Overview of Stakeholder Engagement Techniques

Inspired by the quote, "Tell me about your friends, I will tell you who you are!" I used to tell any project manager "Tell me about stakeholder engagement strategy, I will tell you how successful your project will be!"  This is the same message when a group of learners in a project management professional certification asked about which models to use in stakeholder engagement.  Since projects come in many sizes of varying complexity and not all stakeholders are the same, there is no one correct answer for selecting the model that fits! 

Furthermore, Palan (2020) provides four different stakeholder persona which is a very interesting way to look at how stakeholders may be categorized. These include the following. So, each stakeholder persona focuses on several areas of the problem and their overall perception needs to be managed. Finally, in the end, all stakeholder engagement approaches are getting people to identify, deliver, and sustain value maximization (Barth, Ulvenblad, & Ulvenblad, 2017).

• HIPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion), 
• WOLF (Working on Latest Fire), 
• RHINO (Really High-value New Opportunity), and 
• Zebra (Zero Evidence But Really Arrogant).

In my book on Organized Common Sense (Rajagopalan, 2018), I expand on a basic technique on the ABC of Stakeholder. It is understanding the authority (power), behavior (influence) they have on people, and the extent of concern or care (interest). Over the years of my experience managing stakeholders, I call these principles the ABC of stakeholders. Now, as the project size varies and depending on the stage the project is in, there are many techniques. Some are very common and some are not very common. 

1. Power-Interest Grid
• This is a very common technique (PMBOK, 2017) where people map the stakeholder engagement strategy with four quadrants. The X-axis has a interest on low-to-high scale and the Y-axis has the power on a low-to-high scale with (low, low) at the origin. Accordingly, four strategies emerge.
• High-Power, High-Interest 👉Manage Closely (Sponsor, Regulators)
• High-Power, Low-Interest 👉Keep Satisfied (Other Decision-Makers, Suppliers)
• Low-Power, High-Interest 👉Keep Informed (Delivery Team, Operational Team)
• Low-Power, Low-Interest 👉Monitor Marginally (Employees, Users)
• This approach is good for small-to-medium projects but doesn't scale very well for larger projects unless only critical stakeholders are captured. 
2. Stakeholder Map
• While the Power-Interest Grid is a good one to identify the way you engage with people, one can draw significant stakeholder-to-stakeholder influence, such as who has the listening ears of another, who has more trustworthy relationship, who can gather insights from other sources, etc. 
• The knowledge of these behavioral influence map is inferred and observed and not necessarily drawn from the title or hierarchy in the organizational chart. 
• People can use arrows, colors, and size of the stakeholder circle in the quadrant to draw such influence directions so that this knowledge furthermore can be used (Anonymous, personal communication, PMI MassBay Chapter Meeting, 2014). 
• Since "influence" is about leadership and leadership is not just with a title, I prefer the Power-Interest over "Influence-Interest" or "Influence-Impact" or "Power-Influence" diagrams. 
• This approach is good for small-to-medium projects but doesn't scale very well for larger projects unless only critical stakeholders are captured.
3. Stakeholder Cube
• This approach is an attempt to scale power-interest gird (PMBOK, 2017) with the influence making three dimensions and evaluating the engagement strategy.
• This approach, in my experience, is more theoretical than practical as it is very hard for people conceptualize the strategy in three dimensions with influence being an observed behavior that can't be mapped to a quantitative or qualitative scale.
4. RACI
• This is a popular tabular structure indicating responsibility assignment matrix (RAM) (PMBOK, 2017) that maps people or the role to four areas. They include responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed (Rajagopalan, 2014a). 
• There are many conceptual errors people inculcate due to the lack of understanding the power of this tool. Please read Rajagopalan (2014b) for more details.
• This tool will work well for larger projects, programs, and portfolios but care is required in capturing more critical stakeholders. 
5. Stakeholder Engagement Assessment Matrix
• This is another good tool to evaluate the perception of the stakeholders' journey (PMBOK, 2017) in your project. Typically, these perceptions are that they are unaware of the project, negatively influenced and so resistant, neutral about supporting the project due to lack of connection with the project outcomes, supportive of project's outcome, or champions of the project.  Depending upon what stage of the stakeholder journey they are in, the strategy may involve informing, educating, or committing them. 
• This is also a good tool for small-to-medium projects. It can scale well for a larger project, program, or portfolio with some modifications of the critical stakeholders captured.
6. Stakeholder Register
• This is another popular tool and is more of a tabular structure (PMBOK, 2017) summarize essential details. It may be difficult to read the diagram and charts and so this structure helps with stakeholder-engagement to communication management plan. 
7. Salience Model
• This is a good model that makes the first attempt to scale to larger initiatives (PMBOK, 2017). Here, three variables are evaluated and these include power, legitimacy, and urgency. 
• It uses the Powe∩Legitimacy∩Urgency diagram to demonstrate seven types of stakeholders. 
• These involve dormant, discretionary, demanding stakeholders at the external side of power, legitimacy and urgency.
• The dominant stakeholder is between power and legitimacy, the dependent stakeholder is between legitimacy and urgency, and the dangerous stakeholder is between power and urgency. 
• The definitive stakeholder is at the intersection.
• The model does not recommend removing any type of stakeholder but expects one to evaluate the characteristics of when to engage them.
8. CATWOE Analysis
• This model recommends (Bergvall-Kåreborn, Mirijamdotter, Basden, 2004) looking at the categories of stakeholders and evaluate perceptions from their viewpoint. 
• It stands for customer, actor, transformation, worldwide view, owner, and environment. 
• Customer 👉 Mostly made up of company paying client or the client's customers or the company's direct end-users
• Actor 👉Any person or group responsible for delivering the solution (product, service, or result)
• Transformation 👉Any process, tool, or method that the actors use to convert input to outputs (This could be executional, decision-making, or operational processes)
• Worldwide view 👉 This aspect corresponds to high level policy and associated standards and regulations that they need to adhere and be compliant with. 
• Owner 👉This member or group is responsible for collective decision-making 
• Environment 👉The internal and external environment that facilitates all the above to work together (the people, process, product)
• In practice, the order of events should be Worldwide View, Transformation, Customer, Actor, Owner, and Environment 
• Worldwide view binds the reasons why projects or programs started (e.g.: regulation)
• Transformation looks into the internal and external processes that support the projects and programs to deliver
• Customer provides the requirements that the actors must evaluate to understand, fill the gaps, and prioritize (Backlog or scope)
• Actors work together to deliver the output, capability, outcome and benefit for value realization
• Owner approves the project for the team to continue their work 
• Owner and actor are also responsible to create the environment conducive for delivery 
• This model is more to ensure that everyone is on the same page in terms of the project scope and no shocks or surprises are present. It is more of a stakeholder perception management tool.
9. I-C-ICE
• This framework is large-to-larger projects mostly in the public services (IAP2 Spectrum, n.d.), such as building a city, highway or railway management, new supply chain route, airport and telecommunication network, etc. 
• It stands for Inform-Consult-Involve-Collaborate-Empower and predominantly derives support from many of the previous techniques such as Power-Interest Grid, Salience Model, RACI, etc.
10. Onion Diagram
• Just like the layers of onion, (some of you may be familiar with the layers of onion used in the Agile approaches), this approach derives its approach from identifying the stakeholders or stakeholder groups closer to the delivery team (Alexander, 2004). 
• Think of the core as the "Customer Operating System". The people closer to this core are the business analyst, product owner, project manager, developers, and testers. 
• The group in the next outer layer are operational team members, customer support, help desk, users, and some of the extended business teams (marketing, for instance).
• The next layer will be decision makers mostly internal to the company such as the sponsor and governance committee
• The next layer could be internal or external influential experts, consultants, suppliers, vendors, or regulators 
• The final layer could be market research team focusing on competition, users, market segments, etc.
• While there are benefits to this approach, it also distances people and unless there is a good communication cadence to regularly collect voice of customer and voice of business feedback and ongoing market intelligence, there could be challenges. 
11. Proximity Chart
• This model is a revision of the onion diagram with some level of stakeholder engagement assessment matrix. 
• It has emerged from data analysis techniques on how closely data points related together on the central tendency.
• It sill uses the layered approach but brings the SEAM approaches like who opposes the project and who supports the project to evaluate strategies.
• Stakeholder Map ideas can be brought here to draw influence directions. 
• It still has the same challenge of distancing people and requires a frequent communication to ensure that stakeholders feel engaged and connected.
12. Resistance Pyramid
1. This approach emerged from the change management context on understanding how humans perceive and deal with change. The model was introduced by Nieder and Zimmerman (Galpin, 1996). Instead of using a layered concentric circle approach, this approach builds on a pyramid.
2. The layers of the pyramid list people that are not knowing about the project, not able to deliver on the outcome, and not willing to support the initiative. 
3. On either side of the pyramid, the reasons for their current state and the potential actions that can be taken are listed. 
4. I have seen people that breakdown the reasons with root-cause-analysis and further extend by force-field-analysis. 
5. While this is a good one in concept, some of the earlier techniques like Power-Interest grid and Stakeholder Engagement Assessment Matrix are simpler and more manageable!

So, after reviewing these frameworks, that have been present for a long period, which is good? There is no one-size-fits-all. The more we look at these techniques, the more we can see that there are a lot of similarities and differences. Depending upon the specific project, pick what matters and improvise! If we recommend one as the best, then, it is like saying agile or traditional approach is a good candidate for all projects. 

What are your thoughts? I am sure I may have missed a technique in a specific industry. Let me know your thoughts.

References

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (2017). Project Management Institute, 2017. APA, 7th ed. Project Management Institute.

Alexander, I. F. (2004, June). A Better Fit-Characterising the Stakeholders. In CAiSE Workshops (2) (pp. 215-223).

Barth, H., Ulvenblad, P. O., & Ulvenblad, P. (2017). Towards a conceptual framework of sustainable business model innovation in the agri-food sector: A systematic literature review. Sustainability (Switzerland), 9(9), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9091620

Bergvall-Kåreborn, B., Mirijamdotter, A. & Basden, A. (2004). Basic Principles of SSM Modeling: An Examination of CATWOE from a Soft Perspective. Systemic Practice and Action Research 17, 55–73.

Galpin, T (1996). The Human Side of Change, San Francisco, Jossey Bass.

IAP2 Spectrum (n.d).  https://iap2usa.org/resources/Documents/Core%20Values%20Awards/IAP2%20-%20Spectrum%20-%20stand%20alone%20document.pdf

Palan, H. (2020). The dangerous animals of product management and how to tame them. Customer Think.  https://customerthink.com/the-dangerous-animals-of-product-management-and-how-to-tame-them/

Rajagopalan, S. (2014a). RACI: An important tool to manage project outcomes and stakeholder expectations. https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2014/06/raci-important-tool-to-manage-project.html

Rajagopalan, S. (2014b). RACI: Errors and Implications in building the right one. https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2014/07/raci-errors-and-implications-in.html

Rajagopalan, S. (2018). Organized Common Sense. Outskirts Press.

Gift of Teaching: Why it should matter to anyone?

"Why do you like teaching so much?" asked my son as I was wrapping a call with one of my students. It was not on a regular work day or during the evening that I teach. He has known me to teach at colleges and universities as well as through my own training organization (Agile Training Champions) that I founded with the only purpose of "Making a Difference." Yes, both my parents were teachers. So, I could say "Teaching runs in my blood!" To me, teaching is not for time-passing but building the society! 

Teaching, to me, is the way people create leaders! Teaching demonstrates one's love for the subject and builds character through that subject in students. In my humble opinion, if a student doesn't like a subject, it tells volumes about the teachers and their way of teaching! Why do people claim "Phobia for Math" in early grades in school?  Scientists call Math as the Language of the Universe and how are we promoting quest for knowledge in the younger minds? How are we creating the love for the subject if we sow the seeds of fear for a subject? Teachers who love teaching teach their children to love learning!  

I had a good friend's sibling in school fail a subject back in India. This was many years back. I took it upon myself to teach this subject to the student and get the student to register for the exam again and finally succeed. I may not be available for every star fish that is washed ashore, but I made a difference to that one person's life! When this person managed to contact me several years later (as we got separated due to my stay abroad), the expression of how I mattered is priceless. 

Furthermore, teaching is not about showing the expertise to students but being able to demonstrate our ability to learn from the students. It is a highest form of displaying modesty and humility! At a level that others see you as an expert, you demonstrate your vulnerability and willingness to learn from the students. In the movie, "Taare Zammen Par," the teacher takes an interest in a young student's way of expression and changes the perception of the school, the student's parents, and the life of the child by relating the autistic children! Good teachers do not categorize students as 'slow poke," as one of the teachers talked about my son. I wish the teacher who called Edison as unable to learn anything can know how wrong the teacher was about Edison. As Dale Carnegie says in his book, (paraphrased) "Even He does not judge us until after death; so, who are we to judge others?

Good teachers owe their students to own 'continuous learning' and 'learning at every moment!" My classes focus on movies and anecdotal thoughts from such movies on many topics. "The ideas get cemented in my mind," said a few students from people that hear learning by association is a daily event! Students learn better when they experience their teacher's love for the subject and care for their students! That's why I continue to study not only fill my own gaps in knowledge but also demonstrate my love for making a difference. And, trust me, students monitor our progress and get motivated "Fuel their fire for growth" is what teaching to me means! 

"Passion feeds knowledge and knowledge feeds passion!" No other profession other than teaching comes closer in this symbiotic relationship. Even thought I know the subject at the back of my hand, I prepare for changes in the market place, new events that are relevant, and the type of audience in the class. So, every class is a project and so requires just enough planning to deliver the message better. And, the students bring their rich experience and help you fill the gaps between sentences, words, and characters in your own subject! I am better in my concepts today because my students taught me!  

Good teachers enable their students to support their ongoing journey! They share their knowledge willingly and copiously through any and many forms as possible. In fact, to me, teaching is the best form of demonstrating servant leadership, situational leadership, and transformational leadership! In the movie, Hitchki, I remember a great saying about the teachers. 

"A normal teacher teaches, 

  a good teacher makes one understand, 

  a great teacher demonstrates how to apply the concepts, but 

  only some teachers inspire us to take a message forward"

If I can make a difference in one person's life by spreading through my life experience, teaching is the way I continue to "make a difference" by inspiring everyone that I have an opportunity to interface with.

To my parents, siblings, friends, family, all the teachers and the students that taught me and continue to teach me, thanks!

Powerful Communication: Lessons learned from High School Essay Writing

As part of my projecting leaders of tomorrow (PLOT) initiative, I try to introduce the concepts of project management and agility to high-school students and sometimes non-project managers. One opportunity presented itself to me when a student approached regarding preparing to write a compelling essay for the scholarship. The student had some knowledge about the essay types such as argumentative, expository, narrative and descriptive styles but was still was having 'writer's block'. I viewed this problem analogous to how many professionals communicate leaving the stakeholders to wonder what is being asked of them! Any artifact, project status report or graphical widgets, similar to essays written in school should focus on what is the outcome desired from the report, graph, or essay delivered. 

Let us first differentiate the four essay types. The argumentative essay is using credible research to develop a factual or evidence supported opinion. For instance, "Did remote team environment exist before the COVID-19 pandemic?"  To some extent, this argumentative essay builds on an hypothesis or a thesis statement. Instead of asking a question, one can make a statement that "Remote team environment exist before the COVID-19 pandemic" and use research from credible sources to support or refute it. In statistical circles, we call this approach as the null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis where we use data to support the evidence. The difference in this argumentative essay is that we are not building statistical or empirical data analysis to support but to use insights and opinions using qualitative research. 

The expository essays come from a position of knowledge or sometimes to test the understanding of your subject. These essays are more of "an expert's take" approach. The goal here is not to evaluate whether you are using your analytical skills to support your thesis. Instead, the approach takes on bringing a delicately balanced views so that the knowledge to avoid any appearance of motivational or cognitive bias. For example, "The COVID-19 pandemic tested everyone's digital literacy to work remotely!" is a statement that you would like to test your understanding. While you may prove the plethora of tools that came up during the pandemic and how it facilitated people to maintain relationships, you can also discuss the challenges of computer literacy and security issues that made many people vulnerable to hacking. Again, this essay can leverage from both qualitative, quantitative, or a mixed research style. 

The narrative essays are building on a personal touch! This essay is more of an opinion piece! They could be emotional or factual depending upon the specific story. For instance, the "Heroes Journey" to story telling (Rajagopalan, 2020) is a narrative essay approach. One can write "Global Warming was reduced because of the COVID-19 pandemic where people worked remotely!" Most of the movie-making is a story telling exercise that weave a personal message. I recall a technique (Skip Weisman, personal communication, Jun 13, 2018) from my coach. This approach here is to leverage curiosity by setting the characters in the circumstance, existence or development of conflict, definition of cure, appearance of change during the pursuit of cure, ability to callback or carryout the activities amid the challenges and finally come to the closure. 

The descriptive essay is becoming a creative artist in telling a part of the narrative essay. It frequently is making emotional connections! We all know Yoda and Dark Vader or Simba and Pumpaa. As soon as you read these character names, they appear in your mind! When you think of Spiderman, you think of his lifestyle in a busy New York downtown. You are not thinking of Simba in the downtown New York or Spiderman in Pride Lands in Africa!  Such an artist's rendition of the place the story took place or the object/person that had the challenges is brought in the form of powerful words. I recall one of the best opening statements from Jeffrey Archer's book, Kane and Abel, that reads, "She only stopped screaming when she died. It was then that he started to scream" describing how a mother gave up life during childbirth. 

So, how do these four essay types compare with project level communication (or for that matter communication in professional lives)? I have mentioned in my book on organized common sense that the communication falls under persuasive, informatory, or exploratory (PIE) communication. I call this the communication PIE. 

1. The persuasive communication is required when you are recommending a decision (terminating a project, funding a program, etc.). These types of communication are therefore either argumentative or expository depending on the level of subject matter expertise you bring to the table. 
2. The informative communication is more of a status quo balancing multiple elements (scope, schedule, cost, quality, risk, procurement, stakeholders, resources, change) and so is often an expository level of communication. 
3. The exploratory communication is often taking some level of persona to try out an experiment and so I view them as narrative essays. 

The descriptive can be used in combination with the narrative essays for larger level vision and direction to motivate people! For instance, by integrating our processes around one application lifecycle management tool, we benefit from reducing the operating expenses by 30% increasing our likelihood of employees receiving annual bonus. Imagine what would that extra bonus in your hands can do! Fund your children education, make that dream vacation possible, etc. Now, you are painting a picture of what is to come and what people need to do to realize that reality.

What are your thoughts? Thoughts? 

References

Rajagopalan, S. (2020). Leaders are good story tellers. https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2020/03/leaders-are-good-story-tellers.html 

Team Management Guidelines: Treasure from my Archives

As I was doing Fall clean up of my room, I felt ecstatic when I found one of my scribbled notes on an old journal record on the guidelines on team management. It was one of the preparations I had done for a PMO round table on team management. The guidelines were the recommendations of  Jerry Wellman (2011). While the concepts were straight forward here, I decided to put this here with some additional thoughts and share it for the community. All the eight habits are recommendations from Wellman (2011) and although these are recommendations for project team, I feel that it applies to any type of strategic and executional team.

1. Shared Vision
• Establish Clear Roles - This is not to indicate titles but roles with broader responsibilities
• Develop the Objectives together to foster buy-in - Teams work together better if they co-author the working agreements
2. Set Expectations
• Translate overall vision into specific objectives - Discuss in clear unambiguous terms how the vision is mapped into strategic objectives (product, program, portfolio, etc.)
• Discuss commitments - availability, updates, process checks - As people commit to work, ask them to think about other elements that will endanger their commitment. 
3. Integrated Plan
• Decide on deliverables for the project - What, when, who, how, why? - While we discuss about deliverables within in the project context, explore alternative thinking on these same thoughts for backlog refinement and phased approaches to rolling wave planning.
• How do you measure success? - Ensure that we agree on what matters to the team's health! Measure what matters rather than what can be measured.
4. Measure Performance
• Synchronous and asynchronous touch-base on status - With remote teams, don't ask for meetings at hours that make it difficult for team members in other timezones to meet. Use both synchronous and asynchronous means to validate success. Promote unambiguous written communication.
• Act as each other's eyes - Don't just see what you want to see - Yes, it is a cliche that it takes a whole village to build a village! But, it is not just a cliche and is fact! 
5. Allow for Uncertainty
• Be flexible - Identify risks and prepare for them - What more can I say here that I have not already said!
• Discuss risks and treatment plans identify triggers in advance - Identify triggers that can make the risks materialize! Have a plan to monitor risks!
6. Manage Change
• Identify slips proactively and have a plan to manage change - There are supposed to change management protocols and governance. Use an audit based governance mechanism to promote expedited approvals. 
• Monitor change with client and internal teams - Remember change occurs everywhere all the time. So, be an agent of change from both the external and internal environments!  
7. Continually Influence
• Think outside the box - clients are reasonable and understanding - Don't compliant about unreasonable clients. Are you ready to listen to their "unreasonable vendors"? 
• Think laterally to influence - Influence is all about leadership bringing behavioral changes to others - external and internal to the delivery team.
8. Regularly Over-Communicate
• Understand various means to communicate and use all channels effectively - Be comfortable with writing/speaking on all the channels of communication
• Even it is common sense, communicate. - Let others be the judge of the information they receive!

Thoughts not in bold and italics but after the hyphen in every element are my extension of ideas! Happy to hear your thoughts.

References

Wellman, J. (2011). Eight habits of successful project teams. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan 

Product Backlog is not a Queue

Following up with a few PMP certification candidates during their preparation, I heard people say "We put any idea into a queue in the backlog." In general, lean management thinking discards the concepts of large queues or batch sizes as these large queues increase the risk of non-delivery and non-compliance. I am sure we have all write a large list of things to accomplish in a day or week only to find that we accomplished only a percentage of them. Fundamentally, queue and backlog serve different purposes and to say that we queue up ideas in a backlog means we may set ourselves to fail without clear understanding of these terms. 

Both the backlog and queue are containers for work. But the type of work in them are different. The fundamental difference is that the backlog continuously grows requiring prioritization but the queue fixed and work in progress. Consequently, the backlog contains future oriented ideas to develop the product. It could be change requests, experiments, enhancements for currently working functionality, and non-functional features. But the items in the queue are work in progress items frequently mentioned in the iteration backlog or the release backlog depending upon how agile is practiced in an organization (single cadence due to the nature of the product, for example).

Items in the backlog therefore require research and evaluation by both stakeholders and team members to assess their market fitness of these capabilities on a number of different attributes such as alignment to strategic initiatives (objectives and goals) as well as the ability to deliver (infrastructural considerations and team's ability to deliver and sustain). So, backlog items are often evaluated for desirability, viability, and feasibility.  The prioritization techniques could involve Kano Model, MoSCoW model, etc.

Items in the queue are supposed to avoid buildup. This is the reason why Lean Manufacturing introduced the Work-In-Process (sometimes called Work in Progress) or WIP to limit them. The idea is that the flow is maintained. Everybody should be able to remove the WIP and pick up the next prioritized item, thus requiring the cross-functional orientation (Here is where T, Pi, V- and E-shaped skills came into existence). I am sure people can relate to the notions of FIFO or LIFO queues with the goal that we are constantly cleaning the queue. These are items committed to be done by the team and hence prioritization may be already addressed. But, their ability to block themselves can not be ruled out so that people ensure that other techniques like RICE (Reach-Impact-Confidence, Effort) or WSTF (Weighted Short Job First) are used. 

Last but not the least, the product backlog, release backlog, and iteration (or sprint) backlog are the same containers. 

1. When no release/iteration is assigned to an item in the backlog, the backlog is called the product backlog. This could contain a high-level use case good for research, experimentation, exploration, or spike, or a major epic that is a breakdown of the capability which is still too big for the team to do anything about it. It could also contain other features or user stories that the team decided to park it for later consideration. 
2. When a group of iterations are packed due to the need to integrate the increments from each release and release as part of a single cadence, then, the items assigned to a release belong to the release backlog. Frequently, features and user stories are part of this release backlog.
3. When backlog items are in fact assigned directly to an iteration rather than a release, these items belong to an iteration (or sprint) backlog. Items in the iteration backlog could be part of the single cadence, multiple cadence, or release on demand. Iteration backlog contains both the user stories (Iteration Planning - Part 1) and tasks (Iteration Planning Part 2). 
4. Queues apply in the iteration backlog as that is where work happens to create the increments.

The diagram below illustrates.  

Dr. Sriram Rajagopalan's synthesis of Backlog and Queues

So, let us make sure that we understand the terms right so that we don't propagate confusion and compromise clarity. 

What are your thoughts? Have I missed, misinterpreted, or miscommunicated any concepts. I am all ears! 

Critical Path: Does it still apply in today's digital projects?

Some of the questions that come up in my project management training oscillates between when to use the critical path techniques and why to use critical path in an agile context. My analogy to these questions are, "If the job required a wrench, why use a screw driver? If the job really required a screw driver, why not use a screw driver?"  I am sure some of you may recall the inspiration behind my question comes from the very old discussions on the common object request broker (CORBA) where one of the cartoon pictures summarized, "If every problem is a nail, a hammer is the only tool required!" So, the question to ask ourselves is if all the projects are the same! The project management framework identifies several techniques and tools (not commercial tools) that must be evaluated for its purpose to solve. 

Extending this analogy, let us first understand critical path. This technique has been present for several decades and was introduced in the middle of the 20th century around mid 1950s. Construction, Defense, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Transportation industries were predominant during that period building infrastructure like raising huge cities, shipping yards, rail roads, hospitals, defense systems, and highways. While there were also limited amount of computer based software and research and design initiatives, the mindset was that most of the projects should have a detailed breakdown of jobs to ensure resources were lined up when needed to avoid delay. 

For instance, when certain workers were required to offload shipment when the ship arrived, these project was staffed with these workers around that time period rather than waster their capacity waiting for the ship to arrive. Such a concept of just-in-time (JIT) costing models were pivotal to using the capacity and capability and so projects required understanding what types of activities are crucial. So, finding the longest path in the project that can't afford to slip (hence the term Float came up) was required given the two sets of book ends (early start, late start and early finish, late finish). This is the reason why the concept of critical path emerged. 

Now, let us fast forward about 50 years! We still build/upgrade infrastructure, we are also building new innovative products in the digital sphere. Software has completely eaten the world where there is not a single industry that does not have some kind of software tool or software simulation. The notion of plan-driven (Traditional), change driven (Agile) and flow-driven (Kanban) are coexisting today. In the case of Adaptive or Agile initiatives, the same team is working on the functionality in a timeboxed manner and so why is critical path required? Similarly, when flow driven initiatives apply, it is still the same core team working to eliminate queue and streamline flow invalidating the need for critical path as the focus is only on one or two items in the swimlane. One of the very reasons why the INVEST property come into picture is to eliminate the dependency among the work committed by the team (Independent). Consequently, these approaches eliminate dependency in the first place invalidating the need for critical path (activity sequencing) and using the critical chain (schedule based). 

Nevertheless, still some projects may benefit from critical path. This may involve projects in the early stage that evaluate the approximate cost required or the approximate time required to deliver. So, when Agile itself is an overhead as projects need not have such an increased interaction (e.g.: A continuous email marketing project) or the risk of experimentation may be too high (not doing the soil study before laying the foundation for a skyscraper), then, the critical path foundations may still apply. 

So, critical path is just one more tool. Use it wisely where it is needed. Not apply it in all types of projects. 

Thoughts? 

Am I Ready to Manage? Lessons from Risk Management

One of the persons I was mentoring mentioned to me that there is a possible promotion with the expectation of managing people. Having been a project manager for some time, the person asked me if the person is ready to manage people. I have always felt that "P" in "Project" is all about managing "People" (Rajagopalan, 2015). So, naturally I felt that this person had the capabilities, skills, and competencies. The larger question is not being ready but being good enough to manage people. There are things about managing people's performance and having responsibility for their career, some of which can be known. Then, there are areas about equal employment opportunity, diversity and harassment considerations, and many other human resources related concepts. The lack of knowledge about unknowns morph the question of being ready. 

I reasoned with the concepts of risk management discipline that this person was fairly confident about. In my mind, Risk Management is about using change management principles to balance chaos and control. The risk management discipline promotes the notion of risks that we know about and the risks that we know about their impact on objectives. Consequently extending the risks that we don't know or we don't know the impact of, we come up with four categories of known-known, known Unknown, Unknown-Known, and Unknown-Unknown. 

I view the unknown-unknown as a category of risks that belong to chaos. Due to the unpredictable nature and the unknown impact on our objectives, we need to be diligent. Regardless of how well diligent we are, we can never be prepared enough. So, this is where we connect with probing for what happened, analyze what we could have done, and we can sense them better in the future. As you can see, the more we do this type of probe-analyze-sense, the more we are becoming of the impact and so moving them towards the right to establish chaotic control.  So, when such similar risks hover in the horizon, we can now probe but our prior knowledge helps to categorize (risk breakdown structure) and sense the preemptive treatments. So, although it is somewhat chaotic, we are establishing some level of chaotic control. 

On the other hand, if we can study the chaos and understand its root cause, we know more about its existence but require more understanding of these risks manifest. These types of risks are then becoming controlled chaos requiring us to sense-analyze and then categorize. The more we analyze both these chaotic control and controlled chaos, the more we are controlling the influence (both their likelihood and impact) of risks on the on the project objectives. I am sure some of you can relate to the similarities of categorizing projects like the Fog (Unknown-Unknown), Quest (Known-Unknown), Movie (Unknown-Known) and Paint by Numbers (Known-Known) (Rajagopalan, 2018) based on risk management discipline. These concepts are illustrated below.

Dr. Sriram Rajagopalan's synthesis of Emotional Intelligence Concepts with Risk Management

So, how does this risk management discipline help with our questions of assessing if we are ready to manage or lead? The important thing in managing people is to illustrate to ourselves that we are good leaders. This means that we use ourselves as the instrument of emulating the behaviors we want in the people we manage. That thought borrows from emotional intelligence by first becoming consciously aware of ourselves (self-awareness is rooted in known-known) and then engaging in self-management (known-unknown). Consequently, we move on to Unknown-Unknows (social skills) and work with people instilling trust to get them to known-known (relationship). 

I recall an excellent article by Hill & Lienback (2011) guiding us in this space. They recommend that we ask ourselves questions relating to how we manage ourselves, how we manage the network, and how we manage our team (Hill & Lineback, 2011). The list of questions they promote in this area are as follows:

Manage Oneself [Known-Known]

1. Do you use your formal authority effectively?
2. Do you create thoughtful but not overly personal relationships?
3. Do others trust you as a manager?
4. Do you exercise your influence ethically?

Manage Network [Unknown-Known]

1. Do you systematically identify those who should be in your network?
2. Do you proactively build and maintain your network?
3. Do you use your network to provide the protection and resources your team needs?
4. Do you use your network to accomplish your team's goals?

Manage Team [Known-Unknown]

1. Do you define and constantly refine your team's visions for the future?
2. Do you clarify roles, work rules, team culture, and feedback about performance for your team?
3. Do you know and manage your people as individuals as well as team members?
4. Do you use your daily activities and problems to purse the three imperatives?

All these questions are exactly from Hill & Lineback (2011). As you engage in this experiment, you are consciously using your network and team to elevate unknown-unknown (blind spots). So, instead of being complacent that you know everything or sometimes even overdoing the strengths, you use humility and trust to let your team. I recall Barbara Trautlein's change intelligence concepts here as she asked people to ask themselves the following four questions:

1. What is your primary change leadership style - Using Hearts (People), Head (Purpose), or Hands (Process)?
2. What are the strengths of your style as a change leader?
3. How do you sometimes overdo your strengths making you less effective as a change leader?
4. What are the blind spots of your styles making you miss or neglect elements as a change leader? 

The more we become complacent or comfortable as a manager without continuous improvement on our self, the more we turn our strengths into weaknesses. As the recommended strategy is to always lead with your strengths, the less you sharpen your skills as Stephen Covey (1987) says, the more you are not ready. As my Chief Operating Officer once told, a good manager lets the team manage the manager. When we rate each of these questions on a scale of 1-5 and get 3 or more in each question, we are just ready. If any section is <=12, then, we have to evaluate improvement opportunities. Check with a better mentor or coach and a good manager will sometimes find them in their own people they manage! 

References

Covey, S. (1987). The 7 habits of highly effective people. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Kent, L.A. & Lineback, K. (2011). Are you a good boss - or a great one? Harvard Business Review, January-February, 3-8.

Rajagopalan, S. (2015). Project is a verb in Project Management. https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2015/10/project-is-verb-in-project-management.html

Rajagopalan, S. (2018). Organized Common Sense. Outskirts Press.

Trautlein, B. (2016). Communicating Change: Tell your story (Handout). Distributed in the PMI MassBay Professional Development day 2016.

Agility and Scrum: Conversations outside of IT Software World

Through some of the corporate training work I had done, I got a referral to work with a couple of professional evangelists in India. They were trying to introduce efficient ways of working through a combination of process improvement concepts and tools in the construction space. As part of the initial interview, I found out there was an executive level interest on increasing focus on building people up with experimental ideas to pilot and pivot! Naturally, I explored the notion Scrum or Agile and there was an almost immediate dismissal of these concepts. The two people echoed, "I am not sure how much these IT thoughts apply in improving ways of working!"

Although our conversations never materialized in any work after 3-4 months, I felt compelled to wring about how much work Agile and Scrum has to deidentify themselves from their use mainly in the IT industry. I guess the Agile Manifesto principle, "Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation" has served itself to exclusively apply to the software product world. Perhaps the lack of diversity and inclusive thinking in the original Agile Manifesto thinkers has created a stigma about the Agile ways of working to the IT industry. However, as I have already mentioned about Agile being applicable in a non-IT setting (Rajagopalan, 2013), agility can be extended to healthcare (Rajagopalan, 2021). For example, replace "software" with "healthcare" to read as the "Working Healthcare over Comprehensive Documentation," and it can be seen that the principles can extend outside of software development.

Both Agile and Scrum is about empowering the teams to  have a working agreement to solve a problem identified (or self-identified) for them by the organization. If the organizational culture is conducive to failing forward rather than punitive, any industry can apply these frameworks, which by definition shouldn't be restricted to any industry. Consider, Andon Chord, that originated in the manufacturing assembly where all works stops to ensure that the team collectively engaged in problem solving! Soon, such Andon Chord from the Lean Manufacturing has found itself applicable in many industries with the simplest example of "Stop Requested" in public buses! So, Agile and Scrum is both about the 'ways of working' where the teams are enabled to improvise with experiments to pilot and changes to pivot. 

Now, if you look at Dalmia cement, there is a lot of information they talk about their partnership engagement with KKR (2016) that made them prosper. In that video they talk about five pillars such as learning & humility, teamwork, speed, excellence, and transparency (Alchemy: The Dalmia Bharat - KKR Partnership, n.d.). These are directly related to principles of courage, focus, openness, respect, and commitment of Scrum which emerge from the agile empirical pillars namely transparency, inspection, and adaption. Similar concepts can be seen in the US based Holcim Group, one of the famous cement producers where the very first sentence talks about the industry's focus on using agile management.

Example Scenarios presented by Dr. Sriram Rajagopalan (Users deidentified, personal communication, Feb 15, 2022)

Transparency is already identified in the Dalmia/KKR partnership as pillar #5. When you look at the thoughts on speed, they talk about having a 100-day plan, metrics, process, roadmap, and experimentation! It is about the ways of working which enable the second pillar of teamwork. The focus of experimentation without the fear of failure is already mentioned that talks about trust, communication, and teamwork without which excellence does not come in. I challenge that the principles of agile and scrum are already applied but not understood. If the right tool and the framework is further identified, think about how it could improve! 

Similar examples are in other industries as well. The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) allowed the use of Agile in Life Sciences and Healthcare (Deloitte, 2020). Here, there were focus on adopting risk based governance in an iterative way addressing toxicology and pharmacology safety in clinical studies, adverse reaction protocols in later phases, and occupational hazard protection before, during, and after drug development. Centrus Energy, an international commercial nuclear power plant completed their R&D initiatives using Agile approaches (Stracusser, 2015). Telpak (n.d.) using the robotic process automation (RPA) for good manufacturing practices (GMP) and CSol's (n.d.) focus on laboratory insights for good laboratory practices (GLP) are all examples of Agile mindset. In fact, I see these agile approaches pave their foundation for the general automation manufacturing protocols (GAMP) as well. 

But, such non-IT industry focuses need to be highlighted more! The stigma that Agile and Scrum applies to IT and Software product development is continuously emerging with DevOps and SAFe with too many technical terms proliferating solution-mindset in non-IT industries. So, many practitioners have more work to do! Who is willing to partner with me to write such case studies? 

References

Alchemy: The Dalmia Bharat-KKR Partnership (n.d.). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxXxtMYKprg

CSols (n.d.) Agile development in Laboratory Informatics. https://www.csolsinc.com/blog/agile-development-in-laboratory-informatics/

Deloitte (2020). Validation using Agile in the Life Sciences and Healthcare Industry. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/ie/Documents/LifeSciences_Healthcare/IE_RA_Agile_0320_.pdf

KKR strengthens association with Dalmia (2016, Jan 15). PR Newswire. https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/kkr-strengthens-association-with-dalmia-565397881.html

Rajagopalan, S. (2013). Agility outside of software world: A case study from a theatrical play. https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2013/05/agility-outside-of-software-development.html

Rajagopalan, S. (2021, Mar 8). Agility in Healthcare Services: Insights from Clinical and Surgical Settings.

Straçusser, G. (2015). Agile project management concepts applied to construction and other non-IT fields. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2015—North America, Orlando, FL. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute

Tekpak (n.d.). Pharma Competency. https://tekpakautomation.com/pharma-competency/

History is Rich: Synthesize the lessons rather than promote inconsistencies

I participated in the 4-day Scaled Agile Frame Program Consultant (SPC). Jennifer Fawcett and Mark Saymen facilitated this wonderful session. As part of the structured slides while furthering the discussion on the double operating system concept, discussions emerged regarding the Deming's PDCA cycle. Later during the discussions, I heard participants discuss the need to give up project management principles towards the product management mindset. As the class continued, I heard root cause analysis discussed more as a technique rather than as tool to further the discussions in SAFe approaches that were introduced by Leffingwell (n.d) in 2011 almost 10 years after the original Agile Manifesto was published to scale up agile in teams of teams at the business level. I echoed in the class and wrote to the facilitators the importance of how unsafely we are promoting techniques over principles without truly connecting with history. Here is my brief summary of these thoughts. 

First of Deming did not conceptualize the PDCA cycle (Moen, 2010) and neither claimed ownership nor embraced it. Edward Deming worked under Walter Shewart, who iterated on his model of "specify, produce, inspect" around 1939 coming up with a "Design, Produce, Sell, Redesign" in 1950's as a starting point to initiate conversations around the need to have interactions across the value chain. Shewart drew his inspiration from two different sources (Moen & Norman, 2009). The first was John Dewey's pragmatic principles of product design. These pragmatic principles were called in four stages, "Discover, Invent, Produce, Observe." Separately, Clarence Irving Lewis was promoting a 3-step pragmatic learning concept "Experience, Application, Susceptibility" contributing to Shewart's inspiration of specify, produce, inspect. 

Deming didn't package Shewart's cycle as Plan-Do-Check-Act at all. He called the Shewart's cycle only as Shewart's cycle in honor of his mentor. However, as the word spread around, the concept of Plan-Do-Check-Act emerged among the Japanese manufacturers crediting Deming who mentioned the Shewart's cycle. So, although the Shewart's cycle was later called as Deming's PDCA Cycle, no one specifically created the PDCA cycle. Contrary to the practitioners' thinking, such as Agile that prescribed "individuals and interactions over processes and tools" and SAFe that continue to build its premise on PDCA, that keep emphasizing PDCA cycle as Deming cycle, Deming himself did not prescribe to this concept because he felt that this approach didn't promote the much needed learning that is required in both the people and processes. 

Separately, several contributors such as Alan Graham and Karou Ishikawa promoted many other concepts laying the foundation for quality to be a movement (Schneier, Russell, Beatty, & Baird, 1994) to promote continuous learning (hence Kaizen was born) but not limiting quality to be only incremental actions but also innovative big picture thinking (hence Kaikaku was born). So, many concepts like the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and House of Quality (HOQ), Quality Circles, 5S principles, Design Thinking and Systems Thinking emerged (Senge, 1992).  All these authors converge on the learning organization should inculcate building a shared vision, personal mastery, working with mental models, team learning and systems thinking. Empowered by these thoughts, Deming in 1993 conceptualized the need to 'study' creating the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA). 

So, the question is, why do practitioners continue to miss out history and go back to antiquated non-existing theory only to rest their blames on theory? Seems like this is the same thing that happened with Royce (1970) who iterated with dozens of pictures for a system development lifecycle (SDLC) model but people stopped at the second figure in the first page creating a waterfall theory that never was proposed by Royce (Rajagopalan, 2014) to begin with!

Another thing to keep in mind is the principle of force-field analysis. This notion was promoted by Kurt Lewin (1939) who said a cause could be coming from forces that oppose (resistors) and support (enablers) a cause. We can see that all the time in any change - those that support and those that resist! Ishikawa approached the manufacturing context using his 4M (men, machine, method, materials) introducing the fish-bone diagram (Watson, 2004). Instead of only looking at Fishbone, many practitioners have incorporated the force field analysis over the root cause analysis as a combined approach to allow prioritization rather than just move forward with dot voting as the SAFe classes promote.

Now, let us ask ourselves. Do we work with various stakeholders and team members, sometimes with contracted workers, in product development? Is there some level of known scope of work we are with committing to deliver on a specific schedule? Are we all working probono and getting materials free or do we incur direct or indirect costs? Does quality factor into the way we work delivering value to the customers? Aren't we impacted by assumptions that prove to be wrong or risks that come from known/unknown areas impacting us positively or negatively? Don't we hold ourselves to communicate through various means keeping everyone abreast of what's going on in our product development? When anyone of these elements change, aren't we embracing them to evaluate how to pivot? Everyone of these highlighted words represent a knowledge area in project management that product management can not live without! The goal is not to give up these project management principles but adopt them and elevate to higher level systems thinking towards benefit sustenance and value delivery. Product Management mindset builds on Project Management basics!

So, a larger question to practitioners! Please synthesize the history first! If not, we will only promote inconsistencies!

What are your thoughts? Please share.

References

Burnes, B. & Cooke, B. (2012). Kurt Lewin's Field Theory: A Review and Re-evaluation. International Journal of Management Review, 15(4), 359-469. 

Leffingwell, D. (n.d.). https://scaledagileframework.com/about/

Lewin, K. (1939). Field theory and experiment in social psychology: concepts and methods. American Journal of Sociology, 44, pp. 868–896.

Moen, R. & Norman, C. (2009). “The History of the PDCA Cycle.” In Proceedings of the 7th ANQ Congress, Tokyo. https://elfhs.ssru.ac.th/phusit_ph/pluginfile.php/48/block_html/content/Moen-Norman-2009%20PDCA.pdf

Moen, R. (2010). Research Seminar. http://neuplace.net/PDSA_history_ron_moen.pdf 

Royce, W. W. (1970). Managing the development of large software systems. Proceedings, IEEE WESCON, pp 1-9.

Rajagopalan, S. (2014). Review of the myths on original software development model. International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications, 5(16), 103-111.

Schneier, C.E., Russell, C.J., Beatty, R.W., & Baird, L.S. (1994). The Training and Development Sourcebook. 2nd Edition. Amherest, MA: HRD Press.

Senge, P. (1992). Building Learning Organizations. Journal for Quality and Participation, 15(2), 30-38.

Watson, G. (2004). The legacy of Ishikawa. Quality Progress, 37(4), 47-54.

Does EVM apply in Agile

One of the best things that I love is interacting with people. When they ask questions, I always go back to the basic principles! That's what happened to me when a few learners in the corporate training I delivered asked if traditional EVM principles are even required in Agile principles. Here are some thoughts, first explaining the EVM concepts and then extending them to Agile.

Earned Value Management has two parts. The first part is lagging indicators that tell how the project is performing at a snapshot in time. The second part is the leading indicators that forecast how much more time and money will be required to finish the project! 

Lagging Indicators

This involves the Schedule Variance (SV) and Cost Variance (CV) expressed in currency units and Schedule Performance Index (SPI) and Cost Performance Index expressed as ratios. In order to compute any of these four measures, there are three things that are required. The first is the planned value (PV, sometimes also called budget at completion (BAC) or budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP)) of what we expected to compete, the second is the earned value (EV) of what we have earned at a snapshot in time and the actual costs (AC, sometimes also called the actual cost of work performed) incurred to generate the EV. Then, the lagging indicators can be computed as follows: 

Formula	Explanation
SV = EV - PV	If SV is zero, progress is on schedule If SV is -ve, progress is behind schedule If SV is +ve, progress is ahead of schedule
CV = EV - AC	If CV is zero, progress is on track If CV is -ve, progress is under budget If CV is +ve, progress is over budget
SPI = EV / PV	If SPI = 1, progress is on schedule If SPI < 0, progress is behind schedule If SPI > 1, progress is ahead of schedule
CPI = EV / AC	If CPI = 1, progress is on track If CPI < 1, progress is under budget If CV > 1, progress is over budget

Now, let us think about the applicability of lagging indicators in Agile. While the focus of Agility is on the team to manage itself, we need to ensure that the team is able to commit reasonably (and no external influence exists on the team to pressed for commitment) and self-organize themselves to deliver on the commitments (of course, there are always deviations). In the daily standup, when the team is marking completion of stories (task) for the user story to be ready for testing and marking validation complete (test cases) and the stories are accepted incrementally through the iteration, they are demonstrating earned value (velocity based on stories completed) towards the planned value (planned velocity).  There is always a cost to the iteration (Rajagopalan, 2019) representing the actual costs. 

So, if we have all the elements of planned velocity, earned value (actual velocity at the end of the iteration), and the actual cost (incurred at the end of the iteration), can EVM lagging indicators? The answer is Yes. But, the goal in Agile should be drive team's health, estimation accuracy, environment, and commitment for them to deliver.

Now, there is a question on the leading indicators. In traditional projects, there is a known scope of work and depending upon the lagging indicators, the estimate to complete (ETC) and the estimate at completion (EAC) can be evaluated. In agile projects, the product backlog is emerging constantly and the fixed scope of work is not always known. Nevertheless, if one looks at the agreed scope of minimum viable product for the release according the product roadmap, there is some anchor in the known scope of work within the MVP. If that MVP level stories are reasonably estimated (even if they were in the Affinity Estimation (i.e., T-Shirt or Coffee Cup)), then, it is possible to project the MVP backlog size. Then, for this known scope of MVP size, it is possible to apply the leading indicator concept from EVM.    

First, let us look at the leading indicators. There are four formulas depending upon the level of accuracy and confidence required. 

Formula	Explanation
EAC = AC + ETC	In this approach, accuracy and confidence are low. The project manager often approxmiates o the additional level of effort and cost. Sometimes, it could involve parametric estimates or expert judgment to come up with an estimate to complete.
EAC = BAC / CPI	This approach is slightly better because the focus is on the cost more than the scheule. The project manager uses the current rate at which costs accrue and uses this rate against the budgeted planned value (BAC) and projects the amount required. Since CPI will be less than 1, the EAC will be more than BAC and the difference is the additional amount required to deliver on the remaining scope. But, it doesn't take into account work already delivered (EV). It is possible to increase accuracy by using the slight revision existing work delivered must be removed. EAC = (BAC-EV)/CPI
EAC = AC + (BAC - EV)/SPI	Here the focus is on the team's ability to deliver on the remaining scope. Cost is not an issue, perhaps because the team members are salaried employees. In this case, the team's ability to deliver on the remaining scope of work at the rate the team delivers (BAC-EV)/SPI is computed and the actual costs already incurred are included.
EAC = AC + (BAC - EV) / SPI * CPI	Here, the focus involves both the rate at the rate costs have accrued as well as the rate at which the team can deliver on the remaining scope. The only difference from the previous formula you will notice is that the denominator includes a product of both CPI and SPI.

As you can see in the above explanation, forecasting (i.e., leading indicators) is a business need. Regardless of whether a team is focused on plan-driven or change-driven approach, the business always has the question of how long it will take for you to deliver on the remaining scope or MVP. 

If the lagging indicators (SPI, CPI, EV, AC) exist, and BAC (PV) is focused more on the remaining backlog size for the MVP, is there a reason why EAC calculations do not apply in Agile? The answer is Yes. In fact, Agile uses the burn rate to compute the rate at which the team burns through the backlog. Furthermore, there is one more leading indicator that people compute. That is To-Complete-Performance-Index (TCPI). This is computed as follows. Does the work and cost remaining relevant to Agile? Then, why question whether EVM extends to Agile or not? 

• TCPI = Work Remaining / Cost Remaining
• TCPI = BAC - EV / BAC - AC

The following diagram further illustrates graphically the thoughts. If you look at the abscissa (X-Axis), I have put both the timeline (T5, T10, T15, etc.) for a phased traditional approach and R1, R2, and R3 indicate the releases that may be comprised of individual iterations (single cadence where increments have to be consolidated and delivered). So, Agile or Traditional, don't get mixed up on terms! Focus on the principles of delivering customer and business value. Use EVM as it applies in your own context. 

Dr. Sriram Rajagopalan's approach to EVM in Agile

It should, however, be pointed out very clearly that in Agile, we should measure a few more things. These include cycle time, lead time, WIP, and Backlog Size (Remaining work). This is because, as mentioned before, the scope of work is constantly changing in Agile because of the constant feedback mechanism and the notion of embracing change.

References

Rajagopalan, S. (2019). Agile iterations also involve cost. https://agilesriram.blogspot.com/2019/04/test-post.html

Essential Games for Agile Ceremonies

As I was teaching about the principles of Agile, a question came up from one of my participants about the compelling reason to play games in Agile and what are the essential games. The foundational element of Agility is the self-organized teams. The expectation is that the team is empowered to ask powerful questions and enabled to act in a way conducive to deliver on product strategy. To emulate this self-organization, games are generally recommended as people's creative juices come in when you infuse fun ways of working. 

I reasoned that there are many games to play based on the specific challenge to be addressed. Each game is analogous to a medicine! Not all medicines treat the symptoms and based on specific patient chemistry, what works for one (ibuprofen for headache) may not for another! The Tasty Cup Cakes (n.d.) is an organization that summarizes the details of many games and the rules to play the game!

In general, there are four ceremonies. These are Iteration Planning, Daily Standup, Review and Retrospective. There is also a backlog refinement (that some call as backlog grooming) which is required to refine and prioritize stories in preparation for the iteration planning. So, here are some games that can apply to one or more of these ceremonies.

Product Box: The goal of this game to simulate the functionality that is minimally required to be released. It appears a long time back that people used to buy software that came in a CD wrapped within a box. It would give details about the minimum system requirements, major features, details around customer support, and helpful documentation using up all the six sides of the box! The product box comes with the same notion of asking the stakeholders and team to prioritize absolutely minimally required features for a release by allowing people to place these features on a blank product box canvas. It can be used in backlog refinement and also on the release (MVP) /iteration planning (MMF/MBI). 

Buy a Feature: The goal of this game is also help stakeholders align on priority. Every stakeholder will be given a certain amount of virtual currency (or virtual points). Each feature (not one story but a feature) will be given a price (or point) depending upon the complexity and/or size based on team's input. The stakeholders can then use their money to buy the most important feature they need (just like how we don't waste money on every frivolous thing but on the necessary things alone). People change the rules of the game sometimes where stakeholders can pool their money to buy a feature when they don't have enough left to buy a feature or restrain such money-pool recommending 'use it or lose it but not combine it!'. This is also a good game for backlog refinement, release, and iteration planning. 

Prune the Tree: This game lets team members position various features and other experiments based on priority or value to the customers/business. This game can be used by the team to engage in more powerful questions on the customer's actual needs based on the priorities and unearth the actual needs and differentiate the nice to have from the must to have just like a tree is pruned. The goal is to validate the absolutely minimum needs, prioritize accordingly, and come up with the other use cases (technical value, process value) to ensure that these customer value stories can be delivered. This game is primarily beneficial in the iteration planning. 

Paper Airplanes: This game is more about how people practice agility! The goal is not what anyone can do (regardless of the role like the product owner, coach, developer, tester, etc.) but what everyone collectively can deliver. That's the idea behind how everyone can support creating how many flying paper planes that fly past a certain boundary can be created. The game brings that together everyone achieves more (TEAM) mentality. It is ideal in daily standup.

Daily Scrum Game: This game helps the team member to understand certain behavioral patterns people may have and how they will identify and collaborate in such a place. The goal is furthermore to understand the failsafe environment. In this game, the agile coach asks some team members to assume certain behavioral role (monopolizing conversations, refusing to give feedback, etc.) and ask the team to practice playing the daily stand up that must be finished in the time allocated. Then, they discuss if they were able to identify the persona people took and how they should work with such a disruptive patterns if displayed. 

Matchup Canvas: This game is frequently a good one when team is in the early stages of Agile team (Like Forming, Norming). The goal is to conceptually think of ourselves having a "business card" that displays who we are and what we bring to the table in the team. For example, the card canvas can have our name, goals, what you offer ((skills, knowledge, help) or can't offer but willing to learn, who can benefit from your skills and competencies, what you need from others and where you will go for help. If such a card is placed on your cube (or part of your signature for virtual teams), it would help people when they need support or guidance. 

Speed Boat: This game focuses on learning! The analogy here is that a speed boat can accelerate going forward, stall not making progress, or decelerate going slow or receding backwards. The logic here is to extend this to say what are we doing that helps us progress faster and deliver on commitments, what we should stop that does not add value, and what we should do that will helps us pick up pace! Sometimes, we also call this 'keep doing,' 'start doing,' and 'stop doing.' Another variation of this game is also called "mad, sad, glad" which associates with being mad about what happened (stop doing this), being somewhat sad about what happened (start doing something to avoid this), and glad about what happened (keep doing what we we are doing). This game is applicable in both the review and retrospective ceremonies. 

Pass on Perfection: This game is about giving feedback. The game emerges from the coaching principles of using "Yes, And" rather than "No But". So, when someone tells something and you have an alternative view, instead of saying "No this will not work but if you do this it might work," you change your approach. "Yes, I can see how this will work and if you consider this it might work better!" 

Feedback Game: This game is also about giving feedback. In fact, it is about practicing to give/receive feedback. The goal is not to be always clever and all-knowing but also be modest and be on the receiving end of feedback. The game is played with a pile of cards (carefully chosen with questions or scenarios). Each person takes a card, chooses to keep the card and answer the question or the scenario with opportunities to hear what they could have done differently. If the person chooses not to keep the card, the person can pass it to others who can then choose to keep it. The game ends when all the pile of cards are answered.  

Given below is a quick summary of what games apply to what scenarios. I am sure there are many others that can be played. But, these games are more than enough, in my humble opinion, to get Agility working in the teams.

Game Name	Backlog Refinement	Iteration Planning	Daily Standup	Review	Retrospective
Product Box	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Buy a Feature	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Prune the Tree	Maybe	Yes	No	No	No
Paper Airplanes	No	No	Yes	No	No
Daily Scrum Game	No	No	Yes	No	No
Matchup Canvas	No	No	Yes	No	No
Speed Boat	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Mad, Sad, Glad	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Pass on Perfection	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Feedback Game	No	No	No	Yes	Yes

References

Tasty Cup Cakes (n.d). https://tastycupcakes.org/)

Rethinking Risk Management: Combination of Strategies

I often wonder if people really understand the basic tenets of risk management. The reason for my wonder came when I was having discussions with a professional preparing for Agile Certification that they don't do risk management in their organizations because the product management only does SWOT analysis and that they participate in blue ocean thinking. Only after some of my explanations was the learner able to see the tenets of risk management in SWOT and Blue Ocean Leadership. In my book on Organized Common Sense, I mention that if we don't take care of risks, risks will care of us! All strategies and every execution are loaded with risk! In my humble opinion, quality is a function of risk! 

Let me elaborate on my discussion with this learner for the benefit of many! When we discuss SWOT, we have to understand that it is a summary framework to capture our research and findings by applying other frameworks. For instance, the internal strengths and weaknesses can be evaluate by VRIO framework (Valuable, Rare, Imitable, Organized) and external opportunities and threats can be assessed by PESTLE* (Political, Economical, Societal, Technical, Legal, Environmental) framework. 

When you look at the summary captured in SWOT, risk management concepts is spread all over it! In Risk Management, positive risks are called opportunities and negative risks are called threats. Companies often have their own strengths based on years of experience in that field or the accumulated knowhow, intellectual property, and access to human capital, subject matter expertise, and domain knowledge. This is why we say, lead with your strengths to maximize opportunities (SO) or minimize threats (ST). While one may want to address their weaknesses with complementary opportunities (WO), no one wants to venture out into an area of expertise where not only they have weaknesses (example: not organized to deliver value or their product/services is not rare and imitable) but also other competitors have a winning edge (WT). This combination of creating strategic areas based on internal and external factors is called the TOWS approach (Weihrich, 1982). 

So, how does this connect with Blue Ocean? According to Kim & Mauborgne (2005), the overarching concept of Blue Ocean strategy is that companies are seeing an uncontested market where they can gain significant first-movers advantage. But, in order to create opportunities in this market, they will have to consciously decide to eliminate working in some areas, raise their strengths (ways of working) to leverage internal strengths to tap into new customer base and reduce some ways of working that add more to waste than value. Hence, Blue Ocean frames these four approaches as ERRC (or CRRE). You can see how the "create" corresponds to SO, "raise" aligns with ST, "reduce" maps to WO and "eliminate" associates with "WT". 

Now, what does risk management framework (Project Management Institute, 2017) suggest as risk treatment options? For negative risks, the expectation is that one first avoids risks. If the risk can not be avoided, one transfers to someone more qualified to manage the risks. Despite transferring some risks, there may be risks that one may have to absorb. The guideline is that one takes proactive measures to mitigate the risks before accepting the remaining part of the risk. For positive risks, the reverse is true. One exploits where one has both the strengths and opportunities, shares or enhances strengths to address threats. 

Given below is the synthesis. Now, the risk treatment options identified here may swap places depending upon the degree to which one has internal strengths and weaknesses and the extent to which they want to address external factors to maintain a competitive edge.    

Dr. Sriram Rajagopalan's synthesis of SWOT, TOWS, Blue Ocean and Risk Response Frameworks

What are your thoughts on my synthesis? Agree/Disagree? 

*Based on discussions with one of my friends, Kalash Upadhyay, we have extended this to include ethical and demographic considerations calling it PESTLEED. 

References

Kim, W. C. & Mauborgne, R. (2005). Blue Ocean Strategy: From Theory to Practice. California Management Review, 47(3), 105–121. https://doi.org/10.1177/000812560504700301

Project Management Institute. (2017). A Guide to the project management body of knowledge. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute. 

Weihrich, H. (1982). The TOWS matrix - A tool for situational analysis. Long Range Planning, 15(2):54-66.