Blogsphere Guide

I found this article while looking at the services Ogilvy (the ad, marketing, PR, etc agency) provides. It discusses how the entire blogsphere (blogs, wikis, podcasts, etc) should (or could) be used for formal corporate marketing, and some of the guiding principles for their use.

Reliability and Innovation

Jim Highsmith makes some interesting statements and recommendations in his book - this is a must-read as it also has many real-life anecdotes and other industry/acedemic references. The top-line summary is that any company in the marketplace has demands to continually innovate while facing pressures to reduce costs, and to deliver in a reliable manner. Agile Project Management (APM) provides the framework to do so.

He discusses the difference between repeatability and reliability of execution of projects - he argues that the former is for production processes and the latter is for exploration processes (where requirements are uncertain). This means that rather than focusing on time, scope, budget of projects we should focus on time, vision, schedule. The difference here is that the project delivers / implements a valuable product (implemented vision) of what the customer actually wanted within the time & budget constraints, rather than a completely pre-specificed result.

Another interesting observation is the manner in which companies innovate products do not follow linear development paths, and have a high degree and frequency of market feedback (which in our case might actually mean our specific client who is paying for a the project!). Interaction with the end-user is key and too many people substituue interaction for documentation ("throw it over the wall at the development team" syndrome). [Separately, for those interested in technology & innovation, check out "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Clayton M. Christensen]

There are many very interesting concepts in this book (particularly: Complexity and how working at "the edge of chaos" generates the most innovation; complex adaptive systems theory reshaping scientific and management thinking; adaptive versus compliance management approaches, amongst others). All said and done, his framework for APM does resemble a lot of what we have done for our clients and implement in our project teams (ie deliver customer value, iterative/feature-based delivery, technical excellence, pragmatic (simplistic?) approach. Jim provides the framework and concepts to provide more insight and control over how these are implemented and managed. Get this book, it is a worthy read for all those interested in not just APM, but in general control, systems, and organizational theories, etc

Agile PM tools - review

Colleague of mine if currently doing some reviews on some Agile PM tools..

Project Risk Management Tools

I am interested in seeing what people are using out there for project and risk management tools in Agile projects -- other than excel, MS Project, etc. Specifically, I am interested in hearing about people's experience with XPlanner and its relative strengths/weaknesses. Found this review. What else are people using ?

I am also waiting to see what the Agile Project Leadership Network comes up with in terms of specific tools and strategies. Their principles sound fine to me, but lets see some details, guys ! (Do you need to be a member to see everything they are discussing ?). I did see this though in their website: a comparison of CMMI and their Declaration of Interdependence.

Here is another interesting article discussing PERT, CPM and Agile Project Management..

Update: based on the comment, I also found this great set of resource on agile project management on Rally's website.

Client Meeting -- Another Risk Mgt Sell

A couple of us went to see a prospective client yesterday. To cut a rather long story short, they need a team of real heavy duty technical talent to build out their application and technical infrastructure since their current consulting firm does not have the wherewithall to get the job done.

We met with the senior manager who asked some obvious but pertinent questions. How do we structure projects in terms of risk and project management ? What controls do we put in place before and during a project ? How do we work with other incumbent groups in an organization, whether they are employees or other consultants ? How do we incentivize and motivate our staff to get the project done ? Many of these are general questions we take care of through engagement and relationship managent, project-specific structures, employee benefits packages, as well as team-based get-togethers, etc.

Ultimately though, once again it comes down to how we mitigate risk (particularly for a new client we have not worked with before): put a plan together for a series of quick hits of delivering functionality, demonstrate our value and potential, gain quick feedback, provide quality rather than quantity (and they will pay for quality), regular communication at the executive and project level, etc. And guess what kind of approach provides that .... ?!

Also, buyers of products and services tend to think of the things in a different way than those doing the selling or execution, so the message and approach of a project needs to bridge that gap. I have mentioned some ideas before on this. Here also. However, one can only address most of buyer's objections and issues so far. There is a philosophical difference in mindset in how different people sometimes think of these projects (ie CFO vs PM vs vendor). Fundamentally, how can you ever 100% guarantee scope, time and budget to any client without something giving and breaking the financial vaiability of the project ? You can't. So therefore don't even bother trying to figure that out.

It is about trust, shared responsbility and risk mgt. (see this on trust as well). If you can't get the first two, forget it. Problems, dependencies and issues happen on every project and sometime unexpectedly -- your solution/ approach needs to expect and embrace this.