In This Issue:
From the Editor
Kent McDonald on Keeping Up the Pace
Agile Corner:
The Scrum Framework, Part Two
Where's the Fire?
Featured Templates:
Be a Big Picture Person
Big Ideas in Small Vehicles
Begin With the End In Mind
Greening Product Services
Where Did I Leave My Bootstraps?
Shower, Shave, Ship... Which One Waits?
Project Practitioners Blog
Where's ProjectConnections?
- This month: Japan, California and Iowa
Corporate Subscriptions
From the Editor
Sustainable project management is hardly a new concept, but it has a new resonance these days. But sustainability and green business practices are about more than running your car on restaurant grease and putting solar panels on your backpack. Sustainability means addressing how to minimize the impact of your products and services throughout the business lifecycle—to the environment, the corporation, and your project teams—while still maintaining high returns for the organization.
In a week that has brilliantly illustrated the synergy possible between change and continuity, we thought it was time to tackle sustainability in our project work; not only to encourage the growth of a worthy movement, but also to demonstrate that even the most familiar processes and templates can serve a sea change in business philosophy if we just view them, and our projects, with a different eye. "It's good for you. It's good for me. It's good for the whales." But it's also good for the bottom line, and for relationships with increasingly eco-conscious industry watchers, investors, business partners, and end-users.
Featured Article
Keeping Up the Pace, by Kent McDonald
In this column, I try to cite my actual experiences whenever I can. But in this case, I am unable to do that because I never have, and have no desire to, run a marathon. I have a great deal of respect for people that do run marathons, but the idea of crossing 26 miles by foot when other transportation options exist does not appeal to me. That being said, running a marathon is somewhat analogous to working on a project. In both cases, you are involved with an endeavor where you will be focused on a particular goal for a relatively long time. Both activities have twists and turns, uphill climbs and the occasional downhill coasts, and both activities require you to take good care of yourself so that you don't collapse before you reach your goal. One way that marathon runners take care of themselves is to maintain a relatively consistent pace throughout the race. Some project teams follow a similar practice for pacing their work, known in one of the agile software development methods as "sustainable pace."
Teams working at a sustainable pace should be able to sustain that pace indefinitely and continue to make an appropriate amount of progress without inviting burnout. Members of the team should be able to stay focused while at work and not get too worn down—occasionally working overtime when it is needed, but only in short durations.
Sounds great, but cramming in a bunch of overtime near the end of a project has seemed to work in the past. Plus it is a badge of honor, especially in the development world. We wouldn't want to give up that, would we? Read more »
Agile Corner
The Scrum Framework, Part Two: Flexible, but Not Mutable, by Laszlo Szalvay, President, Danube TechnologiesWhen an organization embarks on a Scrum transformation, it does so knowing that the implementation effort will be disruptive, challenging its employees to leave well-worn habits behind for a new set of practices and principles. Of course, they endure that disruption and uncertainty for the particular benefits Scrum enables. As discussed in Part One, Scrum's iterative, incremental approach to development offers teams a period of stability to complete work, while also providing regular opportunities to evaluate the overall direction of the project. Moreover, Scrum's emphasis on frequent communication and close collaboration leads teams to come together to create products that win the loyalty and confidence of customers.
But many organizations lose sight of the fact that Scrum enables these benefits when all of its few rules are observed. Too often, when companies begin to realize how far-reaching and radical the changes Scrum requires are, they start to cut corners, bend rules, and do whatever they can to minimize the shock and pain of implementing organization-wide change. What they don't realize is that, while such measures may reduce short-term disruption, they also sabotage Scrum's potential. Quite simply, Scrum has no optional or redundant rules and, it follows, only observing some of them dramatically reduces Scrum's ability to affect positive change. In fact, when one aspect of the system is modified, it creates an unintended consequence within the framework, such as an erosion of values, a disruption of Scrum's checks-and-balances system, and an obscuring of organizational dysfunction. To illustrate how this happens, I'd like to discuss a few common examples of how organizations alter the framework and detail the consequences these modifications yield. Read more »
NEW – Where's the Fire? – Agile Method Brief: Crystal – PREMIUMOnce in a while, you have the luxury of working on a project that isn't on fire; one where no lives hang in the balance and which will not sink the company if it's late. But you still want to manage the project with discipline and meet your goals. True to the principle that there's an Agile method for every circumstance, this method brief introduces Crystal Clear, an agile approach developed by Alistair Cockburn for small teams working in low-criticality projects. The Crystal approach centers on the importance of people and communication, and on adjusting your project techniques to the characteristics of that particular project. Read the brief »
Featured Templates
NEW – Be a Big Picture Person – Context Diagrams – SPECIALThis Premium resource is free to registered Members until February 4
Sometimes it helps to take a step back and view your project in context of the data and interactions going entering and exiting the system. Context diagrams use a simple notation to illustrate this critical information. A circle, some rectangles, and a few arrows—when organized correctly—can convey a great deal of information about how your system interacts with its environment and the business benefits it provides. They're also a lot easier for non-technical team members to decipher. This detailed technique brief explains how to develop these streamlined diagrams thoughtfully and accurately. Get the guideline »
Big Ideas in Small Vehicles – Project Vision Document Example (Software Release Lifecycle) – SPECIAL
This Premium resource is free to registered Members until February 4
The broad scope of this four-page vision example provides a fantastic example for any organization beginning to develop their own forever software development process. But it also serves as a reasonable starting place for any process development vision; for instance, folding scattered sustainability efforts under a single organization-wide umbrella, or developing a new sustainable development process. In either environment, this detailed example prompts the reader to consider easily overlooked groups like cross-functional departments, quality assessment criteria, and critical success factors for the process (not just the product). It's a great model for fitting Hummer-sized ideas into a smart-car-sized document. Download the template »
Begin With the End In Mind – Discontinuance Planning – MEMBER
You've got the product out the door... now what? Eventually, it's going to reach the end of its useful life. For service and software providers, this means gracefully escorting customers to new offerings when the time comes. For product development, it means coping with the existence of increasingly obsolete equipment or products. When you introduce sustainability to discontinuance planning, you have to consider what will happen to products that have outlived their usefulness. This document suggests approaches and document outlines for this end-of-life planning. It includes impacts throughout the product's environment, from internal support functions to customers and end-users. Beginning with the end in mind highlights requirements that might otherwise be obscured, and allows planning ahead for ramp-down activities that may synchronize with new offerings or project efforts. Get the outline »
Greening Product Services – Maintenance Plan – MEMBER
It's not over till it's over. Once your project is launched there is still plenty of work to do supporting the deliverable(s). Customer support, bug fixes, patches or accessories, preventative maintenance, documentation updates-a good maintenance plan will account for all of this and more. This guideline and annotated outline make it easier to plan ahead for the work that happens after releasing a product or system to its customers. Thinking this out before you get your first customer call will allow you to be prepared with the resources and staffing required. Even better, it will allow you to map out the most sustainable, efficient, and effective methods ahead of time, leaving more room for careful consideration of the best options and new possibilities. Get the outline »
Where Did I Leave My Bootstraps? – Priorities, Goals, and Actions Alignment Worksheet – MEMBER
We're all too busy, with too many competing demands on our time. If you step back and look at how you've spent your last 2 weeks, can you say for sure that your energy was spent on really important items-at home or at work? In service to our employers as well as ourselves, it's important to responsibility for our own personal and professional sustainability. These worksheets provide guidelines for capturing critical goals, prioritizing them, and developing personal action plans to align where you spend your time with what you identified as most important. We've filled in a few worksheet cells to show how the content could play out for a Project Manager's particular career development goal, but we all know it goes much further than that... and so should we all. Get the worksheets »
Shower, Shave, Ship... Which One Waits? – Scheduling Checklist – PREMIUM
This ironic T-shirt message from the gaming industry earns a chuckle both because of the genre and the message. But it sums up well what happens when we lose sight of sustainability in our project plans and schedules. If that's really the choice, neither our projects nor our teams will be sustainable for long. The best way to avoid getting that far behind, of course, is to adopt a sane schedule in the first place. This checklist can help. It contains items to ensure your schedule includes all project work, such as cross-functional activities, testing, and more, so you and your teams can sleep at night. Get the checklist »
Project Practitioners Blog
Alfonso Bucero, in a take-no-prisoners post, encourages us to see the opportunities instead of the obstacles and has tips for creating a project culture.Matt Glei provides advice for dealing with cognitive dissonance, something that's all too common in project work.
Brandon Carlson reminds readers that going agile doesn't mean abandoning testing.
Where's ProjectConnections?
Randy Englund will be in Santa Clara, California on February 5 with fellow author and consultant Dr. Robert Lauridsen to present a full day workshop: "Powering-Up Your Interaction Quotient: Creating Intended Results ... Consistently." Visit Ultimate in Success for more information and registration.Kent McDonald will be speaking at the John Deere PM Forum next week, which will probably be knee-deep in snow. He's already knee-deep in plans for the Central Iowa IIBA's Business Analyst Development Day (BADD) 2009 in May.
Kimberly Wiefling will spend most of next week conducting leadership workshops in Tokyo, where it's almost as cold and wet, but the sushi is infinitely better.
Corporate Subscriptions and Licensing
Want your team members to have their own access to templates and how-to resources for their project work? Need to share documents and deliverables beyond your project team? We make it easier with affordable corporate subscriptions and licensing. Detailed information regarding corporate options is available online. Give your whole team, or even the entire organization, cost-effective access to our comprehensive online library of resources. You already know how helpful it's been for you. Now it's time to share with everyone else. Find out more »Not sure if corporate terms apply to you? Check out our licensing terms at the top of our Terms of Service page, in refreshingly ordinary, everyday English.