Agile Business Change Blog Thoughts on Agile Strategic Business Change and Agile Delivery
19
JUL
Making Agile Work in Government
19 JUL 2011 | Posted in agile governance, Agile in Government, Agile in public sector, Government, procurement | Author John Wright |
2 Comments
MailThe current Government governance process directs project managers to think in a waterfall way and set projects up that way.
It is all too easy to do the big up front analysis and specification and then reuse existing contracts for the supply of software than it is to think of whether there is a better way.
Individual project managers don't have the remit to change the procurement model or the process and are measured against how they perform and adhere to the existing governance process. There is no real incentive for project managers to change what they do even if they think there is a better way!
To allow an agile approach to be selected by project managers there needs to be a governance framework and procurement model that enables projects to be setup differently so that they support the agile process.
Currently, agile projects only succeed in Government when the project team takes a 'risk' and goes outside the standard governance process.
For more projects to succeed using the agile process, the governance process need to be changed to incorporate the agile process and guidance must be provided to support and encourage teams that are new to the agile approach.
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I'm an experienced Agile project manager and am particularly interested in governance and contractual issues. I have a hands on approach and have been running and coaching Agile teams since the late 90’s.
WHAT WE'RE SAYING
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MAY
I get asked the question ‘who is your favourite 19th century Prussian Field Marshal’ quite a lot, as I suspect you do as well. There are of course several great contenders for this title, but my vote has to go Helmuth Von Moltke the Elder. Why? Because of his contribution to the concept of dynamic planning! Trying to convince people that planning is a continuous and never ending process and not something that’s completed at the start of a project is a constant challenge for me and I will grab any support I can get.
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Comments
21 Jul 2011 14:06
There actually is nothing in the US Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) that make it more difficult to adopt an Agile approach other than how it is interpreted. The fact that there was a huge emphasis on Project Management Professional (PMP) certifications for project managers created most of this misinterpretation and that really stemmed from how the PMP training was presented. The Project Management Institute (PMI) never intended to prescribe a waterfall process, but the method of how the training was delivered most PMP training companies (and books) made it seem that that was the approved way.
BTW, Waterfall can work in some contexts even IT ones, but the greater the degree of uncertainty on the project, the more that Agile and Lean software development practices shine.
Cheers!
replyPaul
15 Aug 2011 04:58
Organizations jumping to agile without well thought out plan are setting themselves up for fiasco. Agile being a very attractive methodology brings its own challenges and limitations .Its implementation, success and long term impact is questionable, as there is limited empirical information on its success. A recent survey in US and Europe revealed only 14% of corporations are currently developing products using agile methodologies, which is not a big number ….Why? Agile is still considered to be risky as it lacks attention to design and software architecture .
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