Both traditional and agile project delivery embody similar principles and practices that aim to deliver measurable results. Traditional project delivery can be described as a “waterfall” approach, which presumes that the requirements, expectations, duration, activities and outcomes of projects can be predicted accurately and planned in a sequence before any actual development activity takes place.
Successful Projects through Agile Project Management
Is an Agile PMO Possible?
It often seems that a lean, agile development environment will always be at odds with the structure and constraints of the PMO. Rick Freedman described the situation well in a recent blog post:
"Many firms have committed so completely to PMBOK process flows and CMM best practices that many of the core concepts of agile development, such as "barely sufficient" documentation and change-friendliness, seem like heresy. In fact, I've had people in my Agile Project Management classes tell me that their perception of agile is that the key message is "everything you know about project management is wrong."[i]
Project Managers vs. Scrum Masters; Agile Project Management Matures
There is a lot of resistance in the agile community against project management. Many (though not all) proponents of agile methods feel that project management is the root of all evils. To understand this perspective, we need to look at how agile methods were evangelized in their early days.
Agile Processes Go Lean
Two years ago, the company where Charles Suscheck worked purchased the rights to a third-party software platform and launched a project to test, debug, and enhance it to fit into its business lines. But developers at the company hit a roadblock: Requirements for the system were fuzzy, continually changing, and not based on a solid understanding of the product, says Suscheck.
At that point, the company turned to agile development, a methodology based on iterative development and team collaboration. Initially, the entire team -- developers and business stakeholders alike -- faced a steep learning curve for both agile development and the management and billing product. But once everyone understood agile, a process that breaks big projects into smaller segments and allows software features and plans to be adjusted as development projects progress, the new methodology proved its worth.
The Blending of Traditional and Agile Project Management
Traditional project management involves very disciplined and deliberate planning and control methods. With this approach, distinct project life cycle phases are easily recognizable. Tasks are completed one after another in an orderly sequence, requiring a significant part of the project to be planned up front. For example, in a construction project, the team needs to determine requirements, design and plan for the entire building, and not just incremental components, in order to understand the full scope of the effort. Traditional project management assumes that events affecting the project are predictable and that tools and activities are well understood. In addition, with traditional project management, once a phase is complete, it is assumed that it will not be revisited. The strengths of this approach are that it lays out the steps for development and stresses the importance of requirements. The limitations are that projects rarely follow the sequential flow, and clients usually find it difficult to completely state all requirements early in the project. This model is often viewed as a waterfall.
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