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Agile is viable and rigorous project management methodology

By Tom Sulda posted 12-13-2016 15:35

  

The delivering of customer solutions for system integrators (SI) has traditionally used the waterfall approach to project management. In general, a customer’s requirements are set and agreed to up front using a signed-off functional requirements document (FRD). In this scenario, all requirements are considered to be not negotiable. Once developed, tested and met, they form the basis of practical completion. Unless it is a time and materials project, time and cost are the variables. Any cost variables are absorbed by the SI and the customer wears the time or the project manager spends time on variations to renegotiate deliverables, costs and time.

Agile is a project management methodology that has been used extensively in the IT industry for many years. Contrary to popular belief, the methodology is far more rigorous than one may imagine. Using agile, time and cost are not variable – they are considered to be fixed. Customers' requirements are generally expressed in terms of user stories. These user stories are translated into a solution that meets a customer’s requirements. If you’ve ever had a problem with a customer not wanting to sign off on an FRD due to its highly technical nature, this could be an alternative approach for you. This is because a user story is expressed in their own words and therefore they can align and agree to it far more readily.

Since time and cost are fixed the only thing that can vary are the requirements that are prioritized as must-, should- or could- haves that are allocated in terms of project effort, as 60%, 20% and 20%, respectively. Therefore, we can gain 20% project contingency for the nice-to-have requirements expressed as could-haves. Customer maturity is a key component whereby they understand that they will possibly not get everything they ask for, weighed against time and costs being fixed.

Join me and CSIA for a webinar on this topic, January 17.

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01-12-2017 11:10

Looking forward to the webinar Tom

01-12-2017 11:10

Looking forward to the webinar Tom