The Agile Framework with PMP and PMBOK
AGILE AND PMP FRAMEWORK
Brought to you by Dave Litten
PMP AGILE
Project teams have used agile techniques and approaches in various forms for at least several decades. The Agile Manifesto expressed definitive values and principles of agile as the use of agile gained substantial momentum
Dave Litten
Definable work verses high-uncertainty work
Project work ranges from definable work to high-uncertainty work. Definable work projects are characterized by clear procedures that have proved successful on similar projects in the past.
The production of a car, electrical appliance, or home after the design is complete are examples of definable work. The production domain and processes involved are usually well understood and there are typically low levels of execution uncertainty and risk.
New design, problem solving, and not-done-before work is exploratory. It requires subject matter experts to collaborate and solve problems to create a solution.
Examples of people encountering high-uncertainty work include software systems engineers, product designers, doctors, teachers, lawyers, and many problem-solving engineers. As more definable work is automated, project teams are undertaking more high-uncertainty work projects that require the techniques described in this article.
High-uncertainty projects have high rates of change, complexity, and risk. These characteristics can present problems for traditional predictive approaches that aim to determine the bulk of the requirements upfront and control changes through a change request process. Instead, agile approaches were created to explore feasibility in short cycles and quickly adapt based on evaluation and feedback.
The Agile Effect
Project teams have used agile techniques and approaches in various forms for at least several decades. The Agile Manifesto expressed definitive values and principles of agile as the use of agile gained substantial momentum .
Today, project leaders and teams find themselves in an environment disrupted by exponential advances in technology and demands from customers for more immediate delivery of value.
Agile techniques and approaches effectively manage disruptive technologies. In addition, the first principle of agile places customer satisfaction as the highest priority and is key in delivering products and services that delight customers.
Rapid and transparent customer feedback loops are readily available with the widespread use of social media. Therefore, in order to stay competitive and relevant, organizations can no longer be internally focused but rather need to focus outwardly to the customer experience.
Disruptive Technologies
Disruptive technologies are rapidly changing the playing field by decreasing the barriers to entry. More mature organizations are increasingly prone to being highly complex and potentially slow to innovate, and lag behind in delivering new solutions to their customers.
These organizations find themselves competing with smaller organizations and startups that are able to rapidly produce products that fit customer needs.
This speed of change will continue to drive large organizations to adopt an agile mindset in order to stay competitive and keep their existing market share.
Disruptive technology is especially enabled by the transition to cloud computing.
Companies across the globe are leveraging the model for quick and cheap access to computing resources and to gain entry into traditional markets.
Cloud computing requires a reduced upfront payment, but is paid over time via a subscription service, based upon a pay-as-you-go or pay-what-you-use model. Updated applications, infrastructure, and platforms are released into the cloud in an iterative and incremental fashion, keeping pace with improvements to technology and evolving customer demand.
The Agile Manifesto
The Agile Manifesto is built on four basic values:
1. Communications with parties is more important than standard procedures and tools.
2. Focus on delivering a working application and less focus on providing thorough documentation.
3. Collaborate more with clients.
4. Be open to change instead of freezing the scope of the work.
Officially, Agile was born in 2001 from the Agile Manifesto to improve productivity, specifically in software development, but it has now expanded into other areas such as marketing.
Any project team that follows the values of 12 Agile principles can be considered “Agile.”
Principles behind the Agile Manifesto
- Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software
- Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage
- Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale
- Business-people and developers must work together daily throughout the project
- Build projects around motivated individuals
- Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done
- The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation
- Working software is the primary measure of progress
- Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely
- Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility
- Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential
- The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams
At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
On one hand, Agile is now a widespread practice—according to the 2019 State of Agile Report, 97% of respondents say that their organizations practice Agile development methods. Yet according to the same report, only 22% of respondents say that all teams at their organization are Agile.
So Agile is now widely practiced, but perhaps not evenly distributed.
The Agile Manifesto evolution came about by discovering:
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
The Spread of Agile
Although originating in the software industry, these principles have since spread to many other industries.This embodiment of mindset, values, and principles defines what constitutes an agile approach. The various agile approaches in use today share common roots with the agile mindset, value, and principles. This relationship is shown below
This model, articulates agile as a mindset defined by the Agile Manifesto values, guided by the Agile Manifesto principles, and enabled by various practices.
It is worth noting that while the term “agile” became popularized after the Manifesto, the approaches and techniques being used by project teams today existed before the Agile Manifesto by many years and, in some cases, decades.
Agile approaches and agile methods are umbrella terms that cover a variety of frameworks and methods. The diagram below places agile in context and visualizes it as a blanket term, referring to any kind of approach, technique, framework, method, or practice that fulfills the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto.
It also shows agile and the Kanban Method as subsets of lean. This is because they are named instances of lean thinking that share lean concepts such as: “focus on value,” “small batch sizes,” and “elimination of waste.”
So What IS Agile?
Is agile an approach, a method, a practice, a technique, or a framework? Any or all of these terms could apply depending on the situation. This practice guide, uses the term “approach” unless one of the other terms is obviously more correct.In general, there are two strategies to fulfill agile values and principles.
The first strategy is to adopt a formal agile approach, intentionally designed and proven to achieve desired results. Then take time to learn and understand the agile approaches before changing or tailoring them.
Premature and haphazard tailoring can minimize the effects of the approach and thus limit benefits.
The second strategy is to implement changes to project practices in a manner that fits the project context to achieve progress on a core value or principle. Use time-boxes to create features, or specific techniques to iteratively refine features.
Consider dividing up one large project into several releases, if that works for the specific project context. Implement changes that will help the project succeed—the changes do not need to be part of the organization’s formal practices.
The end goal is not to be agile for its own sake, but rather to deliver a continuous flow of value to customers and achieve better business outcomes.
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