ Liza Wood, senior production manager at Warner Bros. Games—Liza also did a thorough review of the entire book on behalf of the PMI Agile Community of Practice and provided a very large number

of excellent comments.

◾ Several companies generously shared case studies with the results of successful agile implementations:

◾ Michael Hurst, director PMO, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care—Michael and Harvard Pilgrim shared the results of a very large and successful enterprise-level agile transformation effort of more than

200 projects.

◾ Stephanie Stewart, director of agile leadership at Valpak—Stephanie and Valpak shared the results of an enterprise-level implementation of the Scaled Agile Framework at Valpak.

◾ Nigel Edwards, program manager at General Dynamics, UK—Nigel shared the results of a very large and complex, agile fixed price government contracting effort.

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xx AC K NOW L E D GM E N T S

I would like to also thank the following individuals who took the time to review an early draft of

this book and provided very helpful feedback, comments, and suggestions:

Tanvir Ahmed, PMP, CSM,PSM Sr. consultant—Agile process

improvement and implementation

Philadelphia Water

Department

Gopi Aitham, PMP, CSM, ITIL, SSGB Learner, educator, & entrepreneur

Chris Chan Supervising consultant, enterprise

agile coach

Object Consulting

David G Peterson, PMP Consultant

Czeslaw Szubert, PMP Program manager AMD

Kevin Wegryn, PMP, PfMP Vice president

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1 Introduction to AgileProject Management OVER THE PAST 10 TO 15 YEARS, there has been a rapid and dramatic adoption of agile methodologies:

1. Project Management Institute (PMI)® studies concluded that from 2008 to 2013, the use of

agile practices tripled.1

2. According to a 2013 survey conducted by VersionOne:2

◾ 88% of the respondents say that their organizations are practicing agile development, up from 84% in 2012 and 80% in 2011.

◾ Over half of the respondents (52%) are using agile software to manage the majority of their projects.

◾ 88% say that they are at least “knowledgeable” about agile software development techniques, up 7% from the previous year.

3. This trend has been going on for some time. As early as 2007, a Forrester survey reported:3

◾ “26% are already using agile and an additional 42% are aware.” ◾ “Adoption of agile increased 56% from 17% in 2006, to 26% in 2007.” ◾ “Awareness increased 45% from 29% in 2006, to 42% in 2007.”

These statistics indicate that agile is not a fad, it is having a significant impact on the way

projects are managed, and it’s definitely here to stay. This trend has a significant impact on the career

direction of project managers who have come from a traditional, plan-driven project management

background since there is no formal role for a project manager at the team level in an agile project.

1“Agile Project Management,” Project Management Institute, 2014, http://learning.pmi.org/course-detail.php?id= 2563 2“2013 State of Agile(TM) Survey,” VersionOne, Inc., 2014, http://stateofagile.versionone.com/ 3Rally Blogs, “Agile Adoption Rates—So What and Why Do I Care?” posted by Ryan Martens, March 6, 2008, www.rallydev.com/community/agile-blog/agile-adoption-rates-%E2%80%93-so-what-and-why-do-i-care.