Thursday, March 19, 2009

Planning the Plan

Which is more important to you; having a plan, or going through the planning process?

I have recently taken on the role of championing some development process changes in my Software organization. Among them, I have started to get the team going on Agile Methodologies. In the learning process, I analyzed the many obvious differences between the typical "waterfall" style versus Agile. After completing Mike Cohn's book Agile Planning & Estimating, I was struck by the magnitude of what I would be up against in our current Project Management culture. Amongst the hurdles that would be faced, we needed a shift to focus on making the plan with the iterative and constant re-planning Agile demands.

Admittedly we have been trained to demand a good plan. And why not? Without a plan how could we possibly make informed decisions? What are the release dates, how will you get it done, show me the Ganntt chart.....ok, go do it and stay on track. Subsequently, several months later, as progress is tracked against the committed plan, we find ourselves upset, angry, disappointed that the team could not adhere to the plan. How could this be?, you ask. We had a plan, didn't we? This is where you can soul search your current product life cycle and see if Agile can fit.

Now don't get me wrong, I do not for a minute think that Agile (ie; Scrum in this case) is the panacea for the woes of the development process. Like all else in life, everything in moderation ! There is certainly a time and place for many methods to co-exist in product development. But, there are some interesting changes that you can make in corporate culture that transcend traditional methods. I personally found that Agile would provide a much needed ingredient to our product delivery problems.

By focusing on how the project is planned rather than what the plan will be, I think you will discover a new road getting to the same destination.

\Mike

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