Risk Management in Agile

Extending observations from one of the classes I facilitated on digital project management, I was wondering how to address the impact of risk management in agile initiatives. Earlier this month, I had a family emergency and I traveled to India to meet a family member who was critically admitted to the hospital. As I discussed the medical condition of my family member with the physician, I remembered one of my earlier speeches where I had discussed the notion of ECG waveform as the warning trigger of risk in monitoring one's health daily.

I resonated with the ECG waveform and its principles to agile approaches to project management or product development. The ECG waveform represents the heart pumping a certain volume of blood every fraction of a second (varies from person to person due to many reasons). From a physiological standpoint, the P wave represents the atrial contraction pumping oxygenated blood into the ventricular chambers. The QRS wave represents the ventricular contraction denoting the rate of  blood distribution. Finally, the T wave represents the ventricular relaxation before the heart is ready for another cycle. It is, therefore, no wonder, that one can think of every PQRST cycle as an iteration. The amount of blood consistently bumped represents the velocity.

Now, if this analogy is true, then, we can relate to risk also in an agile iteration. When we contract work to other teams or depend on others to complete the work, the functionality of the other organs (e.g.: respiratory systems) to deliver oxygenated blood without any challenges arising from circulation is critical. It is not surprising, therefore, why project managers always relate to the risk domain when procurement domain is involved because non-delivery per contract or non-performance of contracted work leads to the risk of resource overloading.

When one doesn't take care of their personal health properly by following quality policies (such as dieting or exercise), challenges arise such as a heart attack. The same concepts apply when the team compromises on technical excellence in design or addressing quality by design principles in their workflow. The escaped defect therefore represents the heart attack or an emergency trip to the hospital.

When the team members in the team fail to work together, that leads to failure. For instance, the block within heart system causes to resistance to smooth flow. Similarly, resistance to agile practices and lack of the team's self-organization introduces the risk of failure.

When the team is not self-organized or demonstrating high levels of team maturity, the scope compromises in velocity demotivates the team. Although the heart is much more resilient, overwork or imbalance introduces anxiety and stress, and people react differently. Similarly, lack of product vision or constant changes to iteration backlog compromises the team's ability to deliver. Many business challenges can impede the team's ability to deliver as well and become a high-performing team.

Such challenges, when go unchecked, impact the team's ability to deliver over a longer timeframe. The emergency visits to hospital leads to a loss of trust for caretakers requiring external intervention in the form of medicines or medically recommended rest. Stakeholders can lose confidence in the team's ability to consistently deliver on the strategic product roadmap when costs increase more than the benefits realized. Customer satisfaction fatigue can be seen in the voice of customer feedback and lack of adequate referrals.

In summary, I can see how this simple ECG waveform that we can all relate to proves to be emphasizing how risk is pertinent to everyone's health in daily life. If every day is a project, then, every heartbeat is an iteration which has the seeds of risks. The warning triggers must be understood and appropriately managed even in an agile project.

Thoughts? Please share with me.

Lessons learned: What the Silver Screen Cinemas can tell us?

I have been an ardent advocator of teaching the basics of project management, leadership, and emotional intelligence throughout my training and teaching career. In one of the recent classes that I was fortunate to facilitate, I used the example of Apollo 13 motion picture (Grazer & Howard, 1995) to illustrate to the class about the practical realities of how risks and quality can severely turn the happy path scenarios around. It was a revelation for the class as the various teams related to the emphasis of the "unknown unknown" risks on the management reserves, the criticality of risk identification and management strategies on contingency planning, influence of leadership on the conflict resolution and negotiation, etc. Synthesized in this blog are the major lessons that evolved from the class. When used effectively, the use of movies can become an effective tool at both academic and practitioner settings.

One of the first lessons was the importance of the timely response to strategic changes in direction as management and leadership reestablished the priority. Not only did the NASA management disregard the original mission to land on the moon but quickly established the revised project goal as they reset the impossible expectations on the on-ground team to bring the astronauts back to earth! Even at a tactical level, when one of the engineers pointed out how much power they need to conserve to return to earth, the decision-making was quick. One may question the time taken here because all these discussions were captured in a movie. However, when relating to the Apollo 13 timeline (n.d.) that were documented by where the entire episode of the discovery of the problem to the egress of the astronauts from the command module was approximately only 2.5 days, the importance of decision making cannot be overlooked.

The recurring theme among the teams was the relationship of proactive risk management. A space shuttle launch initiative is a major undertaking and risk management is a sine qua non of such larger programs. Yet, when the calamity dawned on the team, it became apparent in the class discussions how many of the risk response strategies had to be reworked identifying the secondary risks of the release of unsafe chemical gases and attempts to squeeze more power from modules for which no clearly documented procedures existed.

Another theme resonated nicely from the discussions was the importance of stakeholder and communication management. As heard in the movie, “Failure was not an option,” for NASA but there were several stakeholders in the power-influence grid that needed to be managed. The team’s efforts in managing these numerous stakeholders’ expectations during this major recovery exercise were commendable particularly when the only available communication channels available at that time were the radio, the television, and the newspapers. Managing expectations of public relations was still achieved in the absence of today’s Internet-connected social media world.

An interesting point was the class focus rested predominantly on the on-ground team efforts until discussions were brought on the astronauts that needed to execute these sequences under entirely different situations of limited heat, extreme stress, limited resources, and intense focus. These facilitated discussions further highlighted the analogy to the gaps experienced with the distributed, virtual, and remote teams were brought to light.

In summarizing, this exercise brought a good closure in bringing home the vital elements of management and leadership while constantly managing the emotions expeditiously and relating to the basic principles of project management.

What other movies do you think can bring home similar experiences in a teaching or training setting?

References

Apollo 13 Timeline (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2016, from http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_13h_Timeline.htm

Grazer, B. (Producer), & Howard, R. (Director). (1995). Apollo 13 [Motion picture]. United States: Universal Pictures.