{"id":53874,"date":"2021-07-04T13:59:11","date_gmt":"2021-07-04T08:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tothenew.com\/blog\/?p=53874"},"modified":"2022-01-07T05:59:26","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T00:29:26","slug":"application-of-agile-in-complex-delivery-projects-a-case-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tothenew.com\/blog\/application-of-agile-in-complex-delivery-projects-a-case-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Application of Agile in Complex Delivery Projects: A Case Study"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can you adopt Agile in challenging delivery projects? Say, where customers are impatient with their timeline.
\nThe answer is YES<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Challenges<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Let us first look at the challenges a typical Project Manager \/ Project Lead face in such engagements:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  • Productivity<\/li>\n
  • Client challenges (Disagreement on delivery dates)<\/li>\n
  • Change management \/ ad-hoc implementation requests<\/li>\n
  • Escalation matrix<\/li>\n
  • Ill-defined team structure<\/li>\n
  • Release pipeline<\/li>\n
  • QA challenges \/ Regression quality issues post client delivery<\/li>\n
  • Inter team or inter track connects not streamlined<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Before we see how Agile helps address some of these problems, it is important to note that at this stage where the project \/ client are challenging, there is no immediate need to move to a framework.<\/span>
    \nAt first, we are looking at getting the best processes and practices in place.<\/span>
    \n\"\"
    \nBelow are some of the measures that could be taken. They have been split into Immediate, Short term or Medium \/ long term<\/b> action items.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Immediate<\/b><\/h4>\n

    Process Enablement<\/b><\/h4>\n
      \n
    • Move to JIRA or any other issue tracking tool<\/i> – At times it is already in place, however, it isn’t used religiously<\/li>\n
    • Test Cases<\/i> should be agreed between service provider and client at the outset (or as early as possible during development)<\/li>\n
    • Demo<\/i> for all enhancements should be done before rolling out to UAT (or similar environments) to avoid gaps<\/li>\n
    • Metrics<\/i> that can be started \u2013 Defect Density \/ Escaped Defects, Velocity Footprints (how much to be picked up for future release), Planned vs done ratios, Burn-down charts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      People Enablement<\/b><\/h4>\n
        \n
      • Role Definition \/ Role Mapping \/ Skill Gap Analysis<\/li>\n
      • Team Structure\u00a0 – Cross Functional Teams –\u00a0 Plan to Split into Smaller tracks \/ teams with the people from the right skillset in each team \u2013 This should ideally not be a competency based splitting, rather it should be towards a business objective (Ideal team size of 10 or less)<\/li>\n
      • Tracks \u2013 Operations \/ Support (ideally should be driven in a Kanban – WIP) and Development (Scrum Framework can be used)<\/li>\n
      • Start the discussion around Release Strategy and Automation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        Short Term Action Items<\/h4>\n
          \n
        • Adoption of Best Practices \u2013 Development (Code quality – SonarQube \/ Veracode), Deployment (Automated \/ One Click Deployment)<\/li>\n
        • Start the alignment towards proven SDLC Methodologies – Mindset \/ Terminologies\u00a0 and bring it up in client discussions<\/li>\n
        • Take Feedback from internal and external clients<\/li>\n
        • Create your project repository on Confluence<\/li>\n
        • Start discussions (internal \/ client) around adoption of Agile (only discussions for now like which framework to use, etc.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

          Medium to Long Term Action Items<\/b><\/h4>\n
            \n
          • Adopt an Agile Framework<\/li>\n
          • Create a roadmap from Agile to Scaled Agile<\/li>\n
          • Make the customer aligned to the Agile Journey<\/li>\n
          • Have Customers participate in Agile Ceremonies<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

            \"\"
            \nTo conclude we should adopt agile as a mindset and not a framework. Start by correcting internal problems – adopt best practices, make things transparent, enable usage of relevant tools and metrics. This will fix your basic challenges and lay a strong foundation over which you can slowly have your clients adopt Agile.<\/span><\/p>\n

            <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            Can you adopt Agile in challenging delivery projects? Say, where customers are impatient with their timeline. The answer is YES. Challenges Let us first look at the challenges a typical Project Manager \/ Project Lead face in such engagements: Productivity Client challenges (Disagreement on delivery dates) Change management \/ ad-hoc implementation requests Escalation matrix Ill-defined […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1356,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1},"categories":[1993,1994],"tags":[324,4880],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tothenew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53874"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tothenew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tothenew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tothenew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1356"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tothenew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53874"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.tothenew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54448,"href":"https:\/\/www.tothenew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53874\/revisions\/54448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tothenew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tothenew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tothenew.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}