RE: [AM] AM and Project Management

(responding to Lester)

> My main concern with AM without PM comes with task
> commitment and the timing thereof. When a developer
> is given free reign of his/her time they tend to be overly
> agile with timely deliverables. So something that could
> have taken a week could end up taking two weeks,
> because there is a sense of "what the heck" its agile,
> we can change schedules without too much fuss. The
> deliverable artifact is going to change anyway so why
> must it be delivered this week. This attitude can then
> add "time wasted" creep into software project schedules
> which are almost always already under estimated.

'Agile' doesn't have to imply 'Undisciplined'.  You still
need appropriate management practices.  Agile
Modeling doesn't say what those practices should be.
I'd be concerned about AM without PM, so I wouldn't
do AM without PM, I'd add in some PM and any other
aspects of development that need addressing - some
coding and testing, perhaps?

If you have this situation, try asking the developers to
provide estimates for time of completion of tasks, then
hold retrospectives to investigate what's getting in the
way of completing the tasks at the estimated time (among
other things that could benefit from the occasional 
retrospective).  If the estimates weren't good, work on
improving them.  If too many distractions ate into the
time, work on removing the distractions.  If an unrealistic
schedule is driving unrealistic estimates, work on 
changing the schedule - ideally by de-scoping some 
low-priority work.  If the developers are wasting time,
try to find ways of keeping them focussed for a
reasonable proportion of the time.  Work toward
early delivery of the most important  functionality,
choose a small enough slice and a reasonably close
date (maybe two weeks hence?).  Avoid blame, it
tends to focus people on shifting blame rather than
understanding and solving the problems.

There are all sorts of techniques and practices in the
bag of agile 'tricks', but you will need to look elsewhere
than Agile Modeling to find them, unless they are about
modelling.  There's a lot of useful information about
practices under the Risk Management section on
www.aptprocess.com but this isn't arranged into a
methodology, it's really designed as an 'add-on' to
what you get in a methodology, for where specific
risks are covered inadequately.  One could build a
process from scratch from the practices, but it's surely
better to start from one of the 'off-the-peg' starting
points such as XP, Crystal, FDD or Scrum.  Agile
Modeling, Agile Database, Appropriate Process
and Agile Project Management are all dealing with 
specific aspects of development, rather than being
full methodologies.


Paul Oldfield

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
www.aptprocess.com

any opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of
Mentors of Cally or the Appropriate Process Movement
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

For more information about AM, visit the Agile Modeling Home Page at www.agilemodeling.com
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