Atif Qureshi at Tasque, which I learned via Dave Gordon’s blog, went out to LinkedIn’s Project Management Community to ask for the latest tends in project management. You can find the raw responses to his inquiry at his blog here. What is interesting is that some of these latest trends are much like the old trends which, given continuity makes sense. But it is instructive to summarize the ones that came up most often. Note that while Mr. Qureshi was looking for ten trends, and taken together he definitely lists more than ten, there is a lot of overlap. In total the major issues seem to the five areas listed below.
a. Agile, its hybrids, and its practical application.
It should not surprise anyone that the latest buzzword is Agile. But what exactly is it in its present incarnation? There is a great deal of rising criticism, much of it valid, that it is a way for developers and software PMs to avoid accountability. Anyone ready Glen Alleman’s Herding Cat’s Blog is aware of the issues regarding #NoEstimates advocates. As a result, there are a number hybrid implementations of Agile that has Agile purists howling and non-purists adapting as they always do. From my observations, however, there is an Ur-Agile that is out there common to all good implementations and wrote about them previously in this blog back in 2015. Given the time, I think it useful to repeat it here.
The best articulation of Agile that I have read recently comes from Neil Killick, whom I have expressed some disagreement on the #NoEstimates debate and the more cultish aspects of Agile in past posts, but who published an excellent post back in July (2015) entitled “12 questions to find out: Are you doing Agile Software Development?”
Here are Neil’s questions:
- Do you want to do Agile Software Development? Yes – go to 2. No – GOODBYE.
- Is your team regularly reflecting on how to improve? Yes – go to 3. No – regularly meet with your team to reflect on how to improve, go to 2.
- Can you deliver shippable software frequently, at least every 2 weeks? Yes – go to 4. No – remove impediments to delivering a shippable increment every 2 weeks, go to 3.
- Do you work daily with your customer? Yes – go to 5. No – start working daily with your customer, go to 4.
- Do you consistently satisfy your customer? Yes – go to 6. No – find out why your customer isn’t happy, fix it, go to 5.
- Do you feel motivated? Yes – go to 7. No – work for someone who trusts and supports you, go to 2.
- Do you talk with your team and stakeholders every day? Yes – go to 8. No – start talking with your team and stakeholders every day, go to 7.
- Do you primarily measure progress with working software? Yes – go to 9. No – start measuring progress with working software, go to 8.
- Can you maintain pace of development indefinitely? Yes – go to 10. No – take on fewer things in next iteration, go to 9.
- Are you paying continuous attention to technical excellence and good design? Yes – go to 11. No – start paying continuous attention to technical excellent and good design, go to 10.
- Are you keeping things simple and maximising the amount of work not done? Yes – go to 12. No – start keeping things simple and writing as little code as possible to satisfy the customer, go to 11.
- Is your team self-organising? Yes – YOU’RE DOING AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT!! No – don’t assign tasks to people and let the team figure out together how best to satisfy the customer, go to 12.
Note that even in software development based on Agile you are still “provid(ing) value by independently developing IP based on customer requirements.” Only you are doing it faster and more effectively.
With the possible exception of the “self-organizing” meme, I find that items through 11 are valid ways of identifying Agile. Given that the list says nothing about establishing closed-loop analysis of progress says nothing about estimates or the need to monitor progress, especially on complex projects. As a matter of fact one of the biggest impediments noted elsewhere in industry is the inability of Agile to scale. This limitations exists in its most simplistic form because Agile is fine in the development of well-defined limited COTS applications and smartphone applications. It doesn’t work so well when one is pushing technology while developing software, especially for a complex project involving hundreds of stakeholders. One other note–the unmentioned emphasis in Agile is technical performance measurement, since progress is based on satisfying customer requirements. TPM, when placed in the context of a world of limited resources, is the best measure of all.
b. The integration of new technology into PM and how to upload the existing PM corporate knowledge into that technology.
This is two sides of the same coin. There is always debate about the introduction of new technologies within an organization and this debate places in stark contrast the differences between risk aversion and risk management.
Project managers, especially in the complex project management environment of aerospace & defense tend, in general, to be a hardy lot. Consisting mostly of engineers they love to push the envelope on technology development. But there is also a stripe of engineers among them that do not apply this same approach of measured risk to their project management and business analysis system. When it comes to tracking progress, resource management, programmatic risk, and accountability they frequently enter the risk aversion mode–believing that the less eyes on what they do the more leeway they have in achieving the technical milestones. No doubt this is true in a world of unlimited time and resources, but that is not the world in which we live.
Aside from sub-optimized self-interest, the seeds of risk aversion come from the fact that many of the disciplines developed around performance management originated in the financial management community, and many organizations still come at project management efforts from perspective of the CFO organization. Such rice bowl mentality, however, works against both the project and the organization.
Much has been made of the wall of honor for those CIA officers that have given their lives for their country, which lies to the right of the Langley headquarters entrance. What has not gotten as much publicity is the verse inscribed on the wall to the left:
“And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
- John VIII-XXXII
In many ways those of us in the project management community apply this creed to the best of our ability to our day-to-day jobs, and it lies as the basis for all of the management improvement from Deming’s concept of continuous process improvement, through the application of Six Sigma and other management improvement methods. What is not part of this concept is that one will apply improvement only when a customer demands it, though they have asked politely for some time. The more information we have about what is happening in our systems, the better the project manager and the project team is armed with applying the expertise which qualified the individuals for their jobs to begin with.
When it comes to continual process improvement one does not need to wait to apply those technologies that will improve project management systems. As a senior management (and well-respected engineer) when I worked in Navy told me; “if my program managers are doing their job virtually every element should be in the yellow, for only then do I know that they are managing risk and pushing the technology.”
But there are some practical issues that all managers must consider when managing the risks in introducing new technology and determining how to bring that technology into existing business systems without completely disrupting the organization. This takes–good project management practices that, for information systems, includes good initial systems analysis, identification of those small portions of the organization ripe for initial entry in piloting, and a plan of data normalization and rationalization so that corporate knowledge is not lost. Adopting systems that support more open systems that militate against proprietary barriers also helps.
c. The intersection of project management and business analysis and its effects.
As data becomes more transparent through methods of normalization and rationalization–and the focus shifts from “tools” to the knowledge that can be derived from data–the clear separation that delineated project management from business analysis in line-and-staff organization becomes further blurred. Even within the project management discipline, the separation in categorization of schedule analysts from cost analysts from financial analyst are becoming impediments in fully exploiting the advantages in looking at all data that is captured and which affects project performance.
d. The manner of handling Big Data, business intelligence, and analytics that result.
Software technologies are rapidly developing that break the barriers of self-contained applications that perform one or two focused operations or a highly restricted group of operations that provide functionality focused on a single or limited set of business processes through high level languages that are hard-coded. These new technologies, as stated in the previous section, allow users to focus on access to data, making the interface between the user and the application highly adaptable and customizable. As these technologies are deployed against larger datasets that allow for integration of data across traditional line-and-staff organizations, they will provide insight that will garner businesses competitive advantages and productivity gains against their contemporaries. Because of these technologies, highly labor-intensive data mining and data engineering projects that were thought to be necessary to access Big Data will find themselves displaced as their cost and lack of agility is exposed. Internal or contracted out custom software development devoted along these same lines will also be displaced just as COTS has displaced the high overhead associated with these efforts in other areas. This is due to the fact that hardware and processes developments are constantly shifting the definition of “Big Data” to larger and larger datasets to the point where the term will soon have no practical meaning.
e. The role of the SME given all of the above.
The result of the trends regarding technology will be to put the subject matter expert back into the driver’s seat. Given adaptive technology and data–and a redefinition of the analyst’s role to a more expansive one–we will find that the ability to meet the needs of functionality and the user experience is almost immediate. Thus, when it comes to business and project management systems, the role of Agile, while these developments reinforce the characteristics that I outlined above are made real, the weakness of its applicability to more complex and technical projects is also revealed. It is technology that will reduce the risk associated with contract negotiation, processes, documentation, and planning. Walking away from these necessary components to project management obfuscates and avoids the hard facts that oftentimes must be addressed.
One final item that Mr. Qureshi mentions in a follow-up post–and which I have seen elsewhere in similar forums–concerns operational security. In deployment of new technologies a gatekeeper must be aware of whether that technology will not open the organization’s corporate knowledge to compromise. Given the greater and more integrated information and knowledge garnered by new technology, as good managers it is incumbent to ensure these improvements do not translate into undermining the organization.
Life, Project Management, and Everything 