Agile project management Best practices and Pitfalls, Presented at PMI Japan IRC meeting with Daniel Monahan

1. Agile Project Management:
A Deep Dive
Mohammad Faiz and Daniel Monahan
IRC Monthly meeting – October 10th 2013

2. Agenda
 The Speakers
 Agile Scrum
 Origin
 Trends
 Framework
 Role of Project Manager
 Pitfalls & Suggested solutions
 Q&A

3. Mohammad Faiz
Mohammad Faiz PMP, CSM
Program Manager & Agile coach

4. Daniel Monahan PMP, PgMP,CSM, PRINCE2 Practitioner

5. Objective
Objective of todays session is to share best practices and our
experiences in managingAgile scrum projects.The presentation will
help us understand the contributions and value provided by Project
Manager and pitfalls that can be avoided in an Agile scrum project

6. Agile Scrum

7. Origin
 Lean Management andTheToyotaWay
 Muri, muda, and mura
 XP (Extreme Programming)
 Scrum was first defined as "a flexible, holistic product
development strategy in 1986 by HirotakaTakeuchi and
Ikujiro Nonaka in the "New New Product Development
Game”.

8. PMI’s Journey with Agile
 Research shows that project management practitioners are
embracing agile principles and practices for successfully managing
projects.
 Keeping in mind growing trends, standardization and need for
quality professionals , PMI started Agile certified professional
certification from 31st Jan 2012
Note:Challenged projects are those that were completed but had issues related to quality, cost, schedule etc.

9. Why Enterprises EmbraceAgile
Source:Version One Annual Agile Adoption Survey 2012

10. Top Benefits of Agile According to Users
Source:Version One Annual Agile Adoption Survey 2012

11. SomeTrends & Facts

12. Scrum Framework

13. Scrum AcceleratesValue Delivery:
Incremental and Iterative
4 444 :
Documents Documents Unverified Code Software
Priority 1 Priority 2 Priority
3
Priority 4 Priority
5
Priority 6 May not be needed
Working software available to users after Sprint 1 and features released incrementally

14. Why Prioritization Is Necessary
Sometimes, 16%
Rarely, 19%
Never, 45%
Always, 7%
Often, 13%
Always or Often Used
20%
Never or Rarely Used
64%
Source: Standish Group Study Reported at XP2002

15. Agile Project Management
We will look at activities that we can do in addition to regular project
processes, in order achieve best results for the Agile scrum project

16. Role of the Project Manager
Plan
ProcessPolicy
Customer

17.  Scope
 Value based prioritization
 Addition vs. Prioritization
 Non functional scope
 Estimate
 Track burn down and keep adjusting velocity
 Schedule & Release
 Sprint planning, track and adjust velocity
 Sprint components
 Produce + Fix +Validate + Plan
 Deliverables
 Incremental updates to design documents
 Staffing
 Multi-functional team
Plan

18.  Communication
 Total transparency and extensive involvement of product owner
 Reporting
 Value analysis
 Metrics
 Configuration management
 Continuous integration
 Contingency plans
Process

19.  Contract management
 Organization`s commitment to Agile
 Continuous education
 Financial management
 Costing
 Cost value analysis, comparing the value and size of story
Policy

20.  Involvement
 Collaborative approach
 Continuous validation
 Engage senior management
 Demonstrate value
 Share metrics
 Retrospective & follow up`s
Customer

21. Common Pitfalls and
Suggested Solutions

22. Prediction
Pitfall Suggested Solutions
Predicting the Product, Budget, and
Technology
- What will be created in the end?
- Requirements are always
changing
- Lack of prioritization
- How many online PM tools do we
need?
- Emphasize that no business can
predict what they want in six months
time; business is dynamic.Track and
demonstrate value, compare value
with scope (Apply 80-20 concept)
- Track velocity, target XX size in XX
months, demonstrate XX size as XX
value to business.
- Provide iterative releases, reduce time
to launch and encourage feedback.
- Tie your budget with your project
schedule.
- Less online tools, more whiteboard
and paper = greater transparency.

23. Knowledge
Pitfall Suggested Solutions
Lack ofTraining and Knowledge
- 2-3 days training, no practical
experience
- Scrum rites not followed
- Burndown charts not maintained,
velocity not tracked.
- Doing waterfall phases across
various sprints.
- IT department gets training, but
what about the business and
users
- Understand that Scrum is like chess:
You can learn in one day but it takes
years to master.
- Encourage group discussions, blogs,
knowledge sharing.
- Have Agile sessions that involve the
entire team (including PO) specially at
the beginning and continue
throughout the project.
- Educate value of Scrum rites, follow
religiously.

24. Organization
Pitfall Suggested Solutions
Organizational Model
- Culture is deeply rooted in
traditional & set waterfall model
- Not focused on delivering value
- Lack of prioritization at the
portfolio level
- Availability of personal with right
skill
- General resistance to change
- Management vision & support
- Developers do QA? Huh?!
- No PMs?!
- Train BOTH business users and IT on
Agile Scrum.
- Emphasize on reduced time to market
- Short, iterative releases give business
users something to play with.
- Users often don’t know what they
really want until they see it.
- Give people time to considerAgile.
- Screen potential team members for
the right skillset and background.
- Demonstrate the value of developers
assisting with QA.

25. Communication
Pitfall Suggested Solutions
Communication and Collaboration
- Availability, involvement and
responsiveness of product owner
- No constructive criticism; no
transparency in issues.
- Scrum master ability to facilitate
- Conflict resolution techniques
missing
- Organize site visits, face to face
interactions to improve trust and
comfort level
- Create and implement communication
matrix at the beginning
- Use smart presence (PO &Team
logged on to video cam through out
the day)
- Use situation walls
- Encourage business canvas, Product
canvas approach

26. SituationWalls
26

27. Smart Presence
27

28. Q&A

29. Contact Us
Mohammad Faiz - mdfaizu@gmail.com
LinkedIn group – Agile Project Management inTokyo
Daniel Monahan - dan_monahan@yahoo.com
LinkedIn group – Project Management inTokyo