prakalp vol-19 issue-5

Visitus@http://prakalp.pmimumbaichapter.orgmarketing@pmimumbaichapter.orgContacton+912228792194

#PMIMumbaiChapter

AcademicPartner

PRAKALPJ O U R N A LVOL 19

ISSUE 5

JAN 2016PMConclave 2015-16 Special

aninitiativebyInnovation and Project Management

Hig

hlig

hts In

side

PROJECTMANAGEMENTINSTITUTE-MumbaiChapterUnitNo.642,Mainframe1-BWing,RoyalPalm,AareyMilk,Goregaon(E),Mumbai400065INDIA

http://prakalp.pmimumbaichapter.org

#PMIMumbaiChapter Page1

pg /12 Maximizing Business ValueHOW?? To WOW!!

By Priya Patra

The winner of Technical Paper at

PMConclave 2015-16

pg /23 HOLACRACY - Democracy In Project Mgmt

By Rajesh Kumar Mudiakal

pg /26 Is there any Innovation happening in Agile?

By Rahul Sudame

PMCONCLAVE - TECHNICAL PAPER SECTION

PMConclave 2015-16

Highlightspg / 04

The Voices

pg /02 PMI Mumbai Chapter Team

pg /03 From Presidents Desk

Snapshots

pg /39 PMP Exam Preparation - Cost Questions

pg /44 Project Management Word Search

pg /46 PMPCE Course Schedule - Year 2016

ContentsVOL19,ISSUE5,JAN2016

PRAKALPJ O U R N A LPMConclave 2015-16 Special

pg /50 Mumbai Chapter Activities

pg /34 In Pursuit Of The Fourth "IUltimate Business and Project

Management Strategy

By M.K. Ramesh &

Debasis Chakrabarti

pg /45 Testimonials from Mumbai Chapter Students

pg /19 Method In MadnessBy Ritu Jain & Darshana Padghane

Finalist of Technical Paper at

PMConclave 2015-16


The Team

VISIONTobecomearecognizedleaderinProject

Managementfortransformationandgrowth

MISSIONProvideaplatformtoshareknowledgeandinnovativeprojectmanagementpractices

CollaborationwithPMIcomponents

UpholdandinculcateEthicsandValuesinProjectManagementProfession

NurturerelationshipwithCorporate,Government,AcademiaandNGOs

Empowervolunteerleaders,membersandsocietytherebyenhancingqualityoflife

PUBLICATIONANDMEMBERSHIP

PrakalpispublishedmonthlybytheProjectManagementInstituteMumbai Chapter. Themission of Prakalp is tofacil itate the exchange of information amongprofessionalsintheeldofproject,programandportfoliomanagement., provide them with practical tools andtechniquesandserveasaforumofdiscussionofemergingtrendsandissues. AllarticlesinPrakalparetheviewsofthe authors and not necessarily those of PMI MumbaiChapter.

PMIMUMBAICHAPTER

UnitNo.642,Mainframe1-BWing,RoyalPalm(India),AareyMilkColony,Goregaon(E),Mumbai400065India

Prakalpwelcomesyourarticles,projectsuccessstoriesand/orsuggestions.

[email protected]@pmimumbaichapter.org

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

MR. D. Y. PATHAK, PMP

President

MR. AHMED ASHFAQ, PMP

Vice President

MR. KETAN VYAS

VP -Finance

MR. MANOJ SARASAPPAN, PMP

VP Outreach

MR. BHARAT C BHAGAT, PMP

VP Certication and Training

MR. JAY RAVAL, PMP

VP - Volunteer Development

MR. SREEGITH NAIR

VP - Professional Development

MR. OSCAR D'SOUZA

VP - Branches

MR. ANAND SUBRAMANIAM

VP - Membership

MR. BHAVESH THAKKAR

VP - Marketing

AVPs and Volunteers

Prabhu Rajpurohit - AVP Secretary

Manish Dedhiya - AVP Volunteer development

Jan Kaji - AVP Branches

Baiju Mehta - AVP - Cercaon and Training

Sachin Korgaonkar - AVP - Markeng

Vicky Panjwani - AVP - Membership

MPSTME Student Volunteers

Harshet Sharma

Partha Sharma

SIES Nerul Student Volunteers

Chiranjeev Barthakur

Ashutosh Hajare

VOL19,ISSUE5,JAN2016

PRAKALPJ O U R N A LPMConclave 2015-16 Special

PMI MUMBAI CHAPTER STAFF

Sagar Pal - Admin

[email protected]

Sunil Karangutkar - Admin

[email protected]

ADVISORS

Rameshchandra V. Joshi

Rakesh Gupta

PAKALP TEAM

MR. BAIJU MEHTA, PMP

AVP - Certication and Training

MR. SACHIN KORGAONKAR, PMP

AVP - Marketing

MR. PRABU RAJPUROHIT, PMP

AVP - Secretary

PRAKALPJ O U R N A LPMConclave 2015-16 Special VOL19,ISSUE5,JAN2016


FromPresident'sDeskHi friends,

At the outset, wish you all a very prosperous and happy 2016!!!!

Welcome again this new edion of Prakalp for Jan-2016.

Having deliberaons on Innovaon and Project Management in PMConclave

2015-16 in Dec-2015, all us can now look forward one of the most important

dimensions of our work Innovaon!!!

If innovaon is all about converng an idea into reality, the project and/or

program management is all about increasing capability of an organizaon by

converng ideas into product or service. However, that realizaon of business

value can only be availed by the organizaons aer implemenng it

successfully.

Organizaons must have Discovery, Invenon and Innovaon as three key

aspects of its long term strategy for sustaining in the business and thereaer

ourishing in the business. Project and/or Program management is an engine

for implemenng new products and services within an organizaon. But what

brings value is the successful implementaon of the product or service to realize

the benets. Innovaon brings value to organizaons by enabling

organizaons with a compeve edge, by increasing return on investment

drascally, and increasing Business Value rapidly.

With start of Make in India, Smart Cies and Startup India iniaves by

the Central Government, a plethora of opportunies will be there to build in

innovave product and services. There will be need to use innovave, dynamic

and exible project management frameworks to ideate new product and

services and implement them successfully.

Such paradigm shi will bring signicant value as a part of your role as project

or program manager and benet yourself, your organizaon and our naon!!

I am sure that you all will nd this release very relevant to you profession and

will add value as you build and roll out innovave product or services.

With Warm regards,

MR. D. Y. PATHAK, MBA, PFMP, PMP, CISA

President

[email protected]



PMCONCLAVE 2015-16 Highlights - Day 1

PMIMumbaiChapterPMConclave2015-16Team

Dr.SharadMaisekar,DeanMPSTElightingthelamptoinauguratethePMConclave2015-16

D.Y.Pathak,PresidentofPMIMumbaiChapter,lightingthelamptoinauguratethePMConclave2015-16




Dr.VandanaSonwaney-DirectorSIOMNashiklightingthelamp

R.V.Joshilightingthelamp.WithD.Y.Pathak,Dr.JayantGandhi,Dr.SharadMaisekarandVandanaSonwaney

Dr.VandanaSonwaneyaddressingdelegates.WithShrutiPandit,MOCandBaijuMehta,PMO

Mr.RajendraMuthyewithparticipantsinhisworkshopInnovationMadeSimple

Mr.RajendraMuthye Dr.VandanaSonwaneybeingfelicitatedbyBaijuMehta




StudentofMPSTME-PMIMumbaiChapterBranchPresidentPMIMumbaiChapter,D.Y.Pathakaddressingthe

participants

'AnalyticalandCreativeProblemSolvingWorkshopbyMr.V.Prasanna Networkingbreak

Dr.HemjithBalakrishnanDelegates Mr.BalajiRamadurai




WinnerofTechnicalPaper,PriyaPatrabeingfelicitatedbyMr.R.V.Joshi,ChairTechnicalPaperCommitte

DelegatesatRegistrationdesk

Dr.JayantGandhideliveringtheKeynote

Prof.PradeepPendse,Dr.AnujaAgarwalandProf.Seshadri

Mr.AhmedAshfaq,VicePresidentandD.Y.Pathak,PresidentofMumbaiChapterwithMr.PrakashSeernani-BFSI




MOCShrutiPanditWelcomingDelegates

Dr.AnujaAgarwalAssociateDeanNMIMSMPSTME Dr.AnujaAgarwalbeingfelicitatedbyMr.ManojSarasappan

PresidentofPMIPuneDeccanIndiaChapter,Mr.GirishKadamwithMr.PrakashSeernaniandMr.JayaramBG

Mr.JayaramBGbeingfelicitatedbyMr.AhmedAshfaque Dr.SachinDeshmukhtakingonBigdata

Mr.JayaramBGAVP&HeadPMCOE,Infosys




Mr.PrakashSeernani Prof.PradeepPendse DelegateaskingaQuestion

Dr.RadhakrishnanPillaienlighteningonChanakyaandProjectManagement

Mr.MihirShethistakingworkshoponBusinessEtiquette




CEOofA3RMTPvt.Ltd.Dr.ShrikantParikhtalkingonProjectManagementofHighTechYoungCompanies

Mr.RajeevKumarbeingfelicitatedbyBaijuMehtaProf.V.SeshadribeingfelicitatedbyBaijuMehta

Mr.RakeshGuptabeingfelicitatedbyBaijuMehta

PanelDiscussion-"ChallengesofManagingInnovationProjectMr.PrakashSeernani,Mr.SureshRajan,Mr.RajeevKumar,

Prof.SeshadriandMr.RakeshGupta

Mr.AhmedAshfaq




Mrs.DarshanaPadghanebeingfelicitatedbyMr.R.V.Joshi

Mr.PrakashSeernani,Mr.SureshRajan,Mr.RajeevKumar,Prof.SeshadriandMr.RakeshGupta

withMr.BaijuMehtaandMr.RojiPhillip Mrs.RituJainbeingfelicitatedbyMr.R.V.Joshi

Mr.RojiPhilipbeingfelicitatedbyMr.BaijuMehtaMr.PrakashSeernanibeingfelicitatedbyMr.BaijuMehta

StudentofMPSTME-PMIMumbaiChapterBranchwithMr.BaijuMehta,Prof.Seshadri,Mr.Pathak,Mr.BharatBhagat

andMr.TejasSura



Maximizing Business Value

HOW??

WOW!!

to

he past decade has seen fundamental change in industries like

1. Telecommunicaons

2. Postal mail

3. Markeng

4. Television / Entertainment

5. Music / Entertainment

The foundaon upon which these industries were built shied and they

experienced profound disrupon as the result of how digital technology has been

leveraged.

This trend towards digital disrupon has accelerated. In order to maintain

relevance, businesses must encourage innovaon and agility.

The Project Management profession is transforming from mere delivery of

projects that conform to PMI's tradional triple constraint, to the delivery of

projects with business value.

The generaon of business value requires agility innovave thinking and

innovave acon.

Let's consider how the combinaon of innovaon and agility can produce business

value?

How can we align service delivery through ideaon, build, launch, support, and IT

operaons to maximize business value?

T

Priya Patra

Sr. Manager Projects, IGATE Global Soluons

In discussing the 200,000 taste tests that

led to the change in formula, the Coca-

Cola web site says, What these tests

didn't show, of course, was the bond

consumers felt with their Coca-Cola

something they didn't want anyone,

including The Coca-Cola Company,

tampering with.

PMCONCLAVE - TECHNICAL PAPER WINNER




How can a Project Manager be a change agent?

Could the driving of change be the new Project Management for innovave and disrupve

transformaon?

Introducon

In early 1985, a team of high level execuves, analysts, and marketers secretly ploed what would be

remembered as one of the greatest market blunders of the 20th century. For een consecuve

years, Coca-Cola had watched as its agship product lost market share to non-cola products and to its

chief competor, Pepsi.

The company had not been idle. Coca-Cola was plong a change in formula based on the preferences of nearly 200,000 consumer

taste tests. On April 23rd, the company launched its new product, which would replace the exisng Coca-Cola, a product, which had

remained unchanged for nearly a century. Here was an intelligent risk, which had science in its corner. The company was looking to

regain industry dominance, and consumer loyalty.

The backlash was incredible. Coca-Cola's consumer hotline saw a three-fold increase in complaint calls, jumping to nearly one

thousand ve hundred calls each day. It didn't stop there; people complained vehemently to any Coca-Cola employee they had

access to. Security guards and neighbors were seemingly held personally responsible for the company's change in formula. The CEO

received derisive leers, one addressed to Chief Dodo, The Coca-Cola Company.

Coca-Cola had intended to disrupt the so-drink industry and regain market dominance. They ulmately succeeded, but not in the

way they had intended. Within seventy nine days of New Coke's launch, Coca-Cola reintroduced the original formula under the name

Coca-Cola Classic. This announcement resulted in two major news networks covering the story, and front page coverage on nearly

every major newspaper. Coca-Cola Classic enjoyed higher sales than ever, and the company cemented its posion of dominance in

the so-drink industry.

This is a story that demonstrates a calculated risk, gone awry, followed by a nimble response, which allowed the company to capitalize

on its earlier mistake, and gain the sort of dominance it sought, almost by accident. Coca-Cola's successful innovaon was not in the

reformulaon of its product, but rather in its agility in responding to a massive consumer backlash. What could we learn from the

New Coke Story?

SUCCESS OF A PRODUCT DEPENDS ON ITS BUSINESS VALUE.

Wikipedia denes Business Value as an informal term that includes all forms of value that determine the health and well-being of

the rm in the long-run and notes that it goes beyond purely economic value.

The New Coke story demonstrates product failure emerging from a low value proposion and a lack of consumer readiness. In

discussing the 200,000 taste tests that led to the change in formula, the Coca-Cola web site says, What these tests didn't show, of

course, was the bond consumers felt with their Coca-Cola something they didn't want anyone, including The Coca-Cola Company,

tampering with.

The value of

an idea lies in

using of it

-Thomas A Edison




Digital Disrupon and Customer Experience Management:

GARTNER's 2015 research paper says Customer Experience management is the new baleeld. As change builds upon change,

certainty becomes increasingly elusive. Today's rate of change demands agility and innovaon in product development and

enhancement eorts. Organizaons which fails to innovate and fails to focus on enhancing customer experience won't be

compeve. This isn't about building the future; rather it is a focus on what customers need next.

A Customer experience journey map includes:

Customer Idencaon

Customer Acquision

Customer Development

Customer Retenon

Customer Growth

Aligning the product lifecycle with the customer experience journey map is valuable, and requires an examinaon of product

acceptance. Research indicates that when customers are involved in creang product ideas, their acceptance of new products

increases. In 2011, LEGO introduced crowdsourcing to its product development strategy with Cuusso, which invites users to submit

and vote for new LEGO set ideas. If an idea gets 10,000 votes, it is reviewed and deployed for producon. Cuusso revitalized LEGO's

suering market and today LEGO enjoys unprecedented success.

Who else crowdsources its product development? General Electric! In 2014 GE launched their First

Build iniave, an online community where people submit design ideas for home appliances. First

Build provides, space, tools and resources so that submied ideas are prototyped. Once the

prototype is evaluated, new products are produced on a small scale and consumers provide

focused feedback, which guides the nal design.

Customer Development and Retenon requires businesses to focus on customer experience

through service, delivery, and support. Cost reducon isn't enough; rather businesses must use

every interacon with a customer to generate value. According to the Harvard Business School, a

ve percent increase in customer retenon can result in prot growth of between twenty ve and

ninety ve percent.

Customer Growth: Developing and expanding your customer base is vital. In May of 2015, Coca-Cola launched the e-commerce

CustomerExperienceManagementJourneymap:

The Secret to

success is to use

technology to bring

customers closer,

not chase

them away




campaign Share a Coke, which enabled consumers to order personalized Coke boles online. So far, 500,000 eight ounces bole

have been sold at the price of $5 each.

Agility Product Innovaon Business Value x N Model

Agile methodologies are designed to deliver business value. In fact, Product Innovaon, with agile, can amplify business value.

Consider sprint planning where features from the product backlog are priorized and moved to the sprint backlog. The business

manager focuses on business value and delivery of a potenally shippable product at the end of the sprint or iteraon. Each

subsequent iteraon either builds on or further opmizes the business value. What follows are some tools and frameworks that

enable this model.

Lean Startup - A startup is a temporary sub-organizaonwhich experiments with and implements new business models. Applying

lean thinking, results in models being validated by real users while comming minimal resources. It is based on the Build Measure

Learncycle.

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the product that provides highest return on investment vs risk. It is that version of the product that

enables the full turn of the Build Measure- Learn loop with a minimum amount of eort and least development me. Its goal is to

test the fundamental business hypotheses.

It was in July 2013, I was called in to manage / salvage a so called situaon. We were

conguring workows for on-boarding of suppliers, using a SaaS product from a third

party vendor.

Our workows were complex and had mulple steps. Over the years we had added

business specic parameters, leading to spaghe conguraon parameters and code.

The implementaons were complex, erroneous and the lead me to release a workow

was one month. We spent one week on user training and three weeks post producon

support. Our customer experience was not great and we were losing customer base to

other modes of on-boarding, somemes manual. We needed to simplify and standardize

our workows. Who else could provide us the right inputs? None other than our

customers!

BusinessValuexNModel

BusinessValuexNModel




We presented our rst MVP the workow design as a mockup; we launched MVP 2, a working demo of the same to a pilot group of

users two days later. There were daily feedback sessions; and we would release a MVP every two days. We validated our learnings and

improved on the workow iteraon on iteraon. Aer ve MVPs and at the end of one month we rolled out a workow which was

simplied and loved by our users. We could cut down the me for our subsequent implementaons from 1 month to 3 weeks,

training and post producon support to 1 week. Not only was that implementaon a

success, it also increased our customer sckiness.

FASTWORKS is a framework developed by General Electric and Eric Ries based on the

lean startup principles of think simply, test quickly and move immediately.

In 2013, General Electric began implemenng FASTWORKS, where employees pitch

product ideas. The best ideas are developed by their original teams, who demonstrate

viability through tests and connuous user interacon. This process results in an MVP

directed by customer feedback. In January of 2013, GE developed a French door MVP

for their high end Monogram line of refrigerators. Customers said the color was too

dark and the lighng was inadequate. GE made revisions and in August 2013

customers indicated that they liked the product. In Jan of 2014, GE built 75 units, which

have met with customer approval and GE expects to launch version ten in late 2015.

GE has moved away from the tradional strategy of revising products every 5 years,

and today they revise every year. The FASTWORKS program has enabled GE to leverage speed as a compeve advantage along with

their open and collaborave interacon with customers.

MVP need not necessarily mean a minimally featured product; it is a means to get early feedback. In my Workow Implementaon

project our rst MVP was a mockup. In 2007, Dropboxreleased a 3m screencast published on Hacker news. The screencast provided

early adopters a preview of the Dropbox experience. The video served asan MVP, which validated Drew Houston's belief that his

development eorts would yield a product with customer demand.

Google Design Sprints This framework, developed by Google Ventures is a 5 day sprint as outlined below:

Day 1 Understand the team delves into the problem through compeve analysis, strategy exercises and research.

Day 2 Diverge Rapidly develop as many soluons as possible

Day 3 Decide Choose the best design and make a user story

Day 4 Prototype Quickly build a soluon and solicit user feedback

Day 5 Validate users access prototype and communicate what works and what does not

Cap Gemini's Co-innovaon Labs brings developers and customers together to co-create soluons that solve their customers'

problems. Co-innovaon Labs rely on two day hackathon sessions for rapid Ideaonand crowdsourced soluons to create MVPs.

To be successful, these business ideas require meculous project / product and program management. What would have happened

in Capgemini's Co-Innovaon Labs if the actors were not focused? Would a two day MVP be possible? Without Project management

these eorts would fail.

If you are not

embarrassed by

the rst version of

your product,

you have launched

it too late

- Reid Homan




Disciplined program and project management are required for a successful blending of technology, focused innovaon, agility and

customer experience management. Without the Project Manager not only does a company fail to maximize business value, they may

well fail to deliver any value.

In a true agile manner when I retrospect on my experience and learnings of the workow implementaon project as a project

manager I:

Catalyzed the team to Introspect as well as extrospeco understand customer pain points.

Priorized ideas which could create the painkillers, In this case we used the innovaon funnel to Dene- Incubate-Accelerate and

Scale ideas.

Observed customer reacon, collect feedback and communicate back to stakeholders and team through eecve communicaon.

Measured learnings and incrementally build value based on the learnings.

Monitored risks arising due to changes in the SaaS product, which we were

conguring. We had a scheduled release of the SaaS product aer we had built our

third MVP. To migate the risk, the vendor was involved in the customer feedback

sessions to align the release to the MVP. This helped us to accelerate the creaon of

our third MVP and amplify value.

The above leads to the essenal components of project management as explored

below:

Strategic Planning: Innovaon projects are evaluated for GO or KILL decisions.

Manager must priorize innovaon with the most promise for prot and ideas

that are aligned to the business objecves, resources must be allocated where

they can make the biggest dierence.

Communicaon: As agility and innovaon gain in importance, project managers

will need to focus on being proacve based on market trends, changes in

technology and customer expectaons. Communicaon must include upper and

lower layers of the organizaon, as well as customers and third party vendors in

order to minimize surprises.

Monitoring and Tracking: A Project manager's role is to manage the fuzzy end of

innovaon. While creang MVPs learnings / value is to be measured, when the value yields diminishing results, they must

correct, or stop non value added projects. It is imperave that these assessments be done quickly, which will expand the

focus of Project Managers beyond the iron triangle of scope, schedule and budget, so that they are managing for value.

Risk Management: Rapid changes in technology and requisite experse constantly impact requirements. Thus, scope creep is a

constant threat, and unancipated opportunies may suddenly appear. Risk idencaon, monitoring, and response, is essenal

to migate damage and capitalize on opportunies.

InnovationFunnel




Change Management: Change management is essenal to organizaonal agility and the ability to adapt to new business

scenarios, technologies, and customer senments. Change management is responsible for project success and change

acceptance is part of that success. Thus, change needs to be communicated to users, and compeng interest must be addressed

to ensure successful adjustment and adopon within the organizaon.

Looking Forward

Now that we have learnt about the market dynamics, how it relates to digital disrupon, customer experience and tools and

frameworks to achieve superior customer experience, it is just a maer of visualizing and connecng How ideas to generate

WOW customer and stakeholder experience? To summarize:

1)Improve co-creaon:Foster increased customer parcipaon.

2) Design Beer: Focus on designing the customer experience.

3) Showdon't tell: Provide customers with regular access to developing products for feedback and praccal improvement.

4)Be led by the customer needs not by Technological possibilies.

These principles will WOW customers and project sponsors. Customer retenon and growth will improve, business value will be

obvious, and prots will grow as customers become fans.

References:

hps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_value

hp://www.wazoku.com/blog/10-top-innovaon-quotes/

hp://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/coke-lore-new-coke/

hps://www.pmi.org/Business-Soluons/~/media/PDF/Business-Soluons/Global_innovaons.ashx

The Lean Startup Eric Ries

hps://hbr.org/2014/04/how-ge-applies-lean-startup-pracces/

hps://rstbuild.com/

hps://www.capgemini.com/customer-experience-management/capgeminis-co-innovaon-labs-helping-you-think-two-steps-ahead

About the Author:

Priya Patra Sr. Manager Project, IGATE Global Soluons

Priya is an Agile Evangelist and a Project Manager in technology industry Within IGATE she leads the Agile Community of Pracce. Externally, she is

an acve contributor to projectmanagement.com - PMIs KM site. For her contribuons, she was invited for Ask an Expert session at the PMI

Global Congress 2015, North America.

Email: [email protected]

[email protected]

LinkedIn: hps://in.linkedin.com/in/priyapatra

Twier: @priyapatra

Reviewed By:

Michael Adams, PMP, ITIL Foundaon

Michael is a senior applicaon analyst and project manager for Los Alamos Countys IT Division. Michael volunteers as President Elect for the

Otowi Bridge PMI chapter in New Mexico, and Michael writes the PM-Interface blog on ProjectManagement.com

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: hps://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeladamspmp

Twier: @MichaelAdamsPMP

Images By: Mohammed Abuzar ([email protected])

MPRAKALPJ O U R N A LPMConclave 2015-16 Special VOL19,ISSUE5,JAN2016

#PMIMumbaiChapterPage19

Method

n a global business environment, companies undertake large-scale and complex

projects as they seek to implement business strategies that involve mulple business

units, geographies and possibly several service providers. In organizaons where the

maturity of project management processes and tools is low, execung such projects

can be chaoc.

Project management discipline is essenal to the success of large-scale projects but

there are many situaons that project managers have to contend with that can

disrupt discipline and add to the chaos. These may include 'project creep' where

signicant scope is added at a late stage and this has a ripple eect on dependent

projects. Managers struggle to keep pace with perennial resource demands as

crical risks and issues get lost in nerve-ending lists and the status reports they

receive become 'stale'. Managing diverse teams across geographies also introduces

cultural complexity.

While there may be an opmum tool for each scenario, the reality is that restricons

oen mean project managers have to deploy what is on hand without the luxury of

introducing their preferred system.

Quick Wins with Innovave Soluons

If large projects are to be successfully executed, they must be well organized,

coordinated, monitored, and controlled. Although it may be preferable to deploy

specialized project management tools to handle such large projects, these tools

come with their own costs and complexies and implementaon can be

overwhelming. Introducing new tools may shi focus from actual project work. And

if users are not comfortable with these tools, their introducon may lead to other

complicaons.

For organizaons that have lile in the way of project management systems in place,

it may be more ecient to use whatever exisng tools and resources are already

available.

The following real world project scenarios are examples of innovave soluons being

introduced to address the prevailing challenge.

I

Abstract

For any large-scale project, there are several

challenges faced by a project manager. In this

paper author has shared various real life project

scenarios wherein exisng tools were used in an

innovave way to address few such challenges

and implement the best pracces to achieve the

project management discipline required for large

projects. This paper demonstrates how simple

and pragmac soluons can become powerful

means to achieve method in madness.

PMCONCLAVE - TECHNICAL PAPER ENTRY

Madness

Submitted for PMConclave 2015-16

Ritu Jain, PMP

Darshana Padghane, PMP




Geng Right Resources at Right Time

Challenge: In a very large project at a global bank, more than 100 open resource requirements existed at any given point of me.

Timely availability of the people with the skills required at parcular stages was a prime concern.

Several factors combined to impede opmal resource assignment and ulizaon. There was no single view of resource requirements

at overall project level and mulple work streams were compeng for the same skill set. The methods of capturing and maintaining

resource requirements within each project were inconsistent. Timely informaon about requirements and status was unavailable so

a lot of me was spent in coordinaon and consolidaon. The support funcon that should have been allocang resources was

uncooperave due to these reasons.

Soluon: Microso SharePoint was already in use within the team so it was deployed as a tool to overcome these challenges.

SharePoints List feature was used to create a centralized list of all resource requirements. All requirement details such as date

requested, project work stream, skill set, experience level, cricality, planned start date, planned end date, and remarks. were

captured in the SharePoint List. This provided a real me view of all resource requirements at overall project level. There was no

dependency on individual teams for access to this view as informaon was available to all at a central locaon. The result was beer-

planned resourcing and support from the resource management funcon. The availability of real-me informaon made tracking

and reporng more eecve and relevant metrics were generated to support further improvement.

Result: Using this simple tool, resource management for this large project was streamlined and several benets were derived. A

single source meant all resource requirements were idened well ahead of me at a centralized place. This led to a signicant

reducon in me spent in coordinaon and consolidaon of informaon. With the help of tool, tracking and reporng of resource

requirements and their status became much more eecve. With improved cooperaon from resource management funcon

resources were available in a mely manner.

Coping with Lack of Synergy in Mulple Silo Teams

Challenge: A retail giants SAP project included several businesses located in the APAC region. The global project team comprised

various funconal experts sat in dierent locaons and country-specic teams for local implementaon.

Working with distributed teams presented several challenges. Team members were unaware of work hours and holidays at other

locaons, which made planning meengs dicult. Cross-cultural dierences caused problems and with key stakeholders travelling

across geographies, they became dicult to connect with.

Teams were unaware of other work streams and conngencies. Several escalaons across the teams hindered the projects progress.

Soluon: An overarching project umbrella to address the concerns of the distributed teams and unite members was needed. As

SharePoint was already used within the project as a document repository, a project portal was created using SharePoint Team Site to

provide a focal point. This website or portal became a go-to point for all informaon needs of team members and oered a channel

for consistent communicaon.

All project informaon was stored in the portal and links provided for various sites for work streams and country-specic roll-outs.

Project prole, project plan, risk register, issue register, and status reports were available as were key project updates such as

upcoming milestones, recently accomplished milestones, iniaon and closure of projects. The portal also held holiday, leave and

training calendars alongside contact informaon for all team members. A celebraon corner was used for personalized messages and

photographs of special occasions.

Result: The project portal helped create a sense of belonging for all team members and encouraged a collaborave project




environment. Providing proacve and consistent communicaons was an important way of connecng and engaging the enre

team. As the team aligned to a common project purpose members became eager contributors to various project acvies. The

transparency created an environment of trust and teamwork and team celebraons kept morale high.

Tracking Fast-Changing Requirements

Challenge: A technology upgrade for the wealth management arm of a global bank encompassed re-architecng the applicaons

and enhancing exisng funconalies. The project had mulple technical and business requirements and, as it was live applicaon,

parallel change requests had to be incorporated as well. The project had to be completed before the legacy technology went out of

service. Using agile methodology, each release saw more and more funconality migrate from the exisng applicaon to the new

applicaon.

There were following key challenges

Due to dierent technology features, the exisng features could not be implemented as is

Change requests on older applicaon added to the list of requirements

Bugs in exisng applicaon were discovered and had to be xed as well

Business requested several enhancements on top of exisng funconality

The business requirements documented at the beginning of the project no longer remained valid

Several requirements came in over mails and no track of the ones authorized by business

Key requirements missed in the release leading to loss of faith and condence of business users

Development team overworked and frustrated with ever changing requirements

Soluon: The project needed an agile project management tool but there was no budget for any such tool and the team was not

ready to spend me and eort implemenng a new tool for the project. The project team was using JIRA to track maintenance

requests for the exisng applicaon so a decision was taken to use the same tool for the technology upgrade project. All

requirements listed in Business Requirements Document were broken down and migrated into JIRA for easier tracking. All

requirements were priorized and categorized as essenal, required, nice to have, or oponal and JIRA items tagged to a release.

Wherever change was iniated, an impact analysis was done and all conngencies idened, updated and sent for business

approval. Only JIRA requests approved by the business would be picked up for development. Aer each release JIRA items falling o

the release were re-priorized for the next release.

Result: With each successful release, the business was sased with the funconality delivered. As the requirements were signed o,

the number of defects and post release issues reduced. The capture and tracking of requirements to a logical closure helped gain the

trust and condence of user community. Requirements were beer priorized and managed which minimized backlog and took

pressure o the development team. In turn this improved the quality of deliverables and allowed for beer planning of subsequent

releases.

Eliminang Risk and Issues Creang Chaos

Challenge: The project was the conversion of a clearing plaorm for a global bank, which aimed to replace an external plaorm with a

proprietary one acquired with the purchase of a smaller bank. The overall business program had several work streams including

major IT sub-programs to customize the clearing plaorm and switch exisng applicaons. The project faced major challenges. All

work streams were running in parallel and interdependent. Teams had varying levels of project management maturity and used

dierent tools to manage their projects. As teams waited on each other they played a blame game over the delays. There were

several risks and issues but no clarity on which ones were impeding the overall program.

Soluon: With several IT project teams involved and high levels of specicity required within work streams, it was unsustainable to

connue to manage issues, risks, and dependencies in Microso Excel.




SharePoint was touted for overall program management but the team, which had been using Mercury Quality Center (QC) for Defect

tracking, was not comfortable transioning. To deliver a quick win, QC was customized to create dierent categories of items for

issues, risks, and dependencies. Fields were added so that internal items could be easily assigned and tracked to closure while Excel

reports could be extracted easily and published to larger audiences.

Result: The risks, issues, and dependencies were well managed using the Mercury Quality Center. Segregated at appropriate levels

and assigned to correct owners, risks, issues, and dependencies were tracked to closure. By idenfying the correct owner for each,

issues and risks were migated in a mely manner. Escalaon mechanisms were used eecvely to manage risks and idencaon

and tracking of dependencies at overall project level helped improve control and risk planning.

Derived Best Pracces

Several conclusions can be drawn from the combined project experiences.

Single Source of Truth: In cases where mulple teams work in parallel it is essenal to have a single view of real-me

informaon. Best results come from the use ofa common shared arfact with controlled access such as resource tracker, risk and

issue tracker, assumpons and claricaons tracker, defect tracker, acon item tracker, or dependencies tracker. Any tool, whether

designed for content management, collaboraon, document or conguraon management can be used if it is centrally managed and

accessible and has controlled access.

Unied Project Team: When working with distributed teams a project portal is a must. It helps create an integrated

team environment. Depending on the size and nature of the project, several features can be added to the portal. These may include

news and announcements, calendar, me-sheets and leaves, contact details, travel plans, project team structure, and links to project

documents. Any prevalent web or portal technology can be used for the purpose.

Taming the Change: For projects in a dynamic or agile environment, it is imperave to have a suitable tool to plan and

track the change requests and manage the releases. There are several agile tools in the market but convenonal tools can be

customized for the purpose. Many defect-tracking tools also provide features for requirements and change-tracking.

Conclusion

There are clear benets to choosing the right tool for the job. In project management these benets will include reduced risk of

chaos, beer ulizaon of me, enhanced producvity, improved tracking, and idencaon of areas of further improvement. But it

is not the tools themselves that achieve results but the way in which they are used.

Instead of allowing a project to be overwhelmed by a tool implementaon, project managers should focus on solving the problem

with soluons that are easy to implement and adopt. Picking something that is already in place and with which people are already

familiar will give a project manager an edge.

References:

[1] Project Management Body of Knowledge (Edion 5 ) - PMI

[2] The Standard for Program Management PMI

[3] Managing successful Programs - Oce of Government Commerce, UK

[4] hps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_soware_development

[5] hps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microso_SharePoint

[6] hps://products.oce.com/en-us/sharepoint/collaboraon

[7] hps://technet.microso.com/en-us/oce/

[8] hps://www.atlassian.com/soware/jira

[9] hp://www8.hp.com/in/en/soware-soluons/quality-center-quality-management/



HOLACRACY

olacracy operates on a principle of self-organizaon or self-management where

there are no bosses who dictate the decision from the top. It works on the

principle of distributed authority. This approach of management was founded by

Brian Robertson and Tom Thomison in 2007. Holacracy is derived from the Greek

term Holon which means whole or self-contained autonomous units.

According to the founders, Holacracy works like an operang system where

decision making is distributed among various circles. Each circle is self-organizing

group with people performing various roles. There will not be xed job

descripons or job tles. The tradional job descripons make the way for roles.

These roles are exible and keep on rening. A person can take mulple roles in

same circle or be part of mulple circles. Also the roles are not xed forever and

can be changed as per the decision during governance meengs. Each decision is

made in democrac way with no hierarchy within the circle. Each circle is led by a

lead link. But the dierence here is that the lead linksareequal to any other team

member and has no authority over the team members. Lead link has the

responsibility to assign the roles to its team members and represent the combined

roles of a circle.

The governing rules and processes are dened in Holacracy constuon, which is

frequently rened in mulple iteraons through governance meengs. Authority

and decisions are distributed to team rather than centralized decision making in

tradional way of management.Though there are no hierarchies within the circle,

there could be hierarchy of circles, with a super circle encompassing dierent sub

circles. The various circles can be linked to each other in hierarchical or exist in

parallel. There isa role called rep link who is nominated to be part of another

related circle, to ensure that there is greater

synergy across various circles.

The examples of roles could be:

Brand Design

Product delivery

Markeng

Developer

Secretary Etc.

H

Rajesh Kumar Mudiakal

SAP Project Manager

Abstract

What would be the reacon of Senior Director of a

company on being told that he has to give up all his

powers from the next day and would be treated on par

any other employee in the company? The natural

response would be that of resentment and this could

even result in employee arion. At the same me a

junior execuve whose ideas used to get sed by his

seniors more oen than not, would relish such situaon

where his voice will be heard. This is the kind of situaon

Holacracy would bring in to table. Holacracy is similar to

democracy or communism in management, which

empowers every employee and removes power centres

within the organizaon. But though it is democrac,there

cansll be hierarchies. But individuals are replaced by

group of individuals as circles and the job proles are

replaced by oang roles. It brings in transparency and

also bring inmore people in decision making process.

Though we cannot discount its benets, there are

apprehensions about the praccality and universal

adopon of this method. This paper examines this

revoluonary concept of management and how it can be

applied to Project Management.


Democracy In

Project ManagementSubmitted for PMConclave 2015-16




The taccal and governance meengs are held at regular frequencies to address governance and process related issues and

constraints. The Governance meengs take care of issues pertaining to roles, authority, powers etc. The Taccal meengs address

project updates, checklists of last week, project matrices and tensions.

A shared space known as corkboard is used for monitoring operaonal tasks. Shared space can be physical board, intranet or excel

sheet. The various rules and governing structures are laid out in holacracy constuon. The decisions are made through an

integrave decision making process where a facilitator coordinates the process, which involves a proposal followed by reacon

round where the immediate reacon of the other circle members are sought. A Decision is made if there are no objecons to the

proposal. If there are objecons, they are discussed and unl a consensus is arrived at. If there are no proposals from any member, a

group decision is made through exploring various points of views with each member of the circle. Each point of view or objecons are

discussed thoroughly before taking nal decision. Here it diers from typical democracy where decisions are made based on majority

vote that even the minority views also heard and incorporated, if they are valid points.

Case Study

The most popular case study for Holacracy Model is Zappos. Zappos started the process of transion in to Holacracy in 2013 and met

with inial resistance from a secon of the employees. The transion resulted in Chaos in the inial phase where the employees were

confused about the structure and the changes. One year was the targeted me for completely moving into holacracy. But the pace of

change was not up to mark. The Companys MD Tony Hseih had to give an ulmatum to his employees to embrace the new way of

funconing or leave the company with severance package. 14 % of the employees chose to take the package and leave the

organizaon. The key challenges were to align the employees to the new structure, dening proper roles, design of salary structure

based on roles, fear of losing jobs etc. But the resolve and belief of the leaders of Zappos is taking it through the transion despite the

obstacles.

Holacracy in Tradional Waterfall Project Management

There is a genuine fear among praconers about whether the project managers will be abolished or diluted in the new structure of

Holacracy. This fear is baseless as the projects sll have to be managed and alsothe project Management skills and methodologies are

sll be required. In tradional waterfall project Management, the project Manager has absolute authority of decision making

pertaining to the project and there is a reporng relaonship between project team and Project Manager. So a bad project Manager

can spoil a project despite the good work by the team and many mes the great ideas from the team members are blocked by

managers and also there can be situaons where team members fear to express themselves. Holacracy provides soluons to this.

The dierence here is that the project Management might not be done by a single person and also the project manager will just be

one of the roles within a project circle. There can be single or mulple roles which cover the enre acvies of project management

and also the project manager role will not have absolute authority over the decision making. For example, Creaon of inial project

plan could be one role; there can be other roles for acvies like monitoring, conducng status meeng etc. The advantage with the

holacracy is that the project management tasks are geng distributed among various team members and thus ensuring greater

parcipaon of all team members in the process. The risks and escalaons called Tensions are managed through taccal meengs

in a democrac manner. New roles are created and the exisng roles are reworked based on the changing realies of the project

through governance meeng. For example, in a complex project suppose new risk occurs which requires closer monitoring and set of

acvies which were not part of original project plan. In such cases, the exibility which Holacracy provides will be of help. Holacracy

constuon itself provides the provision of creaon new roles as per the changing condions. So the management structure will be

up to date with the changing realies. The distributed authority helps in ensuring that there is greater dialogue and brainstorming

while tackling various problems as more people are involved in decision making. All team members are given equal chance to speak

at taccal meengs and governance meengs. So the project management decisions will be based on group intelligence rather than

the intelligence of a parcular person. Empowering every individual ensures that there is opmum ulizaon of capabilies of all

team members. Also there will be free ow of informaon across various team members and ideas will not get sed by managers.




Holacracy in Programme Management

Holacracy gives a framework for programme management scenarios as well, where the mulple teams and projects can be

interlinked through sub circles, super circles with the highest circle hierarchy level forms the programme management layer. The sub

project circles are linked among each other and to programme management circle through rep link role. Rep links are elected by each

circle. The Rep links ensure that the tensions and point of views of various project teams are heard at a higher level of decision making

circle and ensure integraon of projects aligning to the programme objecves.

Holacracy in Agile Project Management

Holacracy perfectly blends with agile environments. Holacracy itself has an agile governance model, which is rened through

mulple iteraons. Holacracy gives extra edge to agile project management methodology. Agile methodology is also working with

self-organised teams. But typical agile organizaon structure lacks proper administrave and decision making framework. This gap

can be fullled by Holacracy. Each scrum team can be treated as a circle with roles like scrum masters, developers etc. These two

frameworks can complement each other to enhance each others capabilies. Holacracy also gives a soluon to inter-play between

dierent agile/scrum teams working within the project and across dierent projects under same program. One of the key which is

missing in agile methodology is risk management, which get addressed through taccal meengs in Holacracy. But there is need for

creang a hybrid model of agile methodology incorporang holacracy structure in to agile framework. Ternary soware Inc had

successfully adopted holacracy for their agile development teams. Holacracy helped Ternary to have beer communicaon and

decision making within the agile teams and across mulple teams through double linking through rep links.

Conclusion

Holacracy as concept that holds a lot of promise and can revoluonise the project management and Management in general. But

how it is implemented and introduced in to the current system is very much important. A sudden switch to new concept can create

employee dissasfacon, chaos and arion like Zappos experienced.A phased introducon of change starng from some projects

or some specic areas would be beer opon rather radical change altogether. The centre theme of Holacracy is empowerment of

employees. So it is important that employees are aligned to the concept and their insecuries are understood and addressed. If this is

not happening, Holacracy will create holes in the organizaon with employee arion. Also the holacracy deals with only internal

re-organizaon, but specic guidelines are missing on how to deal with external stakeholders like partners, customers, vendors etc.

So there is need for expansion of the concept to encompass wider ecosystem.

References:

p://www.holacracy.org/how-it-works/

hp://www.businessinsider.in/Inside-Zappos-CEO-Tony-Hsiehs-radical-management-experiment-that-prompted-14-of-employees-to-

quit/arcleshow/47310297.cms

hp://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/01/15/making-sense-of-zappos-and-holacracy/

hps://hbr.org/2015/09/the-big-misconcepons-holding-holacracy-back & hps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_circle

hp://www.sociocracy.info/hps://www.cuer.com/sites/default/les/oers/APM/2006/HolacracyACompleteSystemForAgileOrganizaonalG

overnanceAndSteering_Cuer.pdf

About the Author

Rajesh Kumar Mudiakal is currently working as SAP Project Manager with one of the Big 4 Auding and Consulng rms. He has an overall

Experience of 19 years in areas like IT, Manufacturing and Project Management. He has completed M.S in Mechanical Engineering from University

of Bristol in UK and an Execuve Cercaon in Strategy Consulng from Columbia Business School, USA. He was a recipient of presgious

Commonwealth DFID shared scholarship at the University of Bristol, UK. His Professional Cercaons include PMP and Prince2 in Project

Management, ITIL V3 and ISEB in soware tesng and SAP Cercaon in Soluon Consulng. His areas of interest are Project and Program

Management, Strategy Consulng, Risk Management, Agile project Management and SAP Consulng. He has been part of Final Judging

Commiees at American Business Awards and Internaonal Business Awards for Informaon Technology categories in 2014 and 2015. He has

published papers at PMI Naonal Conference at Hyderabad in 2014 and at Internaonal Conference of Management at JNU Delhi in 2014.

APRAKALPJ O U R N A L

PMConclave 2015-16 Special VOL19,ISSUE5,JAN2016


AGILE?

mol, a young and bright Project Manager was having a conversaon with

Mahesh (Director of a product development company) regarding an Agile

Project Manager opening in Maheshs company. Mahesh asked Amol, Hey

Amol, you have menoned in your resume that you have worked on Agile

projects. How is your experience of applying Agile for large programs, using

scaling frameworks?

Amol said, Well, uh, um, I have a Scrum Master in my team, who talks with

Scrum Masters of other teams, part of the same program. Aer listening to

this Mahesh said, My dear friend, the world of Agile is evolving rapidly and

moving beyond the convenonal pracces.

Have you come across any such scenarios, where your friends menon lot of

new jargons in Agile context, which leaves you baed? Agile has now

become a mainstream methodology for managing projects and that is

resulng in lot of new terminologies. In this context, it is important for all

Project/Program Managers and other stakeholders to understand the new

developments in Agile space.

Evoluon of Agile

Even though iterave development processes existed for many years, the

real momentum started aer Agile manifesto was signed in 2001 and now

Agile is the de-facto methodology at many places.

A

Rahul Sudame,

Persistent Systems

Abstract

Agile Project Management methodology is geng wider

acknowledgement and adopon in the last few years. Even

though Agile Manifesto was signed in 2001, actual adopon of

Agile started geng recognion approximately since 2006 and

started becoming mainstream methodology since 2010. In this

context, it would be worthwhile to check if Agile as a project

management methodology is also evolving or not.

This paper will talk about innovaons happening in the eld of

Agile in the last few years and how the picture looks like going

forward. It would cover new trends in the eld of Agile and how

the eld of project management is adapng to it. Agile is resulng

in lot of changes in roles of dierent stakeholders and team

members and the paper would present some of these changes

experienced by the author. It would also cover new tools&

techniques emerging to manage projects eecvely. As Agile is

scaling across large organizaons, it is not enough to have

convenonal Scrum teams with just 7-9 team members. This is

resulng in lot of new scaling frameworks (like SAFe, DAD, LeSS

etc.) geng generated. The organizaons are also trying out lot of

new things like choosing best pracces from dierent Agile

methodologies like Scrum, Kanban, XP, Lean etc. The paper would

cover such trends and innovaons in the eld of Agile, which

would help readers to understand how the eld of Agile is

evolving since the last few years and how the future looks like.


Is There any Happening inInnovation


EvolutionofIterativeprocesses




Lets go through some of these advances in the Agile eld in the subsequent secons.

OpenSpace Agility Invitaon instead of Mandate

As Agile started becoming popular, many organizaons started imposing Agile on their teams with the expectaon of Faster

Cheaper Beer results. This mandate can somemes work against the culture we would like to build. Hence, OpenSpace Agility [3]

technique recommends inving the team members to get involved. It incorporates the power of invitaon, Open Space, passage

rites, game mechanics, storytelling etc. for building the right environment.

The key events menoned in the passage rites are:

A Beginning: An Open Space meeng

The Middle: With experimentaon, play, and storytelling

The End: An Open Space meeng

This concept highlights importance of building right culture which would encourage team members to opt-in to pracce Agile.

Scaling Agile across the Enterprise

One of the very visible innovaons in the space of Agile is evoluon of scaling frameworks. As enterprises are trying to adopt Agile for

large programs which can consist of hundreds of team members, standard Scrum guideline of a team consisng of 7 to 9 members is

not enough. This resulted in dierent frameworks to solve this scaling need.

Scaled Agile Framework

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) [4] presented by Dean Lengwell proposes Kanban pracces at Porolio level for dening Strategic

Themes and Business Epics. Program Layer recommends building Agile Release Train (ART), which is an ongoing release mechanism

based on Develop on Cadence and Release on Demand principle. Team layer consists of applicaon of Scrum pracces across

mulple teams involved in the ART.

EvolutionofAgileMethodology




Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS)

LeSS [5] built by Craig Larman & Bas Vodde presents a framework that extends Scrum with scaling rules and guidelines without losing

original values of Scrum. It focuses on presenng a simple mechanism which ensures that core aspects like Transparency, Empirical

Process Control, Iterave development and Self-managing teams are maintained even during the scaling process.

ScaledAgileFramework

LeSSHuge




Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)

Disciplined Agile 2.0[6] process decision framework supports simplied process decisions around incremental and iterave soluon

delivery. Built by Sco Ambler, it recommends using Scrum, Agile modelling, lean soware development and other pracces as

suitable for the project.

Descaling!

Apart from the above menoned frameworks, there are few more scaling frameworks like Scrum at Scale, Nexus, Evo, Spofy

Model etc. This is also creang confusion amongst Agile praconer community and hence a fundamental discussion has started

that we need to descale Agile and go back to the basics.

Combinaon of Agile Pracces

One of the common pracces now-a-days is to cherry-pick best aspects of dierent Agile frameworks and using them at dierent

stages of the project. For example, in some of our projects we are following Scrumban[7], which uses best pracces of Scrum &

Kanban, along with Lean principles.

Using Scrum during development/tesng phase and using Kanban once the product maintenance phase starts is also another

common paern. Some of my teams use TDD & Pair Programming from XP and rest of the process as per Generally Accepted

Pracces of Scrum (GASP).

DisciplinedAgileDeliveryFramework




DevOps

Most of the organizaons are realizing that to take full advantage of Agile, they need to have beer alignment of Dev/Engineering

and Operaons/IT teams, which is resulng in advancements in DevOps eld. DevOps eld is expanding very rapidly and lot of

innovaons in terms on tools, processes and roles/responsibilies are happening currently. Many tools for Connuous Integraon,

Connuous Deployment, Monitoring, conguraon management, logging, collaboraon are emerging and adopon of these tools is

also increasing signicantly. Integraon tools & techniques are being built for dierent environments and have become an integral

part of the Agile ecosystem.

AdoptionofdierentAgilemethodologies

DevOpsToolsEcosystem




I have been working with DevOps environment for few years; we started with seng up Connuous Integraon server and

automated builds. The next step was building a workow involving various engineering tools, as presented in the gure below. The

current trend is to useconnuous deployment tools like UrbanDeploy & Conguraon management tools like Chef, Puppet, which

supports Connuous Delivery rather than just Connuous Integraon.

Evoluon of Roles & Responsibilies

As the eld of Agile is changing rapidly, rolesand responsibilies of dierent team members are also changing. Many roles are even

becoming Vicms of Agile, where they are forced to change their way of working or become obsolete.

Project Manager / QA Manager / Funconal or People Manager

Since Scrum does not explicitly menons Project Manager as a role and Agile endorses self-managing teams, role of Project Manager

is geng quesoned. In one of my project, the Project Manager is now playing mulple roles since he is not the single authority on

project esmaons, planning & tracking. In some cases PMs are taking Scrum Master Role, in other cases they are taking up role of

Product Owner, Program Manager or Release Train Engineer.

Tesng Team

Tesng team members are going through lot of changes in Agile environment. I am seeing people with strong opinions are

quesoning separate role of QA team, since Agile does not recommend Dev sub-team or QA sub-team as independent enes. The

processes such Test Driven Development, Acceptance/Behavior Driven Development and Automaon (at Unit, API or Feature level)

are further fueling this discussion. One another change is, now in most of the environments QA team members are expected to be

mul-skilled, where they need to know Automaon, Performance or Security tesng apart from convenonal manual tesng.

ContinuousIntegrationEnvironment




Business Analysts

Business Analysts are also going through lot of changes, since now they need to build the requirements in terms of Epics & User

Stories instead of detailed Funconal Specicaon Document (FSD) or Business Requirements Document (BRD). In many cases, BAs

are expected to transion to Product Owner role. The me commitment from BA team is also high in Agile environment.

Architects

In many organizaons, Enterprise Architect, System/Soluon/Applicaon Architects have been working on elaborate Design phase

which resulted in Architectural Blueprint, High level Design, Low Level Design etc. and mulple cycles for approving these

documents. Suddenly lot of these things is geng challenged due to Emergent Design concept and iterave nature of the process.

This is creang a tussle between Adaptability (of Agile) and Predictability (or waterfall) which is impacng the way Architects have

been working convenonally.

Agile in dierent environments

Once Agile started gaining tracon; many dierent types of businesses started praccing Agile. Some business areas like eCommerse,

Internet companies, Web or mobile applicaon development companies have been quick to adopt Agile due to nature of their

business. But I have worked on adopng Agile in domains such as Banking, Healthcare and Storage/Networking/Virtualizaon as

well, which were inially considered as out of Agile scope, since it involves lot of design &statutory / compliance needs, large

planning and vericaon cycles etc. Organizaons are now realizing that providing incremental value to the customer is important in

the current era, irrespecve of the domain or type of the organizaon (e.g. Product based, Services based or Startup).

Similarly Agile is now pracced in all dierent types of technologies like web applicaon development (e.g. Java or .Net), Open source

(e.g. Drupal), Mobile Applicaon development (Android / iOS / Hybrid) or SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analycs, Cloud). The rapid change

in technology landscape is in-fact making Agile an obvious way of managing projects.

Ecosystem around Agile

As the eld of Agile is evolving, it is creang a huge eco-system around it. Lets look at some of the elements of this eco-system.

New Business Opportunies

Agile has generated lot of new business opportunies for dierent organizaons. Some organizaons have emerged primarily due to

Agile environment. Many organizaons are developing tools (like Agile Project Management Tools, DevOps/CI-CD tools) and

plaorms required for Agile environment. Many organizaons provide Training or Coachingto Agile teams. Some organizaons have

built Agile Pracce / Center of Excellence, having Agile skilled professionals to work within the organizaon or to work with the

customers.

New Roles

Agile is generang new roles and opportunies for many dierent people. New roles like Release Train Engineer (who facilitates

enre Agile Release Train in Scaled Agile Framework), Area Product Owner (Specialist who focuses on customer-centric area as per

LeSS), Epic Owner, DevOps / Systems Engineer etc. are emerging rapidly. Agile Coach role is also being leveraged by many

organizaons to streamline their Agile adopon in standardized way across the organizaon.

New Cercaons

With new frameworks coming into existence, many new cercaons and associated services (like training etc.) are emerging

rapidly. Cercaons like PMI-ACP, CSP, CSC, SAFe Program Consultant, SAFe Agilist, Scrum.org, ICAgile, LeSS, DAD cercaons are

geng introduced through dierent forums.




Alignment with compliance needs

Since organizaons are adopng Agile and at the same me they need to manage their compliance needs, lot of eorts are being

made to align compliance needs of standards such as CMMi or ISO with Agile/Scrum environment. On one hand, the compliance

standards and audit process is improving, where it recognizes iterave process and aligns its documentary evidence needs

accordingly. On the other hand, the eld of Agile is also maturing on handling these compliance aspects and sll follows the core Agile

principles.

Case Study

I would like to present a Case Study where a big soware enterprise is taking advantage of latest developments in Agile environment

for delivering iterave value to its customers.

Some of the Agile pracces of this environment:

v Scaled Agile Framework for aligning dierent Business Units with common standards.

v Tools like UrbanDeploy to facilitate DevOps environment and collaboraon between IT and Engineering teams.

v Connuous Integraon environment which integrates Code repository, CI (Jenkins), Automated build (Maven),

Auto-deploy, Automated code quality check (Sonar), Unit Tesng (Junit) and Build Vericaon Tests (Selenium).

v Executable specicaons provided by Product Owners in form of FitNesse decision tables.

v Eecve usage of collaboraon tools like WebEx, Conuence Wiki and Teleconference etc.

v Organizaon-wide Agile Community of Pracce, which supports various teams in adopng Agile.

v Integraon of Requirement management tool with Agile Project Management Tool and Test execuon tool.

Summary

The eld of Agile is evolving very rapidly and innovaons in dierent aspects are happening connuously. Since the word Agile

evolved in 2001, there are many developments happening and it is impacng the eld of Project Management as well in signicant

manner. Innovaon in various Tools (like DevOps tools), Integraon of exisng tools; evoluon of various Scaling Agile frameworks

and alignment of Agile with compliance standards is not a future trend anymore. Roles and responsibilies for many people are

changing in Agile environment. Exisng roles and old way of working is geng challenged and new roles are evolving connuously.

Agile is even generang lot of new business opportunies for many organizaons and individuals.

Agile has become mainstream methodology, hence future of Agile is going to involve dierent praccal experiences and tailoring of

methodology accordingly. The current trend of DevOps ecosystem and Scaling is going to stabilize soon and more such new

advancements will connue to evolve. Smart project managers and other stakeholders should analyze these changes and should

prepare themselves for a grate Agile future unfolding in front of us every day!

References:

[1] Brief History of Agile Movement - hps://setandbma.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/agile-history/

[2] State of Agile Survey 2011, VersionOne - hps://www.versionone.com/pdf/state-of-agile-development-survey-ninth.pdf

[3] Openspace Agility - hp://openspaceagility.com/about/

[4]Scaled Agile Framework - hp://www.scaledagileframework.com

[5] Large-Scale Scrum- less.works

[6] Disciplined Agile Delivery - hp://www.disciplinedagiledelivery.com

[7] Scrumban - hps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrumban

[8] DevOps Tools - hp://www.e-zest.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Tools1.3.png

SPRAKALPJ O U R N A L

PMConclave 2015-16 Special VOL19,ISSUE5,JAN2016


trategy sets the route for a business to reach its goals. Out of the three basic

forms of strategy, Corporate Strategy deals with broader issues including

compeve environments, long term goals, structuring the organizaon in

Strategic Business Units (SBU) etc.; Business strategy as a subset of

corporate strategy is more focussed towards compeng in a parcular

market or industry. Business has many funcons and Funconal Strategy

deals with decisions according to those funconal lines. Decisions, as we

know, are all about choosing one alternave over other available

alternaves. Priorizaon (based on strategy) therefore plays a vital role in

decision making for an individual, for an SBU or for an organizaon.

Organizaonal strategies and priories are therefore linked and have

relaonships between porolios and programs as well as between

programs and individual projects. Projects are oen ulized as means of

achieving an organizaons strategic plan. PMBOK lists various reasons

behind authorizaon of a project such as market needs, customer request,

technological advances, legal requirements etc. One of the key reasons is

strategic opportunity/ business needs. PMBOK recognizes projects, within

programs or porolios, as a means of achieving organizaonal goals in the

context of a strategic plan.

Situaon Analysis is the starng block of strategic planning. Situaon

Analysis enables an organizaon to evaluate itself regarding its capabilies

vis--vis the market opportunies and business needs. This leads to

Strategy Formulaon. However, even the best formulated strategy will lead

to nothing unless it is correctly implemented. Here lies the importance of

Strategy Implementaon.

Projects (and Programs) as subsets of the Porolios aligned towards

meeng strategic business objecves are oen part of strategy

implementaon. Thus project managers should know how their projects

are aligned with the broad business strategy. This knowledge would guide

them to think beyond mere management of the triple constraints. Eecve

leadership in project management goes beyond the roune, and thus acts

as change agent. Pursuit of beerment makes the eecve project

management leaders to think out of the box, and become invenve and

innovave.

S

M.K. Ramesh, PMP Debasis Chakrabar, PMP

Abstract

Strategic Business Management has two components: Strategy

Formulaon and Strategy Implementaon. Projects (and

Programs) are subsets of the Porolios aligned towards meeng

strategic business objecves. Thus eecve leadership in project

management more than oen depends on two similar

components: Invenon and Innovaon. While invenon could be

a unique or novel device, method, composion or process,

innovaon is the applicaon of beer soluons to meet exisng

or new project requirements and/or needs and as an extension-

strategic business requirement. In this arcle, with the help of

theory, literature and real life examples, the authors try to explain

innovaon in construcon projects while dierenang the same

from invenon. The arcle also discusses another I-word that is

improvisaon, which some consider as a bridge over

dicules. It is not uncommon for even experienced managers

to oen confuse between the three I s.While managing the

triple constraints might be viewed as the immediate measure of

project success (or failure) the ulmate success in a project (and

thereby program, porolio and business as a whole) depends on

the project leadership acng as eecve change agents guiding

the project through a process of beerment. The process of

moving from the exisng state to a beer state is the denion of

improvement. The authors consider improvement the fourth I

and advocate its connuous pursuit as the cornerstone of the

ulmate sustainable business strategy.


Ultimate Business and Project Management Strategy


In Pursuit Of The Fourth I




Invenon and Innovaon- The Two Is

While many project professionals consider themselves invenve and/or innovave, the fact is most are confused between the two.

As per Wikipedia denions, an invenon is a unique or novel device, method, composion or process. The invenon process is a

process within an overall engineering and product development process. It may be an improvement upon a machine or product, or a

new process for creang an object or a result.

Innovaon on the other hand is a new idea, more eecve device or process. Innovaon can be viewed as the applicaon of beer

soluons that meet new requirements, in arculated needs, or exisng market needs.

Mankind has history of invenons across all kinds of domains including, physical and medical sciences, informaon technology,

telecommunicaons, entertainmentthe list is endless. Two most common examples of invenon in construcon industry is the

concrete vibrator, which replaced the ineecve manual poking and the concrete pump that facilitated ease of concreng at

heights or at other places with limited access. Another example of the results of innovaon in construcon could be the transion

from tradional chain and compass survey methods to the use of theodolites and levels and then to modern day GPS survey using

satellites.

A Real Life Experience

About 25 years back, one of the authors of this arcle was working as a site engineer construcng an industrial building on a lled up

area. The ra foundaon was to rest on about 200 cast in situ RCC piles. Six piling rigs were at work drilling 600 mm diameter holes of

varying depths ll they reach the undulated rocky strata below. Then there were hecc acvies for each hole: withdraw chisel and

accessories, lower pre-fabricated steel cage, weld the next cage, lower the tremie, pump out the bentonite and pour concrete before

the sides collapsed! There was not much me available between boring and concreng, so quite a bit of prefabricated reinforcement

cage had to be cut o every me resulng in high scrap generaon. There was no way to do predict the depth so as to plan the cage

length accordingly.

One day the young site engineer had a spark. He wrote down the depth of each completed piles on the pile footprint drawing pasted

on the wall. Then he connected the equal depths, somewhat similar to a typical contour map with the dierence that instead of

elevaon, this reverse contour indicated depths. From that day all he had to do was to check the nearest contour line next to a new

bore and (barring local undulaon errors) he was able to predict the depths. This resulted into big savings for the company by means

of scrap reducon. Eventually the general manager asked the site engineer to prepare a report which was circulated in the company

as part of its training manual. It was also an important milestone in the site engineers subsequent career advancement.




In a recent arcle innovaon and change specialist Braden Kelley had stated: invenon is coming up with a great idea, but innovaon

is the act of introducing that invenon successfully to the world. Innovaon is truly about transforming the useful seed of an

invenon into something valuable that ulmately achieves wide-scale adopon.

Hence this real life incident can be considered as an innovaon: where the applicaon of a new idea met the project requirement. The

reverse contour itself can be considered as a small invenon at that point of me, as far as that parcular company was concerned.

Improvisaon: The Third I

We go back to Wikipedia denions and nd that improvisaon is the process of devising a soluon to a requirement by making-do,

despite absence of resources that might be expected to produce a soluon.

There is an Indian word called Jugaad. The concept of Jugaad is focussed towards achieving immediate result employing short cuts.

The photograph shows one such Jugaad: in absence of required scaolding, ladder, man li and concrete pump a backhoe loader is

used to li workmen, equipment and concrete for pouring. Such improvisaons gave immediate result, which was the prime

objecve in this case, but there were serious compromises with quality and safety standards.

Interesngly, in this example of improvisaon too there was an idea and its implementaon. In fact there is a school of supporters of

Jugaad approach to frugal and exible innovaon as an alternave to the old formula of sustained innovaon eorts by expensive

R&D and structured innovaon processes. Crics of improvisaon argue that innovaon need not always be expensive and me

consuming. The reverse contour could prove a point.

Whether Improvisaon would qualify as innovaon therefore remains a subject of debate with both its supporters and crics having

their own points of view. Yet, it is not uncommon in the construcon industry to go for such improvisaons.




Improvement The Fourth I

Queson: Why would project managers go for one or more of the three Is?

Answer: In pursuit of improvement.

For one last me we refer Wikipedia and nd that improvement is the process of moving from one state to a state considered to be

beer, usually through some acon intended to bring about that beer state.

Quality of life for mankind improved through centuries of invenon and innovaons. In the context of project management, even the

run-of-the-mill project manager tries to improve by managing the triple constraints to save me and cost and by remaining within

specicaons.

Leaders in project management think beyond the triple constraints. Employing innovave pracces, they take their projects from the

exisng state to the desired state. They idenfy, encourage, nurture and ulize the change drivers that are pro-change stakeholders.

They face resistance to change from some stakeholders and adopt innovave tools to manage such resistors.

One such tool could be generaon, development and maintenance of trust to manage stakeholders.

There are countless other improvement tools. Demings PDCA cycle, Value Engineering, Kaizen - connuous small improvements or

the all-encompassing Business Process Engineering, Total Quality Management to the more recent Agile Pracces are all innovaons

aimed towards improvement. The PMI itself could qualify as a giant innovaon towards improved project management; and

PMBOKs with their revisions as guidelines for connuous improvement.

Specically for construcon projects, PMBOK can be considered as an invenon; and the process of adding new knowledge areas

such as Stakeholder Management as innovaon. Development of Pracce Standards to describe the use / applicaon of PM tools and

techniques specically for construcon industry can be seen (though not as Jugaad) as the result of improvisaon

prakalp vol-19 issue-5

Documents