Project Agile Management Pmbok

Home , Project planning

Luxembourg • Brussels • Paris

SAFE SCRUM

HYBRID PROJECT AGILE MANAGEMENT PMBOK

PROJECT RISK MANAGEMENT PRINCE2

Project Management Cookbook

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Group Project Management Cookbook

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Group 2

Contents

Contents...... 2

FOREWORD...... 7

Authors...... 8

OVERVIEW PROJECT METHODOLOGIES...... 11 PMBOK...... 11 Highlights...... 11 Process groups...... 11 Knowledge areas...... 11 PMBOK’s merits and weaknesses...... 12 Prince2...... 12 Prince2’s merits and weaknesses...... 12 PMBOK versus Prince2...... 13 An overview of processes and topics between PMBOK & Prince2...... 14 Agile ...... 15 Highlights...... 15 Some characteristics...... 15 In short...... 15 Agile’ s merits and weaknesses...... 15 SAFe...... 16 Highlights...... 16 Different levels of implementing SAFe:...... 16 Articles...... 17

AGILE/SCRUM BASICS...... 25 Agile or Scrum?...... 25 When to use Agile/Scrum...... 26 The People and Parts of Scrum...... 26 Techniques to get started...... 27 Visualising Scrum...... 27 The importance of Iteration and Improvement...... 28 Beyond the basics...... 29 Conclusion...... 29 Testimonial...... 30 Articles...... 31 The Handbook of Agile Keywords...... 42 Contents...... 42 #1 Agile Manifesto...... 42 #2 Product Backlog...... 42 3

#3 Iteration Backlog...... 43 #4 Release Plan...... 43 #5 Rolling Wave Planning...... 43 #6 User Story...... 43 #7 Ideal Time...... 44 #8 Story Points...... 44 #9 Velocity...... 44 #10 Scrum...... 44 #11 Sprint / Iteration Planning...... 45 #12 Daily Standup / Daily Scrum...... 45 #13 Sprint / Iteration Review...... 45 #14 Retrospective Meeting...... 46 #15 Riskadjusted Backlog...... 46 #16 MoSCoW...... 46 #17 WIP Limits...... 46 #18 Continuous Integration...... 47 #19 Timeboxing...... 47 #20 Planning Onion...... 47 #21 Code Refactoring...... 47 #22 Cone of Uncertainty...... 48 #23 Prototyping...... 48 #24 Return on Investment (ROI)...... 49 #25 Acceptance Criteria...... 49 #26 Agile Charter...... 49 #27 Minimum Marketable Feature (MMF)...... 49 #28 Present Value (PV) and Future Value (FV)...... 50 #29 Control Limit...... 50 #30 Technical Debt...... 50

PRINCIPLES OF PROJECT RISK MANAGEMENT...... 51 What is Project Risk Management?...... 51 1. Identify risks...... 52 2. Allocate risk owners...... 52 3. Analyze the risks...... 52 1. Experience, the mother of probability...... 54 2. Simplify and then discuss the details...... 54 3. Prioritise the risks...... 55 4. Identify risk response strategies...... 55 5. Design a risk management plan...... 55 6. Check in regularly...... 56 How does your own team make your project riskier?...... 56 Communication Risks...... 56 Planning Risks...... 56 Resource Risks...... 57 4

Reporting Risks...... 57 What are the Best Ways to Mitigate Risk on Projects?...... 58 1. Clarify the requirements...... 58 2. Get the right team...... 58 3. Spread the risk...... 59 4. Communicate and listen...... 59 5. Assess feasibility...... 59 6. Test Everything...... 59 7. Have a ‘Plan B’...... 59 Risks and Opportunities: Are Risks Always Negative?...... 60 Top Risk Management Trends in 2018...... 60 1. Project Risk Management applies to all types of project...... 60 2. Bringing Efficiency into Project Risk Management...... 60 How to become Risk Management Masters?...... 61 Testimonial...... 61

CHANGE MANAGEMENT...... 63 What is change management?...... 63 When do we have to deal with change management?...... 63 Scope of change management...... 63 Testimonial...... 64 Articles...... 65

ROLE OF THE PROJECT MANAGER...... 83 Resources & Activities planning...... 83 Monitoring progress...... 83 Definition and production of the deliverables...... 83 Risk management...... 84 Team management...... 84 Communication management...... 84 Change management...... 84 Testimonial...... 85 Articles...... 86

ROLE OF THE CHANGE MANAGER...... 103 Transition management...... 103 Definition of the action plans...... 103 Communication management...... 104 Conflict management...... 104 Tracking progress...... 104 Planning for the worst...... 104 5

ROLE OF THE PRODUCT OWNER (AGILE/SCRUM)...... 105 Testimonial...... 105

ROLE OF THE SCRUM MASTER (AGILE/SCRUM)...... 107

SETUP OF A PROJECT PLANNING...... 109 Project planning definition...... 109 A project planning in 10 steps...... 110 1. Define the scope of your project...... 110 2. Define the roles and responsibilities...... 111 3. The Work Breakdown Structure...... 111 4. Define the planning, the Gantt Chart and identify the Critical Path...... 112 5. Define the resources...... 112 6. Define the communication plan...... 112 7. Risk management...... 112 8. Publish your plan...... 113 9. Present your final project planning...... 113 10. Follow up of your project planning and adapt it if necessary...... 113 Testimonial...... 113

SETUP OF A CHANGE MANAGEMENT PLAN...... 115 What?...... 115 Change management planning in a context of organisational change...... 116 Change management planning in a context of project change...... 117

PROJECT GOVERNANCE AND STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT...... 119 1. Definition of Stakeholder management...... 119 2. Stakeholder management...... 119 The model...... 120 Stakeholder Assessment (High-Level)...... 120 Change Readiness Assessment (CRA)...... 121 Change Readiness Assessment (CRA) approach...... 121 Potential Change Readiness Assessment (CRA) Formats...... 122 Key Objectives of Change Critical Success Factors...... 122 Change Impact Assessment...... 123 Article...... 123

OVERVIEW PROJECT TOOLS...... 131 Microsoft Project...... 131 CA Clarity PPM...... 132 Jira Software...... 133 Open Workbench...... 134 6 7

FOREWORD

The basis for this cookbook stemmed from my passion for project and change management and all methods & tools that are intertwined with it. As the professional world changes very quickly, it is of utmost importance to keep pace with new trends in project and change methodologies or frameworks. It is my passion to not only learn these new trends, but also to implement and customize them for a specific company context. In truth, I could not have achieved this cookbook without a good collaboration from my business line team within Initio. First of all, I want to thank them for the thorough content knowledge and creative insight and secondly for the nice team work. Thank you all for your support.

Sandy Everaerts, Senior Managing Consultant & Business Line Manager Project, Change & Governance

October 2018 8

Authors

Sandy Everaerts, has 20 years experience, and worked for leading companies in the Banking & Insurance sector. She has a background in both Business and IT as PMO, project manager & SCRUM Master.

4-lingual NL/ENG/FR/GER with a Master’s degree, relevant project management certifications Sandy joined Initio in 2017 as Senior Manager in charge of Business Line Project, Change & Performance Management

Business Engineer with a Master’s degree in Finance and an International Master’s degree in finance, Jean-Richard Audin has expertise in corporate finance and financial markets. He has a strong interest for private equity, business and strategic transformation, project management, team coaching and management. Through- out his international experience, Jean-Richard developed an expertise in Private Equity, M&A and Financial sector.

Sarah Walu Onya has four and a half years of experience in the Banking sector. 3-lingual FR/NL/ENG with a Master’s degree in Economics. Sarah joined Initio in January 2018 as Consultant and is active in the Business Line Governance & Pro- jects. She acquired experience in change management and process analysis in leading Banking projects.

Frank Smits is a managing consultant at Initio Belgium, with over 20 years of hands-on project-, program management and business case management experience. He is also a certified Agile/Scrum product owner.

Louis-Marie Le Falher has 12 years of experience in the consulting business in major Luxembourgish organization, mainly in Private Banking industry. He was assigned on multiple projects – regulatory, fusion, migration – as project manager, project coordinator where he proved solid business knowledge and strong methodological expertise in business analysis, project management, process optimization and change management. 9

Marie Misson has 6 years of experience including 2,5 years at Initio. She obtained a degree in Business engineering at Solvay Business School & Post-Master in intel- lectual property law at K.U. Leuven. As senior consultant Marie developed expertise in Banking and PMO.

Gracia Mbombo Mbuyi, is an experienced consultant with relevant experience in the banking sector. Before joining Initio in 2017 she worked as business analyst in Asset management. Since then she acquired experience in change management and process analysis in leading Banking projects. She has also relevant certification in Scrum product Owner.

Senior consultant at Initio, Jorge Toral had an extensive career in leading projects in sectors like banks, financial services, telecommunication and insurance. With his extensive experience, he has been leading projects that improves the process and productivity of companies with a focus on defining new business processes, implementing new services in money transfer, developing reporting tools from scratch, new technology or services implementation and automatizing process.

Jerome Erovic is consultant @ Initio Luxembourg for the business line Fund & Securities Services since 2016. He has worked as a back/middle officer for an insurance company before doing an apprenticeship in project management for an investment bank. After that, Jerome worked one year in a private bank in the organization department, before joining Initio.

Arnaud Devallée graduated from LSM, with a Master Degree in Management and Finance. Following two years of experience at the front/middle offices of Luxem- bourgish and Belgian banks, Arnaud joined Initio as a process analyst with a spe- cialization in the retail banking sector. After having taken part in two regulatory missions into the mortgage credit field, he is now assisting his client into the digi- talization of mortgage credit acquisition processes as business analyst, while developing a deep knowledge into Scrum Agile methodology. 10 11

OVERVIEW PROJECT METHODOLOGIES

PMBOK Process groups

1. Initiating Highlights 2. Planning 3. Executing PMBOK stands for Project Management • 4. Controlling Body of Knowledge. 5. Closing • Purpose: to guide a project manager to fulfil successfully a project. • One of the many widely known methodologies, set out by the Project Management In- Knowledge areas stitute (PMI) in 1987. • PMBOK contains a set of 9 knowledge areas 1. Project integration management (facilitative in project management, broken down into knowledge) activities across 5 process groups, 44 (42) 2. Project scope management (core knowledge) sub-processes and 592 sets of input, output, 3. Project time management (core knowledge) tools and techniques. 4. Project cost management (core knowledge) • PMBOK is approved as an American Nation- 5. Project quality management (core knowl- al Standard (ANS) by the American National edge) Standards Institute (ANSI) 6. Project human resource management (facili- • In addition to these detailed knowledge areas, tative knowledge) tools and techniques, PMBOK also stipulates 7. Project communications management (facili- that effective project management requires tative knowledge) an understanding of the application area, the 8. Project risk management (facilitative knowl- project environment, general management edge) knowledge and skills, and interpersonal skills. 9. Project procurement management (facilitative knowledge) 12

PMBOK’s merits and Thus, a Prince2 project is driven by the project’s business case. This business case is regularly re- weaknesses viewed during the project to ensure the business objectives, which often change during the lifecy- Comprehensive and structured guide with • cle of the project, are still being met. Prince2 is widely proven practices designed to provide a common language across Can be applied regardless of the scale or na- • all the interested parties involved in a project. ture of the project The method provides the necessary controls and Bureaucratic processes which might hinder • breakpoints to work successfully within a contrac- the project manager’s creativity tual framework. • A lot of documentation and reports: administrative burden for smaller projects • Because of its characteristics: difficult to react on fast changes in some project situa- Prince2’s merits and tions weaknesses

• Allows standardized projects which share a common approach PRINCE2 • Can be tailored to suit a type of organization • Allows high level and full involvement from Prince2 stands for Projects in Controlled Environ- management and stakeholders ments and was created in 1989 by CCTA (the Cen- • Has templates which are comprehensive, tral Computer and Telecommunications Agency) standardized and easy to complete since then called by OGC (the Office of Government • Doesn’t cover all subjects relevant to project Commerce). It is a method of project management management based on experiences gained in thousands of pro- • Structured approach often limits the organ- jects and contributions of numerous sponsors, ization’s flexibility in coping with a changing managers, project teams, academics, trainers and environment consultants. • Too much documentation which adds little value to the overall performance of the pro- Prince2 is a registered trademark of the British ject. Government. It is the standard used by the English Government and widely recognized and used in the private sector, mainly in the UK.

Prince2 methodology allows us to adopt a generic approach, possible to apply to any type of project, scale, organization, geography or culture. It has become widely recognized as one of more accepted methods of project management.

The main features of this methodology are based on the business focus, an organizational structure directed to the project management team. The planning is done with orientation toward the final product and its emphasis is on the division of the project into phases. 13

PMBOK VERSUS PRINCE2

PMBOK as well as Prince2 sets out documentation which has to be tailored to suit your project. PM- BOK provides the procedures, the linkage between them next to tools and techniques. In a similar way, Prince2 is scalable to suit the size and needs of a project.

PMBOK Prince2

Definition project A project is a temporary endeavor A project is a management undertaken to create a product, environment created for the service or result singular. purpose of delivering one or more business products according to a specified business case.

Standard/ Method PMBOK is recognized as an PRINCE2 is a structured method international standard which can be considered a (IEEE Std 1490-2003), which provides standard the fundamentals of project management. .

Methodology PMBOK is a descriptive methodology, Prince2 details how the techniques in other words, the detailed of project management should be explanation of the techniques for structured and implemented. project management.

Process-based PMBOK is orientated toward the A guideline toward the final versus processes used in developing the product, focusing on the product-based project. successful delivery and quality.

Project manager The project manager is the person A project manager is given the responsible for meeting the project authority to run the project and is goals. always responding to the project board.

Processes PMBOK considers 5 processes. Prince2 has 8 processes. 14

An overview of processes and topics between PMBOK & Prince2

PMBOK Prince2 PMBOK Prince2

Starting up Combined Processes and Initiating Integration Components, Directing Change Controls

Initiating Scope Plan Planning Time Business Case Cost Planning

Controlling Quality a stage Scope Configuration Executing Time Management Cost Controls Managing product delivery

Controlling Risk Risk Directing

Closing Closing Combined Communications Processes and Components

Human Organization Resources

Procurement 15

AGILE

Highlights Some characteristics

• Agile’ s history stretches back a little more • High complexity than 25 years. • High uncertainty • Agile software development was first codified • Significant challenge for the organization through the Agile Manifesto (Martin Fowler • Critical & Jim Highsmith). This Agile Manifesto has been the guiding principle for all Agile models since. • Most of Agile models originated with soft- In short ware development and, as a result, are based Iterative Agile models: appropriate for pro- on very specific software development prac- • jects where most of the solution has been tices. discovered. Only a few minor features have not been decided. (In many cases, alterna- In short Agile Project Management is a project tives will be known but a final decision not management model that can be used to manage made as to which to implement.) projects where the project goals are clearly speci- Adaptive Agile models: appropriate for pro- fied but the project solutions are not known at the • jects where perhaps very little of the solution outset of the project. The bottom line of Agile is is known. Understanding and integrating ma- that it is a dynamic and continuously adapted to jor functions into the solution are integral to the changing project situation and environment. the learning and discovery part of adaptive Agile models. The rationale for Agile project management dates back from the fact that organizations were confronted with projects for which there has not been an acceptable solution yet or the business oppor- Agile’ s merits and tunity has not been successfully exploited. We can divide Agile pm into 2 classifications: iterative & weaknesses adaptive. • Agile expects developers to be agile, knowl- Iterative Agile models are suited for projects where edgeable, collocated and collaborative (matu- most of the solution has been discovered. Only a rity) few minor features have not been decided. In many • Customers need to be dedicated and knowl- cases, alternatives will be known but a final deci- edgeable, collocated, collaborative, represent- sion not made as to which to implement. Adaptive ative and empowered (maturity) Agile models are better for projects where perhaps • Requirements: emergent & rapid change (re- very little of the solution is known. Understanding quirements are known early and stable in a and integrating major functions into the solution Waterfall method) are integral to the learning and discovery part of • Agile favors small teams instead of larger Adaptive models. project teams in Waterfall

SAFE * SAFE stands for Scaled Agile Framework * Intended to guide (large) enterprises in scaling lean and agile practices Highlights * Extends Agile to more complex (project) environments Full SAFe supports those enterprises building large, * Deals with ‘weaknesses’ from Agile/Scrum integrated solutions that typically require hundreds like budget management, risk management of people or more to develop and maintain. and cross departmental planning.

Source: Leffingwell, et al. © 208-2017 Scaled Agile, inc.

Aim: go-to option for large teams that are inter-dependent.

Different levels of Program Level: focusses on how the Agile teams implementing SAFe: are integrated in order to create better customer value, enables you to track your program incre- Team Level: necessary to keep each member of ments and also coordinate all the activities of your the team motivated and allow them to work with release train. ease. This approach can be applied to the teams working on ScrumXP or Kanban. Introduction of Release Trains: a release team is a team consisting of a large group of employees Value Stream Level: one of the optional levels and usually consisting of 50-125 of them. It can be adopted by companies only when they have huge, compared to an actual train as it runs on a pre-fixed complex systems that contains multiple Agile re- schedule. This schedule can be flexible though and lease trains. Using SAFe’s Value Stream level, the the timings can be decided by the members of the teams can plan, track, and deliver the most com- team. It is advised that the team members working plex systems with ease. on a particular release train should be completely focused on that particular train and not worry Portfolio Level: considered as the basic level where about the reporting structure. A release train usual- all the planning and strategies are discussed. In ly consists of a long-term program which will have this level, the decisions for value stream level fund- many teams and projects within it. ing are made. 17

ARTICLES

SCALED AGILE FRAMEWORK – SAFE FOR LEAN ENTERPRISES

Agility was born as a result of the publication of for which decisions or allocations must be taken the Agile Manifesto in 2001 and has helped out quickly to align to the pace of the developments to put in place a more pragmatic approach at the – whereas the budgetary exercises at the level of project management level. The main advantage in companies are often at an annual rate. the eyes of the customers is the responsiveness in providing fast, progressive versions of solutions SAFe Agile is a framework which can be seen as a thanks to developments made in an iterative mode. response to these needs. It sheds a light on how to manage these different points. It is able to pro- Looking back to many projects, it appeared that vide familiar features to the concepts of agility and there were also limits to Agile: sometimes the fo- also move up a gear to a level that the organiza- cus was too much centered on the developments, tion could be managed and qualified in a ‘full’ Agile as it did not sufficiently meet the management mode. needs of projects or programs requiring managing a large number of (sub-)teams. Similarly, it did not deal with the budgetary aspects of organizations having put Agile in place. For example, the Scrum method does not provide information relating to the financial management of the projects and 18

WHAT DOES SAFE CONCRETELY HOW ARE THE DIFFERENT BRING? PROJECTS EMBEDDED WITHIN THE PORTFOLIOS AND One of the main contributions of SAFe is to be a framework that allows the implementation of an PROGRAMS? organization and its processes in order to manage At the material level, the element that best embod- a large number of teams working in Agile. ies the connection between the various projects and portfolios is what we call a “Release Train”. This one reveals within the part called ‘Programme’, a WHAT ARE THE CHANGES way for defining the intermediate level within the FROM AN EXISTING AGILE hierarchy induced in the SAFe repository. It uses ORGANIZATION? certain expressions and images dedicated to rail transport. Thus a ‘Release Train’ is composed of On the Agile team level, changes, even if they have different teams who will deliver defined stages of the merit to exist, are minor. We are very close to solutions that bring value to the customer. This is a Scrum method both in terms of the entrusted in analogy with the wagons that make up a train roles and responsibilities. The essential change is (the teams) and passing through stations (project not there, SAFe does not revolutionize the “Team” milestones) representing the steps of a (customer) approach. journey. In addition, and this is of course part of the imaginary linked to the rail, meaning the notion of The big change or evolution comes from the crea- regular movement, the respect of a schedule, and tion of several levels of coordination: punctuality evaluated for each of the trips to each station. As if the Release Train was animated... • One is dedicated to a program, encompassing several projects working around a common On the timing level, SAFe introduced a major con- issue. This first level allows for management cept: time boxing. So according to this framework of up to 15 federated teams that are shared it is expected to deliver monthly increments and around a common theme (up to 125 mem- carry out a major release every 10 weeks. This cal- bers). endar is the core of the methodology, it gives the tempo to all the tasks and will result in facilitating • The second and final level focuses on a port- the activities of coordination by creating a ‘refer- folio of programs broken down into projects. ence of common time’. It is efficient and gives cus- Referred to as ‘Portfolio’ it brings together two tomers the confidence to get at regular intervals important elements: an updated view on improvements with a strong added value. ‣ It includes a stream dedicated to the strategy which gives a long term to the different teams and stakeholders ‣ The financial aspects of projects like the budget allocation are integrated. It therefore considers to spread, to adjust and/or to close funds from programs / projects of its portfolio, taking into account the constraints to agility. 19

WHAT ROLES ARE ADDED TO THE SAFe has a unique approach by allowing teams to SCRUM METHOD? dedicate between 20 and 25% of their time on continuous improvement and/or on innovation topics. SAFe creates primarily roles of coordination at var- There are also discussions ongoing that are car- ious stages. We therefore have new roles related ried out on the existing system in seeking to secure to the product management and new functions and strengthen the sustainability of developments related to release management. It also adds exper- in production. Also, a ‘Hackhaton’ can be organized tise roles particularly on transversal areas such as to demonstrate the feasibility and realization of architects, representatives of devops - unification certain concepts. of software development and administration of the IT infrastructure-. Finally, management roles will frame/liaise the teams with the portfolio manage- Conclusion ment and/or the EPIC owner. In conclusion, SAFe provides an answer as to how to manage Agile teams on large projects. It also SIMILARITY AND UNIQUENESS allows to evolve the Organization to a practice of agility, which won’t be limited or confined to (IT) OF SAFE COMPARED TO OTHER teams dedicated to developing customer solu- AGILE METHODS tions. The use of a uniform methodology between very different roles and functions allow for efficient SAFe is based on a set of backlogs that allow to communication and reporting on progress. prioritize the different developments. We have a growing backlog of detailed to-do’s coming from Finally, the ‘research’ is an integral part of this the EPICs (portfolio part), that relates to the ‘fea- methodology, which allows the business to also tures’ for the program and finally to the ‘Users Sto- consider different options for the future. ries’ at the level of the “Team”.

About the Author

Louis-Marie Le Falher has 12 years of experience in the consulting business in major Luxembourgish organization, mainly in Private Banking industry. He was assigned on multiple projects – regulatory, fusion, migration – as project manager, project coordinator where he proved solid business knowledge and strong methodological expertise in business analysis, project management, process optimization and change management. 20

HYBRID PROJECT MANAGEMENT: BEST OF BOTH WORLDS?

Is HYBRID the new buzzword? We have hybrid It is true that it is extremely hard to accurately es- cars, hybrid grapes, hybrid generators…what about timate upfront when the Agile project will be com- hybrid project management? What is the founda- pleted, as each sprint the situation is re-evaluated tion of this hybrid trend? in such a way that constant changes to the requirements are bound to cause project planning chang- From the sixties until late in the 20th century, pro- es. This leads us to the question if the waterfall is ject managers used the Work Breakdown Struc- not the right method and Agile is not for all pro- ture, or WBS, to manage complex projects. It was jects, then how can a project manager overcome the only game in town and every project manager pitfalls? was trained to use this method. The good news is that a new project management Upon release of the desktop version of Microsoft method called ‘hybrid project management’ is gain- project in 1984, the WBS, or waterfall as some ing popularity and acceptance. Hybrid combines would call it, became much easier to handle. Man- the best of Agile and the work breakdown struc- agers could plan and share their projects with their ture to create a new project management method teams and the executive managers. that fits the majority of the projects. The beauty of the hybrid project management method is that it The WBS concept is simple: before starting a pro- lets the team plan before starting to work on the ject, you plan everything that needs to be done up- project, but also divides the development cycle into front. Afterwards, you break down the big pieces or short-term deliveries called sprints. tasks to smaller pieces or subtasks and you continue doing so until each task is small enough and Hybrid can handle requirement changes and, due well defined. Most frequent problems encountered to its iterative nature, can deliver products in stag- with WBS are that at the beginning of the projects, es. As soon as the product reaches the minimum all facts are not known and in addition, the require- viable product, or MVP, it can be shipped and the ment changes, the market changes, and the cus- development team can continue on future en- tomer has new requests. hancements.

As of the early 21th century, Agile project manage- The planning is done using the waterfall approach ment became the next best thing, as the waterfall in hybrid, whereas the execution and delivery are was considered too restrictive and not able to han- handled by the Agile method. This hybrid approach dle rapid market changes. It was believed that the makes the planning and project estimation a lot Agile method with its lean approach would solve all more accurate. At the same time, the team can the waterfall problems. react faster to market changes and align its deliverables. The main advantage about Agile is that the customer sees the results in a very short time after the project has started and can manage the delivery of requirements change. Thanks to the Agile flexibility, the requirements changes don’t derail the project. However, not all projects are made equal, and not all teams can adjust to one method or the other. So, what should a project manager do when starting a new project? 21

HOW DO YOU MANAGE A PROJECT IN A HYBRID WAY?

Hybrid projects are managed by a Project Manag- • he Project Manager assumes the role of a er using WBS methodology who has overall own- Product Manager. There is only the role of ership and responsibility for the project. A Scrum Project Manager or product manager in Hy- Master supports the Project Manager by execut- brid project management method. He or she ing each Agile Sprint. Continuous Team Collabora- is considered the business owner of the pro- tion is required for ongoing reporting, analysis and ject. The Project Manager and (the)Scrum management review. master(s) share direct responsibility for different segments of the project. He or she has Most important roles in hybrid project manage- overall project responsibility and ownership ment are: over the project. • The Project Manager is primarily concerned • Hybrid is independent of management struc- with the front end of the project flow (product ture and there is no requirement for a formal requirements, customer feedback, compo- Project Management Office (PMO) and can nents definition and WBS), whereas Scrum run independently from a Project Manage- Masters are responsible for the backend of ment Office. the project flow (backlogs, sprints and releases).

Hybrid Project Management Workflow

Project Manager

Components Scrum Master

1st Iteration 2nd Iteration 3nd Iteration #1 WBS Backlog Sprint Sprint Sprint

#2 WBS Backlog Sprint Sprint Sprint Product Requirements #3 WBS Backlog Sprint Sprint Sprint

Customer #n WBS Backlog Sprint Sprint Sprint Feedback

Release Release Release #1 #2 #3

Feedback Flow www.binfire.com 22

In Waterfall, the entire project plan is scoped and is sought, testing occurs and fixes made to enable planned before the start of the project. In Agile, continuous improvement. The outcome of each only the first sprint is planned. Hybrid Project Man- iteration is formalized. Formal method is used to agement requires a complete project plan but the define the outcome for each iteration. specific details of each sprint are not defined until the first sprint is completed. The Project Manager The Project Manager is assigned overall project has overall Planning responsibility and each Sprint ownership, and the individual Scrum Master is is managed by the Scrum Master. responsible for executing the Sprint in Hybrid. Re- porting is a joint responsibility requiring continuous Hybrid project management follows the Agile collaboration and communication between the methodology. At each iteration, customer feedback project manager and the Scrum Master.

www.binfire.com

IS HYBRID A NEW PROJECT METHODOLOGY?

Hybrid is not a new methodology, but a fusion of sionals. Structured Agile and Hybrid are the same two older methodologies. It has been practiced methodologies with two different names. Hybrid by experienced project managers for many years project management is a better description of the under different names. Recently the name “Hybrid underlying methodology. There is no risk of diluting Project Management” has gained acceptance. Hy- one methodology versus the other, in fact hybrid brid is a new way of doing things, having a short project management brings out the best of both focus on product features and a long focus on the worlds. There is no risk of either doing Agile or Wa- final result. Hybrid is a formal methodology and is terfall not properly; it reinforces doing both better gaining traction with both academics and profes- and more professionally. 23

The project management software that is best A common example of hybrid project management suited to support Hybrid is a project manage- is a project manager who sets up a planning via ment software that integrates both Agile (Kanban, the Waterfall methodology as the company is still Scrum etc.) and Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), organized in corporate releases and the execution such as: of the project is managed in Agile way to guarantee swifter delivery. • Wrike (online project management software to set priorities & align your team to work fast- All industries can use Hybrid. For very short pro- er & smarter across the organisation), jects of less than 3 months, it is better to use Agile • SmartSheet: a powerful online collaboration only. Hybrid can work in organizations of all sizes. platform, • Asana (web and mobile application designed As hybrid is not commonly known, some spe- to help teams organize, track, and manage cial training may be needed. If people are trained their work). on both Agile and Waterfall there is less to learn. The challenge is to get into the mind-set of having sprints for short term delivery and in parallel organizing for the long-term product success.

WHY SHOULD WE EMBARK WITH HYBRID PROJECT METHODOLOGY?

The hybrid methodology deals with changes in Consequently, in such a hybrid organization, the a flexible way, has a strong orientation towards approaches adapt to the organizational structure market needs, and will shorten project duration. and efficiency improvements can be realized in in- Such expressions appear very quickly with the dividual areas, whereas the bigger business poten- description of hybrid project management. They tial remains unused. also always fit to agile approaches. Where flexibility is propagated, shorter development times are Hybrid project management tries to link classic or- promised and results that are coordinated exactly ganizational structures and procedures with agile for these target groups. Embarking with hybrid pro- aspects. In such cases it is important to maintain ject management implies you should register more an information exchange between the participants than just the general advantages and also recog- in the procedure. That is how stakeholders can nize your concrete requirements and you should take part in sprint reviews organized by the Scrum consider how you want to establish a bimodal ap- master and in the regular meetings of the project proach. management organization. Information can be delivered through caused by marketing or sales From within one organization, there are often dif- activities and feedback from these areas can be ferent approaches: that is how the development used for the sprint planning. Decisions are easier area works agile with methods like Scrum, Kan- to comprehend with open communication, and the ban or Extreme Programming, whilst other areas understanding for other business areas and the ac- like sales, controlling, marketing and communica- ceptance of a common approach increases. tion work traditionally, with the classic approach. 24

Conclusion Experiences teach us that managing large projects with hybrid enabled us to deliver product enhance- Recently there has been a significant increase in ments every month. At the same time, we can popularity of Agile methodologies at the expense focus on the final goal without getting distracted. of Waterfall. Both Agile and Waterfall have their Hybrid is not measured via special metrics, but strengths and weakness and each is suitable for as all other methodologies, time to market, cost, different scenarios. In fact, many organizations and quality of output are the most commonly used attempt to use different aspects of Agile and Wa- metrics. terfall. Hybrid project management promises huge gains in improving product delivery and time to Advantages are faster product delivery, much earli- market compared with other methods. er exposure on issues, and a better final result. For the moment, there are no major disadvantages. Hybrid Project Management combines the formal and Agile methods to create a new project man- Initio is the international brand of the Square group, agement method. Hybrid employs the thorough- a European leader in business consultancy for the ness of Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) with financial sector with over 750 employees in 4 coun- speed and lean benefits of Agile for a new project tries. The Business Lines of Project Management management method which is both detailed and & Governance and Innovation & Digital, cover over fast. Most projects benefit from using Hybrid pro- 200 highly qualified consultants capable of assist- ject management method. Only very small projects ing clients on a multitude of project management don’t require the combination of a hybrid method. & digital transformation related topics.

About the Author

Sandy Everaerts, has 20 years experience, and worked for leading companies in the Banking & Insurance sector. She has a background in both Business and IT as PMO, project manager & SCRUM Master.

4-lingual NL/ENG/FR/GER with a Master’s degree, relevant project management certifications Sandy joined Initio in 2017 as Senior Manager in charge of Business Line Project, Change & Performance Management 25

AGILE/SCRUM BASICS

Agile or Scrum?

Agile project management is a fairly new project A good analogy would be the difference between a management approach that embraces the un- recipe and a diet. A vegetarian diet is a set of meth- known, deals with changes on the way, works in ods and practices based on principles and values. iterations, and emphasizes communication and A recipe for a vegetarian pasta would be a frame- team thinking. Your project environment will now work you can use to implement your vegetarian suddenly be full of ‘sticky notes’, and you’ll hear diet. This is similar to the relationship between Ag- the terms ‘planning poker’, ‘stand-ups’ and ‘sprints’ ile (the diet), and Scrum (the recipe you follow). thrown in your daily work. Yet it is a fresh way of tackling complex problems, prioritize them into in- Agile was born out of the techniques utilized by individual tasks/subtasks and then delegate those novative Japanese companies in the 70’s and 80’s tasks to the team member best suited to solve the (companies like Toyota, Fuji, and Honda). issues. In the mid-90’s, a man by the name of Jeff Suther- Scrum and Agile seem to be used interchangeably, land found himself frustrated by companies who but there is an important distinction: Agile refers to were continually plagued by projects that were be- a set of “methods and practices based on the val- hind schedule and over budget. He sought to find ues and principles expressed in the ‘Agile Manifes- a better way. to’ which includes things like collaboration, self-organization, and cross functionality of teams. His research brought him to these Japanese companies and their Agile methods. Basing his work on Scrum is a framework that is used to implement this, Sutherland created the Scrum framework. Af- Agile development. ter a series of successes using his new methods, Scrum began to quickly spread throughout the product development world. 26

When to use Agile/Scrum written from his/her point of view, and that in a typical format: “As a car driver I want a rear-view mirror Although Agile/Scrum can be used for any project, in order to be able to see the traffic behind me”. it works best when there’s a concrete product or service being produced as part of the project plan. An important part in Scrum is that the product It can help you organize your team(s), get more backlog needs to be prioritized by the product work done in less time, and allows for a fast start owner. It’s also important what he does not do: he without knowing or having to describe all features does not impose his ideas to the team on how to first, due to its iterative nature. You can quickly de- do things, he does not impose the amount of work fine a ‘minimum viable product (MVP)’ that can be in a sprint, he never ignores the team input, he does shown to your customer and can be further refined not stand in between the user and the team! along the way, taking into account customer feedback and new ideas or market changes. Next up is the sprint. A sprint is a predetermined timeframe within which the team completes sets of tasks from the backlog. The length of time de- The People and Parts of pends on the needs of the team, usually 2 weeks. Scrum Teams meet every day to give progress updates in the daily scrum. This is usually also known as ‘daily The good news on this methodology is that you stand-ups’. don’t need much to get started, just a place to organize your thoughts, called your backlog. 2 main Each sprint ends with a review, or retrospective, roles are essential: the product owner and scrum where the team reviews their work and discusses master. Eventually some tools to log your findings: ways to improve the next sprint (iterative process). that could be a whiteboard, a wall with sticky notes or a software tool to keep track of progress. Daily scrums, product backlog reviews, sprints and sprint reviews are all facilitated by the scrum Scrum starts with a product owner. He represents master. The scrum master manages the (hierar- the final user’s best interest, is knowledgeable on chical) managers around the project, removes the the product/service eco-system and requirements impediments of the team, coaches, mentors and and has the authority to say what goes into the facilitates. He/she should be 100% dedicated to final product. The product owner will manage the the team. product backlog, a list of tasks and requirements the final product/service will need. The product So, learning the basics of Agile/Scrum is easy, but backlog is typically fed by ‘user stories’. A user sto- it’s hard and takes some years of experience to ry is a nice way to define the needs of the end-user, master well the techniques of scrum. 27

Techniques to get started 6. Review your work: At the end of the Sprint, the team reviews the work accomplished and Here are some basic steps to get you started: presents their completed tasks. 7. Review your process: During the Retrospec- 1. Read the Scrum Guide ! These are the rules tive meeting, you’ll review how the actual of the game, issued by Ken Schwaber and work process went and plan ways to improve Jeff Sutherland your work and be more efficient next time. 2. Pick your roles: You need a Product Own- 8. Repeat! With your first Sprint complete, it’s er (speaks for the user, final say in what the time to start over again. Pick more tasks from project needs), a Scrum Master (helps the the Backlog and repeat the process. team move along based on the principles of Scrum), and team members. Remember, there’s no room for egos in Scrum. Scrum runs on a “servant leader” model. Visualising Scrum 3. Create your product Backlog: The Backlog is where you list out everything the project An important principle in Scrum is the idea of needs, ordered by importance. Keep in mind transparency. All team members involved should that the Backlog is never complete. As the be aware of what everyone else is working on, pro- project takes shape and new needs emerge, gress being made, and what the team is trying to you will add to this. The Product Owner is pri- accomplish. marily responsible for this and can be assisted by the scrum master in helping to prioritize That’s why making things visible for all to see is so complex backlog’s. important. 4. Plan your Sprint: Next, it’s time to pick tasks from the backlog to be completed in your first A big piece of this is the Scrum Board. This is a Sprint. Sprints are time-limited. You can de- place where you can organize your Backlog, as well cide a time length that works for you, but they as tasks that are being worked on in the current are always less than one month. During the sprint and their progress. Sprint Planning, the team decides what tasks to include in this Sprint and who will be re- Scrum Boards can be as simple as a whiteboard sponsible for them. The sprint capacity (how with sticky notes for each task, or as complicated much can be done in one sprint) is typically as specialized software, with charts and task track- decided by the team itself, and calculated in ing features. A ‘war room’ for the scrum team is ‘sprint points’ (or story points). ideal: so, if possible try to block a meeting room 5. Get to work! Time to start working on that to allow you to have one common venue for your Sprint! Team members work on their tasks, daily stand-ups, backlogs, sprint reviews and retro- and everybody checks in on their progress at spectives. the Daily Scrum Meeting. This meeting lasts no more than 15-minutes and answers three questions: What did you work on yesterday? What will you work on today? Is there anything blocking your work today that you need help with? 28

If, for geographical or other reasons this is not possible (e.g. dispersed teams), you can use software to visualize your scrum board. Some examples are: Slack, Asana, Jira, Teamleader, Trello, Projectplace and leankit.com.

The importance of Iteration and Improvement

One of the core features of Scrum, and what Why is this so important? makes it so potentially powerful, is the idea of iteration and improvement. This is in regards to both Because it lets you collect feedback from users the product being worked on, and the efficiency of early on, helping guide development of the product the team itself. to ensure a good fit with the user.

At the end of each Sprint, the work delivered should Scrum is built on iterative deliveries of your prod- be ready to deliver to a client. This does not mean uct. Rather than waiting until the project is 100% that it’s a finished, complete project. Far from it. complete to deliver it to the user, you deliver use- Rather, it means that the work should be complete able chunks of the project over time. This helps enough to show some sort of Minimum Viable avoid wasted efforts when needs change or things Product (MVP). get lost in communication.

If it were a car, you should be able to drive it. Maybe But beyond the importance of iterations and im- it doesn’t have a radio or A/C, but it can drive. provements for the product, Scrum also focuses on improving the process with each new cycle. 29

During the Retrospective meeting, team members • Burn down chart: A chart that explains how discuss areas where their efficiency could be im- much still needs to be done. proved. Maybe it’s a tech limitation holding them • Scrum poker (or planning poker): This is a back. Maybe one team member is overloaded with consensus-based, gamified technique to es- tasks. The team decides how to fix these problems, timate how long a certain amount of work will with the intent of improving their efficiency in the take to complete. next Sprint. Theoretically, the team should be more • Spike: a short intermezzo where something is efficient and produce more work with each new time-boxed to investigate or resolve an issue. cycle. It can also be used to prototype something. Scrum doesn’t measure staff by the hours you • Task: typically, the product backlog is divided logged, but by the tasks you accomplished. into tasks. A task should in theory not take more than 12 hours -usually max a day (8 hours of work) Beyond the basics • Story-point: the unit to size a story. • Impediment: everything that stands in the For sure there is more to Agile/Scrum then what way of an efficient process we explained so far – below is a list of topics and • Timeboxing: a method to describe the timing their brief explanations that you might encounter boundaries of an investigation or action. This on your Agile/Scrum projects: can be user interviews, testing, trainings or meetings. • Epics: consider them as large stories, which can be subdivided in smaller chunks: user stories. Conclusion • Persona: a certain user profile Scrum of scrums: this happens when there • The basics of Agile/scrum are fun and easy! You are multiple teams, and discussions between can kickstart your project with 3 roles (product these teams are necessary (not only within owner, scrum master, team members), 4 ceremo- the teams). This typically can happen after nies (daily scrum, sprint planning, sprint review, the daily scrum. retrospective) and 3 artifacts (product increment, Definition of done (DOD): This defines when • product backlog, sprint backlog). Agile/Scrum is a backlog topic can be considered as finished, an iterative method that results quickly towards a or how a product can be delivered. It might in- minimum viable product, looks at what the end cli- clude documentation, testing criteria, roll-out ent (end-user) really needs through the definition of criteria etc. personas and user stories, and adapts quickly to a Increment: This is typically a list of ameliora- • changing environment (iterative process). tions/changes to a product or service. It gets Like tennis, it’s easy to hit the ball, but difficult to updated at the end of each sprint. Items on win Wimbledon: so only practice and experience this list adhere to the ‘definition of done’. The make a good Scrum Master and/or Product Owner. list needs to be readable/usable to the prod- If you want to learn and/or explain Agile/Scrum uct owner – he decides to work with such a in 15 minutes, have a look at this youtube video list or not. The progress of the list might result that explains it all (https://www.youtube.com/ in a potentially shippable product. watch?v=502ILHjX9EE). 30

Testimonial

Our consultant Sandy Everaerts shares her experi- Our consultant Frank Smits shares his experience ence as Scrum Master: as Agile Product Owner:

“As SCRUM Master, I experienced that working in sprints of 1 month should be the minimum duration, Mission Purpose: otherwise the frequency of the Agile ceremonies such as Sprint Planning, Sprint Review and Sprint “As a Scrum Product Owner, lead a team to design a Retrospective become too much time consuming. business case for the Funding and Risk department In addition, in a timebox of 1 month, it is more likely together with an ING partner to assess Crowdfund- to produce a deliverable of which added value can ing as a complementary funding offering to its cli- be shown to the end user. Shorter sprints would ents.” also entail that user stories have to be split up in order to fit into a sprint which would lead at the same time to administrative updates in the SCRUM Board Mission details: and JIRA Kanban Board. “The mission entailed setting up the project environ- As far as working with physical SCRUM boards ment in an Agile manner for this challenging busi- is concerned, I recommend to use it at the Sprint ness case (2 ½ months elapsed time), making use planning meeting as a way of gathering the require- of all Agile artefacts (daily scrums, sprints, sprint ments of the SCRUM team; the moulding into user reviews, retrospectives, backlog grooming,..) with a stories can be done afterwards into the JIRA tool by ‘hybrid’ team of both ING and external partner staff. the SCRUM Master. During the daily stand-up meet- As an Agile Product owner I also had to take into ac- ings, I prefer to use the online KanBan board as it count to embed on top of Agile the ‘PACE’ method- offers the advantage to be open to all participants ology, where Agile is enhanced with customer jour- regardless of their physical location and enables neys, design thinking and lean start-up concepts.” homeworking as well.

In the frame of applying the Agile ceremonies in Mission results: complex Agile frameworks such as SAFe, working together with multiple teams, it is very important “We managed to pull it off within the required time- to keep track of dependencies and not act as stan- frame, and present a qualitative and complete busi- dalone teams, therefore the SCRUM of SCRUMS ness case to the Innovation board.” meeting – in which all SCRUM Masters and Board of Directors participate - is an important means to communicate on progress and raise blocking points at an interdisciplinary team level.” 31

ARTICLES

THE AGILE INVASION

Agile project approach is hot. And this is not a sur- Why is Agile a popular trend? prise, it guarantees in a swift way – and with lesser costs – a minimum viable product. Focus is not Everyone knows this Agile trend, and most compa- on the destination (delivery of a desirable/minimum nies try to follow this trend. Why is this framework viable product), but on the journey to this desirable so trending? The most important & obvious caus- product. es are: rapid speed of technological innovations, but also fast pace in society as a whole has a huge Agile tends to avoid losing time & effort in preparing impact. Traditional project methodologies such as complex plans & expensive budget forecasts too Waterfall cannot keep up with this fast speed. Not much in advance, as requirements are likely to be only competitors accelerate this speed, also con- altered during sprints, and short iteration with quick sumers and end users. Logically, society puts more delivery of added value is key. Self-organizing Agile pressure to deliver good and stable solutions that teams work in short sprints and continuously deliv- solve real problems in a swift way and really con- er smaller parts, so that you can anticipate a chang- tribute to the quality of everyday life. ing environment. The key question during this journey is: which smart things can we pick up in order The most remarkable example of an Agile inspired to arrive earlier at our destination? company is the Swedish Spotify which was found- Agile developers do not waste time on preparing of ed in 2006 and already expanded in 2012 to a mu- large & complex architecture documents and func- sic streaming service with 20 million users world- tional designs, which are seldom consulted after- wide. Spotify developed as a cauliflower: it looked wards. These developers move fast and agile and for a means to keep employees result driven and at arrive at their destination faster. the same time tried to get the best out of itself. This 32

enabled the company to continuously self-adjust. during the sprint. It is written collaboratively by the Focus, focus, focus is the most important thing for team and the product owner, afterwards translation this music streaming service. Or, as quoted by Jo- into individual targets is done. The following are ex- han Persson from Spotify: ‘The worst thing that can ample sprint goals on an eCommerce application: happen is that someone works too long on a particular project.’ This is not only extremely inefficient, but • Implement basic shopping cart functionality also a waste of talent. including add, remove, and update quantities. • Develop the checkout process: pay for an or- The most important lessons learnt proposed by der, pick shipping, order gift wrapping Spotify are: transparent communication on goals & results to be able to give continuous feedback, The sprint backlog is the total of user stories to be this feedback culture enhances that everyone par- delivered. ticipates, in a culture of trust employees dare to make mistakes, so they can improve afterwards via Moreover, Agile only works if it is used across the coaching/training, and working with small teams or entire organization. Do no try to be agile while man- squads operate as self-regulating organs. aging dependencies with other non-agile teams working lean or some other methodology, as it will slow down the iterations. When can Agile be a good framework for you? Team clearly stands for: Together Everyone Achieves Agile can work for you, if you adopt the following More. Both employee and organization benefit from key principles: agile teams. As an employee you learn from each other in a team, which leads to self-development. Autonomous motivated employees show better You experience attention, respect and emotional performance and have an increased loyalty, there- connection and team work gives you the impres- fore Agile organizations increase autonomous mo- sion to really matter. Working with Agile teams leads tivation, in parallel to next to promotion and bonus, to better performance for organizations. Organiza- such as personal development plans and a fitting tions with Agile teams are more flexible, learn more environment and culture. effectively via cooperation and are more innovative, as ideas come from different points of view. In Agile organizations, all team members are fully aligned. Via a cascading process the organization For effective Agile teams there is a structural clarity targets are elaborated in a clear set of team targets on approach, on everyone’s roles and responsibilities and performance indicators. These targets and in- and how progress on realization of targets is meas- dicators are translated into individual targets of the ured. By assigning roles, each individual is involved team members after mutual team consultation. In in the agile process. For example, the following is a an Agile framework the Sprint Planning meeting list of important roles in very early startup or small serves as interaction platform between product team based on the RACI model in which R stands owner and development team, in that way the prod- Responsible, A for Accountable, C for Consulted/ uct owner describes the highest priority features to Collaborative and I for Informed: the team. The team asks enough questions that they can turn a high-level user story of the product back- 1. Business owner. R log into the more detailed tasks of the sprint back- 2. Product Manager. R log. There are two defined artifacts that result from 3. Project Manager. A a sprint planning meeting: A sprint goal and a sprint 4. Engineering Manager. A backlog. A sprint goal is a short, one- or two-sen- 5. Developer. C tence, description of what the team plans to achieve 6. User Experience Manager. I 33

The team should list each task in the develop- Not only clear communication, but also speaking ment life cycle, requirements, sprints, develop- the same language, using coherent terminology, is ment. Break them down even further and assign often a real hurdle to take. In case of outsourcing RACI, i.e. who has what role in each task. This when contractors do not have or share the busi- way, everybody is engaged and contributes to the ness expertise of the client, you need an interme- success of the project by well-defined rules. The diary to make the bridge between client and con- progress of realization of targets is measured by tractor. defining which user stories of the backlog can be considered as done and completed. Not always follow every rule by the manifesto, daring to let go control, is also a thing to bear in Team commitments can be put in a work plan, so mind. Although Agile foresees not to lose time on each team member is aware of his/her contribu- unnecessary documentation, often development tion and his/her responsibility for the total team benefits from the fact of having a clear documen- success: it concerns so called individual account- tation. What matters in the end is that the Agile ability and collective responsibility. A concrete ex- team has easy access to documentation at a cen- ample would be to put the delivery of a modern- tral location and that it can be used in an interac- ized reporting as a collective responsibility in the tive way. Software documentation tools such as team plan and the individual tasks per team mem- Process Street to keep documentation all living at ber as defined by the RACI matrix above. Teams the same place and Slack to generate the skele- benefit from strategic diversity; as in nature, you tal documentation automatically by analyzing the can distinguish spring-, summer- autumn- and source’s functions and comments are good exam- winter stadia for corporate lifecycles, after which ples to optimize documentation creation. a new growing cycle follows and the process re- iterates itself. During the team composition, it is Last but not least, managing expectations is of very important to select the correct type of person outmost importance to keep the customer happy. for a certain lifecycle of an organization, a product The real challenge lies in the fact that the client or service. Spring types used to be creative and wants to spend as less budget as possible and explorative types, whereas managers are a good wants to deliver as fast as possible, whereas the example of autumn types. Agile organizations contractors can only work agile, cheap, fast and change the team composition from time to time, deliver really suitable solutions, if they do not have depending on the need for a particular lifecycle. to invest too much time in advance to assure the customer, in form of plans and architecture. In an Agile framework the client needs to be satisfied Finally, is Agile the magical answer? not knowing exactly what the result will be in advance, as he will only discover this in a later stage Agile does not provide an answer to all our ques- of the process. This willingness to invest has to tions. I believe in this framework’s intention, but come from top management, in order to convince there are some common pitfalls that we should business sponsors to finance the transformation take into account: by proclaiming that it will pay off on the long term. The contractor must not make too concrete prom- Although Agile promises speedy delivery, it may ises which he cannot fulfill later on. What can work suffer from the fact that the sponsor does not for both parties is intermediary delivery of user make enough time to really check what has been stories in order to assure the client, and provide delivered at the end of each sprint and give good the contractor with the necessary professional feedback. So regular communication and clear pri- freedom. oritization via a backlog by the sponsor are indis- pensable. 34

It is safe to conclude that Agile fits with the fast should not be seen as a one-size-fits-all solution, pace of society, but in order to be successful good but has to be adapted to each environment. If you communication, the right expertise, clever & real- take into account these principles, then Agile will istic way of managing expectations and daring to not only offer better solutions for the client, but will let go safety, security are essential. This realistic also result in a happy Agile team, definitely a win- approach also includes that the Agile framework win!

About the Author

Sandy Everaerts, has 20 years experience, and worked for leading companies in the Banking & Insurance sector. She has a background in both Business and IT as PMO, project manager & SCRUM Master.

IS MANAGEMENT 3.0 THE LATEST EPISODE IN THE BUSINESS AGILE TRANSFORMATION?

WHY ARE WE EXPERIENCING A BUSINESS AGILE TRANSFORMATION?

In the first part of the article it is depicted how tech- Management 2.0 there is a move to a perfect en- nology is changing faster in the world and creating gine for motivated self-organized teams; and final- uncertainty on needs & requirements and hence a ly Management 3.0 where the implementation of a transformation to Business Agile organizations is Business Agile Transformation is key in achieving necessary as they envision to modify dynamically business goals. the concepts and structure of the business itself: The term “Business Agile” is not just a popular buz- Business Agility is the ability of an organization to: zword. It is a fast and efficient framework companies should adopt if they want to change their • Adapt quickly to market changes – internally way of working and quickly respond to a chang- and externally ing world. An agile business model allows to work • Respond rapidly and flexibly to customer de- faster, think clearer and improve professional and mands personal agility, thanks to a variety of tools that • Adapt and lead change in a productive and help to get the essential skills and mindset of Agile. cost-effective way without compromising Therefore, an Agile methodology can help organi- quality zations to: • Continuously be at a competitive advantage • Get up to speed: learn about agile and how it can fit your organization Whereas, in the second part of the article different • Stop wasting time: it will develop a smart way evolutions in management styles, from Manage- of thinking (become more flexible, react faster ment 1.0 & 2.0 to Management 3.0 are described: to changes) a Management style (Management 1.0) seen as • Become more efficient: spot new opportuni- being an obstruction – in a way that it reinforces ties earlier and easier the hierarchical models that are consistent with • Become more result oriented: develop solu- the mental maps of most managers; where in tions with desired quality and proven value 36

THE FRAMEWORK FOR BUSINESS AGILITY

Source: Business Agile Consortium

HOW DOES BUSINESS AGILE DIFFER FROM MORE TRADITIONAL APPROACHES?

Traditional approach: the next step cannot be dealt with in a subsequent iteration of development. launched before the current step is completed. In The resulting solution is more likely to have a better practice, a lot of time is wasted in each step aim- fit with the true business needs and is easier to test ing for perfection when actually an 80% solution fit and integrate into existing and emerging business would probably be sufficient to move on. processes. The development cost of most solutions is only a small part of the total lifecycle costs; Business Agile: the current step needs to be com- therefore it makes sense to build simpler solutions pleted in only enough detail to allow the project to that are both fit for purpose on the day of delivery move to the next step with further details being and easier to maintain and modify thereafter. 37

HOW DOES BUSINESS AGILE method allows work items to be visually present- DIFFER FROM OTHER AGILE ed on a Kanban board, so that each team member can visualize the state of each work item. A Kanban APPROACHES? board can be physical (white board, sticky notes) or virtual (digital board, Kanban cards). Both physical The first and most important difference is that and digital boards ensure a transparent communi- Business Agile requires basic foundations for the cation in which blocking issues and dependencies project to be agreed at an early stage. This allows are immediately identified and resolved. businesses to understand the scope and fundamental characteristics of the proposed solution, and the way it will be created, before development · Late delivery starts. Especially for larger corporate organizations or organizations with complex architectures and/ The Business Agile approach is focused on deliver- or governance standards, agreeing to the founda- ing on time; it is preferred to deliver small delivera- tions early in the project is crucial. Another impor- bles frequently, that stand more chance to be de- tant difference is that Business Agile describes a livered on time than big deliverables less frequently broader set of roles than most Agile approaches at a risk to be delivered too late. do. This allows a better fit with most corporate environments as it responds to more complex organization structures without undermining Agility. · The delivered solution does not meet the business needs Another frustration arises when a solution is de- HOW DOES BUSINESS AGILE livered that doesn’t meet the expectations of the ADDRESS KEY PROJECT business. Most importantly, Business Agile teams are encouraged to embrace change, allowing them PROBLEMS? to deal with problems and opportunities that occur, to encompass new ideas that appear and to build Managing any business change or developing any the solution based on a deeper understanding of solution is rarely a straightforward and simple task. the solution detail. Business Agile can help addressing the following key problems: · Building the right thing – the business changing their mind · Ineffective communication Business Agile enables change through iterative Poor or ineffective communication is often iden- development, with regular reviews as to make sure tified as a major fail on projects. Business Agile that what is being developed is what the business provides a lot of guidance to strengthen communi- really needs. Changing requirements are a natural cation within projects and also provides practices result towards a better understanding: therefore, that encourage visual and verbal communication in order to deliver the right solution, a good collab- as much as possible. oration and communication between all parties (stakeholders, clients, team members) is impor- A good example of visual communication used tant. If all parties are in alignment, the developed within Agile projects is the Kanban method. This solution will match the desired solution. 38

· Lack of prioritization & unused features HOW CAN MANAGEMENT 3.0 HELP IN THE AGILE BUSINESS To manage priorities and therefore keep deadlines ADOPTION the MoSCow prioritization technique is often used. This technique allows to classify work items in the The business environment now is a lot more com- categories: ‘Must have’, ‘Should have’, ‘Could have’ plicated than it was before. The rapid pace of in- and ‘Won’t have this time’. This classification pro- novation is pushing the business environment vides an indication of each working item and the toward globalization and diversification of the expectation for its completion. workplace. The organizational challenge is creating a workplace that takes full advantage of employees’ leadership potential. This is why most · Delayed or late Return on Investment (ROI) companies have to re-think their management styles and ways of doing business. Adopting an Business Agile uses incremental delivery to get Agile management approach is needed to do so. the most important and most valuable features released to the business as early as is practical to However, Agile adoption in organizations is not an avoid reduction of ROI. easy task. There are some key barriers to successfully adopt Agile to take into account:

· Over engineering (Gold plating) • Inability to change organization culture • General resistance to change Business Agile is a pragmatic approach which • Lack of management support focuses on the real business need in order to dis- suade a team from being tempted to add useless In the old organizational structure, both employ- extras that are not useful to the end client. ees and managers have been trained to act in a certain way. Managers were seen as leaders who take decisions, while employees execute what has · Not a Fragile Agile been decided. It is hard to replace these old habits with a new Agile way of working. Such transfor- Business Agile does just enough work up front to mation involves sometimes changing the DNA of ensure clarity of objectives and to provide a foun- the organization and getting everyone to share the dation for solution development. This foundation is same vision. In this regard Management 3.0 can agreed before breaking the project down into incre- be a catalyst to improve Agile management in the ments and within that to timeboxes, ensuring the organization. appropriate elements of detailed analysis, design, build and test at each level. Active engagement of business roles in the detail of development ensures that the right solution evolves. This, in combination with the limited up-front work, creates a truly Agile way of delivering business benefits. 39

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN agement 1.0 doesn’t work well out-of-the-box, so they created numerous add-on models and servic- MANAGEMENT 1.0, MANAGEMENT es with a semi-scientific status, like the Balanced 2.0 & MANAGEMENT 3.0? Scorecard, Six Sigma, and Total Quality Manage- ment. Being add-ons to Management 1.0, these Management 1.0 is referring to a management models assume that organizations are managed style that was invented with the rise of the indus- from the top, and they help those at the top to trial revolution. In this management style employ- better “design” their organizations. Sometimes it ees are taking orders and simply execute with low works; sometimes it doesn’t. In the meantime oth- freedom of management. In the framework Agile er models and services focus on the craft and art 1.0 hierarchy was very important; some people of management. Agile 2.0 is just Agile 1.0 with a call it scientific management, whereas others call great number of addons to ease the problems of it command-and-control. But the basic idea is the an old system. But the architecture of Agile 2.0 is same: An organization is designed and managed still the same outdated hierarchy. in a top-down fashion, and power is in the hands of the few. Management 3.0 consists of a set of recommendations that provides guidance on Agile manage- In Management 2.0 employees are recognized as ment. The model has been developed by Jurgen the most valuable asset in the organization but Appelo who addresses a realistic approach to with strong and old fashioned top down hierar- leading, managing and growing an Agile team or chy structures. Some people realized that Man- organization. In Management 3.0, management is

SOURCE: HTTP://JURGENAPPELO.COM 40

a responsibility of everyone and leadership is rede- decision of how things should be remains to the fined as a group responsibility. The ultimate goal is manager to implement. to find the most efficient way for an organization to achieve its goal while setting happiness of workers 3) Align constraint: An Agile manager has to make as a priority. sure the team has a vision and involves them in the definition of it. The agile manager should not com- In Management 3.0 managers have an important mand and control, and therefore should not tell the role to play in creating an environment where man- team what the vision is. agement tasks (such as planning, estimating, lead- 4) Develop competence: An Agile manager should ing etc..) are not limited to managers and therefore create an environment where people are chal- evolving towards a self-organizing team or organ- lenged and incentivized to learn. People will start ization. But does a self-organizing team or organ- learning themselves only if they are subject to an ization mean that management life is over? Defi- intrinsic motivation. In addition, the agile manag- nitely not. Management 3.0 has defined 6 areas for er has to figure out which knowledge and compe- the Agile manager to focus on: tences his/her team needs.

1) Energize people: An Agile manager has to make 5) Grow structure: An Agile manager has to find sure people are energized enough and motivated good team members. It is sometimes challenging at work. It is impossible to oblige people to be mo- to find the good person, that is why Agile managers tivated and happy, this has to be strongly ‘induced’ should not hesitate to search worldwide. An effi- by the manager via team building to allow for cre- cient communication structure should then be set ative staff ideas. It is therefore the responsibility of up to maintain a safe environment. the manager to create and sustain an environment where people feel motivated and free to work. 6) Improve environment: An Agile manager has to create a culture of continuous improvement in 2) Empower team: Teams are self-organizing and order to respond to the changing business environ- therefore they should decide themselves about ment. This means that the agile manager has to where they want to work (for instance office or think about the change management technique(s) home), tools they want to use etc. However, the to use to implement improvements. 41

CONCLUSION cabulary. It makes us realize that we should see our organizations as living systems, not as machines. In conclusion, the last few decades saw the birth It is nice to have a new name. Names can be pow- and rise of complexity theory, first applied to math- erful. The “3.0” version indicates that management ematics and biology and later to economics and needs changing. It usually takes Microsoft three sociology. It was a major breakthrough. major releases of a product to get things right. I believe that management has, in its third incarnation, One important insight is that all organizations are finally found a solid scientific foundation. The ear- networks. People may draw their organizations lier add-ons of Management 2.0 are still valuable. as hierarchies, but that doesn’t change that they But we have to replace assumptions of hierarchies are actually networks. Second, social complexity with networks, because the 21st century is the shows us that management is primarily about peo- Age of Complexity. Good management has always ple and their relationships, not about departments been an important piece in helping their people to and profits. Many of us already knew that “leader- be productive. By focusing on the management ship” is just a trendy name for managers doing the aspect, Management 3.0 model aims to create or- right thing and doing things right. But complexity ganizations where people are motivated and happy thinking adds a new dimension to our existing vo- and thus leading to successful organizations.

About the Authors

Sandy Everaerts, has 20 years experience, and worked for leading companies in the Banking & Insurance sector. She has a background in both Business and IT as PMO, project manager & SCRUM Master.

Gracia Mbombo Mbuyi, is an experienced consultant with relevant experience in the banking sector. Before joining Initio in 2017 she worked as business analyst in Asset management. Since then she acquired experience in change management and process analysis in leading Banking projects. She has also relevant certification in Scrum product Owner. 42

THE HANDBOOK OF AGILE KEYWORDS

Contents

#1 Agile Manifesto #11 Iteration Planning #21 Code Refactoring

#2 Product Backlog #12 Daily Standup #22 Cone of Uncertainty

#3 Iteration Backlog #13 Iteration Review #23 Prototyping

#4 Release Plan #14 Retrospective Meetings #24 Return on Investment (ROI)

#5 Rolling Wave Planning #15 Riskadjusted Backlog #25 Acceptance Criteria

#6 User Story #16 MosCoW #26 Agile Charter

#7 Ideal Time #17 WIP Limits #27 Minimum Marketable Feature (MMF)

#8 Story Points #18 Continuous Integration #28 Present and Future Value

#9 Velocity #19 Timeboxing #29 Control Limits

#10 Scrum #20 Planning Onion #30 Technical Debt

#1 Agile Manifesto #2 Product Backlog

Definition Definition

Written by 17 independent software practitioners Product backlog is the collection of all work items in 2001, Agile Manifesto puts forth a set of 4 prin- that is pending team’s action. It is the master list, ciples to uncover better ways of developing soft- prioritized by Product Manager or Product Owner ware. that serve as a key input to the team’s planning activities. They are not rules. But they serve as a reminder of right priorities. The backlog must be comprehensive and include everything development, maintenance (bugs etc.), Here is the list of 4 principles: support etc. that require the team’s attention.

1. Individuals and Interactions over Process Product Owner is responsible for the prioritization and Tools of the backlog aided by the Customer. However, 2. Working Software over Comprehensive the entire team is involved in the exercise to share Documentation inputs that will otherwise be unavailable to the PO. 3. Customer Collaboration over Contract Ne- gotiation 4. Responding to Change over following a Plan 43

#3 Iteration Backlog #5 Rolling Wave Planning

Definition Definition

Iteration Backlog is the list of items an Agile team Rolling wave planning refers to the practice of es- commits to achieve or complete in the current iter- timating the near-term work items in greater detail ation. It is also referred as Sprint Backlog in teams and long term ones at a lesser detail. using Scrum. Agile development is based on the premise that re- Normally, it is a subset of Product Backlog cho- quirements will change over a period of time. Based sen from the high priority items. This priority is as- on this premise, it is prudent to spend more time signed by the Product Owner. The list is always analyzing and estimating the work items that are sorted in the descending order of priority. more certain. Those planned for a longer term can be estimated at lesser accuracy for planning pur- Using the estimate assigned to each of these items poses. and capacity of the team in current iteration, the commitment is made. Two things are important: As per PMI (Project Management Institute), near term items may use Definite Estimates (5% to +10% 1. Entire team must be committed, not just the accuracy) while future items may use Order of Mag- leads/key members, nitude (50% to +50% accuracy) or Preliminary Esti- 2. Risks and distractions must be considered mates (15% to 50% accuracy). when evaluating the team capacity.

#6 User Story #4 Release Plan Definition Definition User Story is the representation of end user re- Release Plan is a long-term plan that describe how quirement, in clear, unambiguous and business lan- the team will achieve the project or product goals. guage that makes sense to those users.

It is usually made from a collection of iteration They are normally created by end users in consulta- plans that achieve the smaller goals iteratively tion with Product Managers or Business Analysts. based on their priority. Story Map is a technique to create the release plan. Essential components of an user story are:

A good release plan answers the following ques- a) Title tions: b) Brief description c) Acceptance/Done Criteria 1. What are the release goals? d) Other information discussed in the 2. How to iteratively achieve these goals? requirement gathering meeting 3. What is the expected timeline and duration? 4. What are the milestones? Here is an example story title (the format is pre- scriptive, not mandatory).

As an Airport Manager, I must be able to view all flights arriving in day, so that I can approve or reject their landing. 44

#7 Ideal Time #9 Velocity

Definition Definition

Ideal Time is an unit of measure for User Story esti- Velocity is the amount of work a team can accom- mations. It is the time taken by one person, without plish in a given iteration. sually, this is expressed in any interruptions, to complete all activities needed the unit of ideal days or story points. in delivering the story for end user acceptance. Velocity is a measure of team’s throughput that This is the ideal time to finish the work. But in real- helps in forecasting. It is specific to a given team, ity, many interruptions occur due to various factors their competencies, work environment and collabo- like meetings, unplanned activities, team member ration levels. Hence velocities of teams cannot be productivity, vacations and so on. directly compared.

For planning purposes, this ideal time must be Example combined with focus factor a number less than 1, when multiplied with ideal time, gives a realistic esti- Team A has an average velocity of 50 story points. mate. Focus factor is specific to a team and must This means that the team can accomplish work be determined over a period of time, after analyzing equivalent of 50 story points in a given iteration. To all possible interruptions. complete work equivalent of 350 story points, the team will approximately need 7 iterations. Realistic Estimate = Ideal Time * Focus Factor #10 Scrum

#8 Story Points Definition

Definition Scrum is an iterative and incremental development framework for Agile Software projects. Story Points are an alternative unit of measure to denote the size of a user story (in contrast to ideal It was introduced in early 2000 by Ken Schwaber time). They include all the work needed to ship the and Jeff Sutherland, though some informal forms entire user story for end user acceptance. of this method existed before. The adoption is constantly on the rise in recent years (as per a Humans are good at relative estimations. Story ScrumAlliance study) and more companies are fol- points follow the same approach. Normally, a story lowing the suit. with moderate complexity is chosen and set at a predefined story point value (say 5). Other stories Scrum is based on three primary principles: are estimated in comparison with this story: more complex get a value > 5 and less complex gets < 5. • Transparency, • Inspection, Fibonacci series and TShirt sizes are common • Adaptation. scales used for the story point estimation. A Scrum Project starts with the creation of Release The definition of story point is very specific toa Plan that defines the roadmap. Then the roadmap team; hence it may be difficult to explain others like is split into iterations called Sprints each delivering management. It is a better approach to start with a valuable piece of output towards the final goal. ideal time and move to story points when the team is more mature. 45

Scrum recommends close and consistent collab- #12 Daily Standup / Daily Scrum oration with potential end users of the product. Scrum recommends three Roles and four Meetings Definition that help with the project success. Daily Standup or Daily Scrum meeting provide an Three Roles of Scrum opportunity to frequently review the progress of a Sprint and identify anomalies as early as possible. • Product Owner One who understand the customer requirements, translate them to the This meeting is held every day, at the same time and development team and help set the right pri- preferably at the same location. The time is mutual- orities ly agreed by all team members. Scrum Master and • Development Team The team of program- the Development team are mandatory participants. mers, testers and business analysts who de- Functional Manager and Product Owner may op- velop the product tionally participate. • Scrum Master A facilitator who enables the team to deliver and guides them through the This meeting is focused on answers to these three journey questions from everyone in the team. • What did I do yesterday? Another role that may exist is the Functional Man- • What I plan to do today? ager. This person deals with project and people • What are the issues or obstacles I am facing? management responsibilities. All other discussions are held after the meeting with Four Meetings of Scrum are described in the following sections. only necessary participants.

#11 Sprint / Iteration Planning #13 Sprint / Iteration Review

Definition Definition

Sprint Planning Meeting is held at the start of a Sprint Review or Iteration Review meeting is held Sprint to discuss work items that are of high busi- at the end of an iteration to validate the outcome ness priority and end with a commitment for deliv- against the commitment. As with Planning, this ery. meeting must include everyone in the team PO, Scrum Master, Development Team and Functional • Product Owner (PO) drives this meeting Manager. Customers or End Users may participate • Everyone in the team meet to discuss the as needed. work items that are of high business priority • Once the development team is clear on what Typically held for about 2 hours, the meeting is an is needed, they propose a solution and esti- opportunity for the development team to demon- mate the work strate their achievement. A demonstration of the • Together with the business priority, solution Sprint delivery is made with an objective to receive and estimate the PO gives a final priority feedback. • Using the final priority and the capacity, the team commits to deliver those items in the PO can review this demonstration against the ac- current Sprint ceptance criteria for each story. The story is then accepted or rejected. Sometimes the PO may re- Commitment for delivery and agreement on the request to play with the application after the meeting view date are two main outcomes of this meeting. to come up with a final decision.

#14 Retrospective Meeting #16 MoSCoW

Definition Definition

In an attempt for continuous improvement, the Ret- MoSCoW is a prioritization technique used to assign rospective Meeting is held at the end of every itera- priorities for User Stories and Epics in the Product tion to analyze things that went well and those that Backlog. need improvement. It is an acronym that stands for: Must Have, Should This meeting provides an opportunity to identify and Have, Could Have, Would Have implement the improvements immediately, as early as the next iteration. The goal is to provide construc- • Prioritization is done by the Product Owner for tive feedback and not to play a blame game. Functional Stories • To start with, the complete set of features re- Here is the typical agenda of a Retro Meeting. quired in the product is created by the Product Owner (usually from requirement gathering ex- 1. Setting the Stage (getting everyone in the right ercises like Story Writing Workshops) mood) • Using various factors like Customer Needs, 2. Gathering Inputs (using idea generation tech- Market Conditions, Business Value etc, the niques) Product Owner puts each of these features 3. Identifying Improvements (agreeing on into the 4 buckets of MoSCoW (described critical improvement area) above) 4. Devising an Action Plan (setting SMART • Everything in Must Have is mandatory, Should actions) Have is important, Could Have and Would Have are optional

#15 Riskadjusted Backlog #17 WIP Limits Definition Definition Risks are potential issues that can impact a project either in terms of cost, schedule or quality. When risk WIP Limit is a concept borrowed from the lean man- management activities are included in the Product ufacturing world. WIP refers to Work in Process/ Backlog, we get a Risk adjusted Backlog. Progress. WIP Limit refers to the maximum cap applied on work items that are processed in parallel. Normally the steps to create this are: Both in manufacturing and software development • Identify Risks at various stages of the Project world, throughput the measure of process produc- (Daily Stand-ups, Iteration Review, Planning etc.) tivity depends on WIP and Cycle Time. Cycle time • Qualify and Quantify the risks based on their refers to the time taken from start to finish of a pro- probability and impact cess. • Choose high value risks and identify response strategies (accept, mitigate, avoid, transfer, Throughput = (WIP / Cycle Time) share) • Make specific tasks for the chosen strategy, By fixing a maximum limit for WIP and minimizing assign right priority, estimate the effort and in- the Cycle time, higher Throughput can be realized. clude them in the Product Backlog Limited WIP also result in better focus and reduced task switching. 47

#18 Continuous Integration #20 Planning Onion

Definition Definition

Continuous Integration is a practice to ensures the Planning Onion is an analogy used to represent the software is frequently build, integrated and tested different levels of planning in Agile Software Devel- for correctness. opment. It signifies that plans are never accurate and must be done at various stages for maximum In a collaborative environment, several developers benefit. The figure below lists the various levels. potentially work on the same piece of software. To ensure integrity, code must be periodically sent to a central system where it is validated.

Four components are essential in a Continuous In- tegration system:

1. Source Control System (where the shared source code is stored) 2. Build System (where the software build happens) 3. Trigger (something that kicks off the validation) 4. Notification Mechanism (alerts when valida- Image credit: tcagely.wordpress.com tion fails)

#21 Code Refactoring #19 Timeboxing Definition Definition While developing software, a normal tendency is Timeboxing is a technique used in Agile Software to design solutions that appear reasonable, within Development to bring control in the chaos. When- the cost and schedule. But often, they may not be ever estimates are not possible or considered inac- the best solution. Code refactoring is an attempt curate, a predefined time is allocated to work on the to simplify the design and code without altering the activity. behavior of software.

The team will use this time to work on this activity. Without code refactoring, the complexity of pro- If the activity cannot be completed within stipulat- gram increases over time and maintenance be- ed time, it is moved to backlog and picked up later comes a nightmare. Sometimes, refactoring may based on priority. uncover blind spots that may break the software in production. Timeboxing is often used for activities that require analysis and those without definite end results. Peer code reviews and design walkthroughs are some opportunities to identify refactoring possibil- Analyzing the feasibility of a software package to ities. develop reports is an example activity that can be timeboxed.

#22 Cone of Uncertainty

Definition

A Project Plan is accurate only at the end of the Project. Cone of Uncertainty, a graph of variation in estimations, is a visual reminder that plans are least accurate at the beginning and improves over the course of a project.

Image credit: Informit

#23 Prototyping

Definition

Prototyping aims at creating a representation of Agile believes in the principle of failing fast better the end product at minimum possible cost. Cus- to fail early with a less investment than later in the tomers or end users can use this to get a real feel project, when the stakes are high. of the product. Wireframing is another early feedback technique The idea behind prototyping is to get early feedback that focus on static representation of the product. from customers before it is too late. Sometimes, this can be used to determine the feasibility of a project. 49

#24 Return on Investment (ROI) #26 Agile Charter

Definition Definition

Return on Investment or ROI, is a mathematical Agile Charter is a short document that highlights technique used to determine either the profitability the purpose of a project and its expected outcomes. or efficiency of pursuing an activity. Unlike traditional project charters, Agile Charter is notably simple and lightweight. In Agile Projects, it can be used at various levels project, features, user stories or even tasks. It is nor- It is recommended not to spend a lot of time with mally represented as a percentage or ratio. chartering. The idea is to set the vision, agree on high level goals and move forward. For example, a ROI of 10% roughly translate to a profit of 10 cents for every dollar invested. A typical Agile Charter might contain:

ROI can be calculated using the formula: • Vision and Mission of the Project, with a focus on goals ROI = (Benefit Cost) / Cost • Key Stakeholders • Acceptance Criteria • Major Risks and Constraints #25 Acceptance Criteria

Definition #27 Minimum Marketable Feature (MMF) Acceptance Criteria is an essential part of a User Story. It defines the set of conditions that help to Definition determine if the story is complete. It is normally given by the customer or end user. Minimum Marketable Feature, often referred as MMF, is the minimum set of functionality needed Completeness here refer to production readiness. in a product to be usable by its customers. In other An accepted user story must be good to load in pro- words, this is the minimum set with which the prod- duction, given other nonfunctional criteria are met. uct can be launched in the market.

In addition to the acceptance criteria set by the cus- Thinking about MMF helps in better prioritization of tomer, some teams have their own internal condi- features. The team can initially focus on the MMF tions to be met. For example, 90% of code must and later move to other features. be covered by new tests can be a good acceptance condition. The functional criteria also help testers Care must be taken to understand dependencies to write test plans. between features while narrowing down on MMF. For example, ability to make a call may be an MMF Done Criteria is another common term used to re- of a phone but without contacts management this fer to acceptance criteria. feature may not be useful. 50

#28 Present Value (PV) and Future #30 Technical Debt Value (FV) Definition Definition Technical Debt refers to all the extra work needed The value of a given amount of money is always on the code due to the use of easier solutions or higher at current time (present) rather than a time workarounds over the best approach. in the future. Present Value represent the current face value of cash or asset while Future Value is its It is not always possible to implement the best solu- worth later in time. tion. Due to various factors like cost, schedule and priority, developers may resort to an easier solution. This difference can be due to various factors. In- Though it works well in the short term, there may flation has a bigger impact in diminishing the future be other implications in the long term. value of money. Depreciation affects the future value of nonmonetary assets. For example, avoiding the use of a design pattern due to time constraints may make maintenance a PV and FV are key to understand when making pro- lot difficult in the future. ject decisions based on financial returns. A project that returns $130 Million in future for every $100 A collection of all such overheads is called technical Million invested may be better than one that returns debt and the team must resolve them over a peri- $115 Million (though not always true). od of time. Code refactoring helps in reducing the technical debt. FV = PV (1 + Return Rate)^time

#29 Control Limit

Definition

Control Limits are metrics that help determine if the process is within or out of control. They are an indi- cator of process stability.

There are various driving factors behind control limits. Regulations, Nonfunctional Requirements, Technical Constraints are some examples of these driving factors.

Control limit also help to ignore false alarms. No process will be perfect. There will be deviations from expected behavior. Control limits help distinguish deviations that are normal from those that require attention.

As per the Process Control guidelines, if there are 7 or more data points on one side of an average the process is considered unstable even if the control limits aren’t violated. 51

PRINCIPLES OF PROJECT RISK MANAGEMENT

What is project risk management?

Risk Management identifies, analyses and re- Project risk management assists organizations sponds to risk factors throughout the life of a pro- and individuals to decide: ject and in the best interests of its objectives. Prop- • how much risk we would accept to pursue er risk management implies control of possible our objectives future events and is proactive rather than reactive • the necessary actions to deal with risk and and intertwines with change management. uncertainty in order to pursue objectives.

It is important to recognize that risk management is not about eliminating risk but managing it. 52

The most important steps of project risk manage- (1) to identify the root causes of risks—that is, iden- ment are: tify the undesirable events or things that can go wrong and then identify the potential impacts on the project of each such event—and (2) to identify all the essential functions that the project must 1. Identify risks perform or goals that it must reach to be considered successful and then identify all the possible Risk is an uncertain event or condition that, if it oc- modes by which these functions might fail to per- curs, has a positive or a negative effect on the pro- form. The most common forms to carry out risk ject objectives. Different organizations define risk identification are: slightly differently, but essentially, risk is the impact of uncertainty (‘manage’ the unknown) on corpo- • Documentation reviews rate strategy, business plans and objectives. Risk • Interviewing is the possibility that something may happen and: • Preparing cause and effect diagrams • Using risk identification checklists Affect the achievement of objectives, or • • Investigate historical past events in similar Cause uncertainty of outcome, or variability • conditions (e.g. staff turnover rates on big of an expected outcome projects)

In order to identify a risk or uncertain event, we have to know the objectives or the expected/desired outcome first. 2. Allocate risk owners

Let’s use a simplified example to illustrate the As the project manager, it is sensible if you allocate above definition of risk: the owners for each identified risk. Remember that your risk owner allocation might need to change A bank has a home loan portfolio. Based on his- later because you haven’t done a full risk analysis torical experience, the default rate is 1%, and the at this point. Once you know the full-scale of the bank budgets for a 1% loss (i.e. the expected out- risk it might be prudent to shift the risk ownership come is that 1% of the loan value will not be repaid around in the team or provide extra support so you by the borrowers) and it calculates upfront the 1% do not expose the project to problems unnecessar- loss into the home loan products. If the economy ily. unexpectedly deteriorates and more home owners cannot make their mortgage payment, the default rate may exceed 1%, and the home loan portfolio will not achieve the profitability target. An unexpect- 3. Analyze the risks ed economic downturn causing more home owners not being able to make their mortgage payments so The analysis process can be anything from making that default rate exceeds 1% is a risk. a qualitative statement about the problem to a full ‘Monte Carlo’ (a Monte Carlo simulation is a com- The objective of risk identification is to identify puterized mathematical technique that allows peo- all possible risks, not to eliminate risks from con- ple to account for risk in quantitative analysis and sideration or to develop solutions for mitigating decision making. The technique is used by profes- risks—those functions are carried out during the sionals in such widely disparate fields as finance, risk assessment and risk mitigation steps. There project management, energy, manufacturing, engi- are many ways to approach risk identification. Two neering, research and development, insurance, oil possible approaches are: & gas, transportation, and the environment. This simulation furnishes the decision-maker with a 53

range of possible outcomes and the probabilities Example of qualitative risk assessment in the vid- they will occur for any choice of action. It shows eo game industry: In general, qualitative analysis the extreme possibilities—the outcomes of going seeks to identify risks by using scales that summa- for broke and for the most conservative decision— rize visually and intuitively the relative dimensions along with all possible consequences for middle- of each risk, allowing to prioritize: providing a visual of-the-road decisions.) analysis with the aid of a representation that combines the most basic fac- project manager or an expert risk manager. First, tors, such as the impact that the risk would have work with them to identify the best tool for analy- on a project and the likelihood of it occurring. In sis. There are plenty to choose from including: spite of its name, qualitative evaluation implies a numerical estimate of these two variables along Qualitative assessment: prioritizing individual pro- previously defined scales using a quick and subject risks for further analysis or action by assess- jective approach. It’s something like when doctors ing their probability of occurrence and impact as ask: From one to ten, how much does it hurt? well as other characteristics:

• Using a probability and impact matrix to provide a risk score • Grouping risks by category • Using expert judgement • Using simple risk matrix

Similarly, to the intuitive scale of Wong-Baker’s In the example that follows, the online risk assess- expressions, qualitative assessments of risk have ment matrix will estimate the comparative weight visual translations in a geometric representation of the following risks for a team of developers in a that allows a systematic comparison in risk as- video game studio: sessment matrices. • Inadequate graphics engine • Loss of programmers • Failure in approval process of the game build after submission 54

By assigning impact and probability values to these based on the experience of the organization, which risks, the following table results. has suffered personnel losses in the programming area in one out of three projects. The table itself suggests some observations:

2. Simplify and then discuss the details Risk Probability Impact This model simplifies factors in just two values, but Graphics engine 20% 40% it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the Personnel 33% 50% variables hide more complex realities that should appear in the quantitative phases and in the dis- Certification 8% 100% cussions with the stakeholders. For example, loss of talent can hide many different realities, depend- Here is a breakdown on how to look at the risk: ing on the number of people lost, their roles within the organization, or whether the loss is due to a 1. Experience, the mother of probability transfer to another company, vacation, retirement or inability to hire according to the forecasts of the Firstly, in a video game studio that launches, say, HR department. half a dozen titles a year, after 10 years of activity there is a portfolio of 60 titles that allows to draw With all these nuances, the online risk matrix re- certain conclusions about the frequency with sults in: which these risks occur. The probability estimate is 55

Quantitative assessment is numerically analyzing A quick lesson in how your prioritization tool works the combined effect of identified individual project might be useful; this could range from a simple risks and other sources of uncertainty on overall spreadsheet to project management software on project objectives: how to flag the priority of a risk.

• Gathering data • Using probability distributions 4. Identify risk response strategies • Conducting interviews • Sensitivity analysis With an available prioritized risk list and once you • Expected monetary value analysis understand the root cause of the risk, the next step • Modelling and simulation like Monte Carlo is to determine the probability of the risk happening technique as well as the level of impact or severity in case it • Risk based approach: quantitative does happen. In other words, what will happen if methodology that will not eliminate the risk; this risk materializes? How will it affect time, cost, however, it will enable the understanding of quality, business benefits, and resourcing of your risks with the aim of mitigating the impact project? which requires identification of risk factors, classification and scoring. The best way to assess the impact and probability of a risk in a collaborative manner is to draw a risk For example, at an onshore process of chemical matrix on a whiteboard with Probability along the and petrochemical facilities and pipelines, risk horizontal axis and Impact along the vertical axis. assessment needs to be done comprehensively, it comes to deciding which risk response strategy within a structured framework. Safeti (Software to use. for the Assessment of Flammable, Explosive and Toxic Impact) is by far the most comprehensive This is a great step to hand over completely to the QRA (quantitative risk assessment) software tool team and let them come up with the best method available for assessing process plant and pipeline to deal with the risk, and provide some expert guid- risks. It is designed to perform all the analytical, ance as needed. data processing and results presentation elements of a QRA within a structured framework. 5. Design a risk management plan

3. Prioritise the risks Once the risk response strategies for each risk are identified, the risk management plan can bepro- After the risk analysis, prioritization of these risks duced. At a project level this is the responsibility of can start by explaining how this risk fits into the the project manager. At individual risk level, though, whole project picture, and how you balance the you can let your team have the free reign to prepare portfolio of risks across all projects. Providing the their own mini-risk management plans including context for the individual risk will help the owner the tasks, dates and resources they need to man- see how and where it sits in a list of project risks age their risks effectively. These plans can then be and then how that list relates to the program level consolidated into your project risk management risks and upwards on to the portfolio. It is very im- plan. When the full project risk management plan portant here to explain how you decide which risks is completed make sure you share it with the risk get fed upwards and how you make the judgement owners and the wider team. to exclude other risks. 56

6. Check in regularly struggling. Talk to them about how they are managing their tasks and what they would do different- Check in with your risk owners regularly during the ly if they did it again, and how they have found the execution of the risk management plan. Evaluate experience of taking on more responsibility on the how they are doing and provide timely feedback project. so they can quickly get back on course if they are

How does your own team make your project riskier?

Most of the time when project managers do risk that is known and understood by all stakeholders: management, we focus on getting the team to- when to have which meetings, allow time for feed- gether, reviewing tasks, identifying what might back sessions, and foster new ideas from the project stop or impede the project from moving forward, team (e.g. implement reward culture on new ideas). writing it all up in a project risk register. But generally, you haven’t named your project team and how they do their jobs as ways to cause risk to the project. Risks are not always related to factors outside of your project team - some risks could be caused by your own project team.

Here are some examples of how your team makes your project riskier:

Communication Risks Planning Risks

Miscommunication or not communicating clearly Poor estimation or planning can add a risk to your and effectively might lead to the risk of working on project schedule. the wrong things or in the wrong order, or not doing a task that’s required in a timely way, or any How to avoid this risk? number of issues that arise from failure to under- Give your team enough time to properly work stand the message and make yourself understood. through their planning for estimating tasks. You It also affects your wider stakeholder group. If you can also encourage them to work together to can’t make it clear to your sponsor that they need check each other’s estimates. Look back at past to decide, they might run to into a delay. projects and see where they overran. Use the data in your project management tools to inform your new estimates and try to make the best use of the How to avoid this risk? information you have available. As a minimum, you Work towards a team culture that is good at com- can add contingency to project tasks where the un- municating (= change management strategy). En- certainty around the estimate is high, make sure courage your team to talk to each other, discuss that it is transparent on your schedule and that you problems and to say openly when something is not take it out when it is no longer needed. understood. Pass messages on, up and down. For larger projects, provide a clear communication plan 57

Resource Risks Reporting Risks

Resource risks present themselves in a couple of The final area where your team can add unplanned ways: risk to the project is in reporting. For example, during the set-up of your weekly report for a project, • Allocating the wrong people to tasks which you forgot to include a major problem that the pro- can delay the work, add extra cost or intro- ject had suffered that week, in fact it was resolved duce quality issues. by the time the report was written, but should have • Adding the wrong people on to the team so been included. you don’t have the right skills to complete the work. How to avoid the risk? • Failing to deal with conflict or other people Put a process in place for managing reporting and problems so the team starts to fall apart. stick to it. Make sure everyone knows what is expected of them and that they can fulfil their obliga- How to avoid risk? tions to give you timely data for your reports. Check in with the team and see if they are happy with what they’ve been allocated, or get them to work out the split of tasks between themselves. Be alert for conflict and have a couple of go to strategies that you can try out when you detect it. 58

What are the best ways to mitigate risk ON PROJECTS?

If risks are detected, it comes to introducing spe- 1. Clarify the requirements cific measures to minimize or eliminate unaccept- able risks associated with its operations. Risk miti- Make full use of feasibility studies, workshops and gation measures can be directed towards: user groups to test out the ideas before making a full commitment. Agile techniques can ensure end • reducing the severity of risk consequences, users and clients are engaged at every step of the • reducing the probability of the risk materializ- way, feeding into the outcomes and making sure ing, or that what is delivered is really what is wanted. • reducing the organizations exposure to the risk. How to do it? Hold workshops. Interview stakeholders. Produce Talking about mitigating risk, we think about a col- a comprehensive scope document and project umn on our risk logs for mitigation strategies. But brief, even if it takes much longer than you wanted what does it actually mean? to spend on this exercise.

The most common ways to mitigate risks are: 2. Get the right team Five Basic Guiding Principles of Risk Management People with inadequate skills make your project take longer because they are slower. People who isks aren’t available when you need them also impact ty r An ti al your project timescales. If possible, ringfence the en yz d e I r resources that you need into the team. This miti- is k

s gates a lot of the people-related risks.

M I a

o d p How to do it: n Continious

m e i

t m o Iterative n Use resource allocation techniques to identify the i

t r o i e i g r t resources you require for the project and then to n process i a s a t a t k g i i secure them. Make sure that you know when your t o s t i i o n resources are available for project work and book n m r o their time accordingly. f n I a mp P m loment risk it igation plan

Source: G&O

3. Spread the risk tion stage. This is a short period of time where you can fully scope out the initial underpinning or en- Risk transference is a recognized and useful risk abling work and test out your solution in a limited management strategy, but it has to be used with way prior to a full rollout. The learning can be in- caution. Mitigating your own risk by dumping it on credibly helpful for shaping the rest of the project, someone else isn’t always the best approach. For and it can prove (or disprove) the business case example, you can transfer risk to another party but without having to commit the full investment. that might incur a great deal of cost which in many cases isn’t the most appropriate use of company funds. 6. Test Everything

How to do it: Testing is an important part of making sure that Quantify the risk. Think about cost of transfer and your project risk is lower and manageable. Test likelihood of occurrence. Look for ways to manage everything: training materials, implementation risks jointly with contractors or other stakehold- plans, and obviously software and the deliverables. ers to spread out the actions and also the impact Test frequently and allow longer than you expect. should the risk occur. How to do it: It’s probably not a popular view but I would estimate the time needed for testing and then double 4. Communicate and listen it. That’s the time I would put in my plan for the task. For non-IT project related stuff: ask a lot of Communicate widely, consult widely and listen to ‘what if’ questions to test all possible scenarios. the responses you get. These can help you identify residual risks and strategies to engage more effectively with the stakeholders concerned. 7. Have a ‘Plan B’ How to do it: Plan your communications and take third parties The best way to plan for the unplannable is to have into account too. Consumer, environmental or oth- alternatives in your back pocket. This could be: er external groups can have a huge impact on your • Contingency funds project (positive and negative) so involve them ear- • ‘Float’ in the plan ly and consistently. • Additional resources on standby • Options to break the project into segments and/or reduce scope

5. Assess feasibility A plan B isn’t something that you particularly set out to use it immediately, but it’s there as a back-up Make use of feasibility studies and prototypes to should any of your risks materialize in ways that test out ideas and solutions before you move to you didn’t expect or new risks come along that took development. This is a simple way of de-risking a everyone by surprise (non-planned risks). project because you can use this early stage as a test bed for checking your concepts, methodology How to do it: and solution. Agree tolerances and contingency with your sponsor before the project starts. Talk about what addi- How to do it: tional funding you can secure to deal with unfore- Break your project down into phases and include seen issues and how you will access them when time at the beginning for a feasibility or investiga- the time comes. 60

Risks and opportunities: Are risks always negative?

Risk management isn’t just about avoiding poten- Risks can therefore be positive and come in the tial roadblocks. A negative risk is a threat, but a risk form of opportunities. Positive risks are as impor- can be positive and considered an opportunity so tant to handle well as negative risks because they instead of mitigating or avoiding, you will want to represent opportunities to deliver even more val- exploit or enhance. A good example is the risk of ue to the client. It is when we challenge the status having too many visitors on your new website on quo and find ways to continuously improve and the day of the launch. Having lots of visits is posi- innovate that we exploit opportunities. Consequent- tive, so it is not a threat unless it is poorly planned ly, positive risks can be managed in the same way and can crash the server, so you have to take it into that you would manage negative risk: record risks consideration. and the action plans that go with them, remember to allocate an owner to the risk, add a date that You may want to enhance the risk by for example the risk was first noted and any follow up actions planning a marketing blast to attract even more that happen. Build up your risk log with all this visitors or by exploiting or using cloud hosting that information, this is not a separate risk log for can adapt resource accordingly. You could simply positive risk. accept and make sure the website simply displays a temporary message if too many people are visit- ing at once.

Top risk management trends in 2018

Risk management continues to evolve every day. of projects, whether managed through Waterfall, New threats, opportunities and drivers necessitate Agile or a Hybrid Project Management approach. a different strategic approach than the challenges While there may always be some unanticipat- of yesteryear. The future may be tough to predict, ed things that will occur, most of these, through but there are signs of things to come in the risk sound risk management, can be managed, rather management landscape in 2018: than reacted to.

1. Project Risk 2. Bringing Efficiency into Management applies to Project Risk all types of project Management

Assessing project risk can prevent projects from Processes have sometimes been built without a failure. It saves organizations potential, significant clear view of what the desired state is in project embarrassment as well as time and money. The risk management. Consequently, potential bene- trend in risk management is to apply it to all types fits of project risk management tools remain un- 61

der-utilized. Due to our risk averse nature, compa- You can make use of efficient project risk manage- nies have perfected the art of defense by deploying ment tools such as Microsoft Project for visualiz- various tools and methodologies for control & au- ing the critical path and Wrike or WorkZone, 2 other diting, but are not so proficient in using project risk popular project management software’s, which of- management as a tool to support rapid growth in fer more sophisticated visualization and planning uncertain times. An often-used example is that to capabilities that can help organisations to grow drive fast one needs good & reliable brakes. rapidly in successfully deploying their projects.

How to become risk management masters?

In summary, far too many project managers treat culture were all risks are taken seriously, including risk management as a mechanical tick boxing ex- people-related risks and positive risks. ercise that ends up adding no value. Project managers sometimes assign themselves Risk management works best when all team to most of the items in the risk register. members collaborate and share their knowledge But that doesn’t leverage the team or create a and insight. When risks are analyzed, planned and shared sense of responsibility. It is important to assigned in collaboration, not only does it improve have the courage to assign the right owners and the process, it also reinforces accountability and to gain their buy-in and acceptance for fully man- ownership. aging a risk. In addition, we have to regularly take a step back, assess the overall risk profile of the To become risk management masters, we have to project and take great care to communicate the fully engage the team and create a risk-awareness most severe risks and the mitigating actions to the project’s steering committee.

Testimonial

Our consultant Louis-Marie Le Falher shared his to follow up this particular topic. At the end of the experience in risk management: cycle, project managers were able to use tools at their disposal (from project risk categorization to Mission Purpose: mitigation policy), communicate properly on that “I was realizing trainings for Project Managers in subject to stakeholders, challenge solutions, show order to improve their knowledge on project man- (demonstrate) a full capability to manage project agement methodology with a particular focus on risks and dependencies in their projects.” project risk management.” Mission results: Mission details: “We have done an evaluation of PM in order to “The mission consists in bringing knowledge to PM certify them with a great level of passed applica- in order to allow us to improve their management tions and increase their knowledge on PM. Under- of project risks and dependencies in their projects. standing of risk and dependencies and the way to For that purpose I have organized training sessions communicate among projects allowed us to save to explain theoretical concepts and provide training money by better synchronising some development material. I realized thereafter particular coaching to activities.” help them on the application of their knowledge and 62 63

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

What is change management?

Change management is the discipline that guides and influence people in their path of individual tran- how we prepare, enforce and support individuals sition. Change management provides a structured in organizations to successfully adopt change in approach for supporting these individuals in the or- order to drive organizational success. While all ganization to move from their own current states changes and all individuals are unique, research to their future states. show that there are actions we can take to guide

When do we have to deal with change management?

Change is inevitable when an organization is go- here to the (new) company KPI’s (Key Performance ing through a transition phase (i.e. new software or Indicators). With this, the related changes will have applications to be installed, acquisition or organi- an impact on people, processes, job roles and or- zational and structural changes, process upgrades, ganizational structures.. etc.) in order to improve its performance and ad-

Scope of change management

According to the size of the change initiative, Stakeholder acceptance assessment will typically change will impact different levels: individuals, de- include these actions: partments and enterprise. Typically, a stakeholder management/acceptance assessment is per- • Understand goals and expectations formed to size the impact on the upcoming chang- • Assess culture and impact es (change assessment). • Analyse change impact • Assess change readiness • Develop a change strategy and initiatives • Implement initiatives 64

Thus, scoping of what will be impacted by change Examples of these risks are: is important to ensure that: • Unclear responsibility of group of individuals/ • everything/everyone is included function (conflict) • clearly all work/actions and their impact are • A group/function is forgotten in the change defined impact assessment (involvement) • definition of the relationships between people • Incomplete assessment of change readiness and processes impacted by change of individuals/group (due to business culture, learning capability, maturity …) Scope definition and its related risks and change management topics is a process that might take If we understand the scope of the change process, time at the beginning or even before a project. If it will allow us to work more effectively and faster a change manager/project manager doesn’t take during the project. Separating the different phas- enough time to do this, several risks might emerge es during a project/organizational initiative and its later on that are difficult to handle and have an im- impact on change impact will help us to adhere to pact on the project’s performance, and hence will project timings/budget and quality! become obstacles to successful changes to be implemented.

Testimonial

Our consultant Sarah Walu Onya shared her expe- esting ! During the sprint review, the stakeholders rience in Change Management: were invited to observe and discuss the results of the field missions. When we completed all our « As process engineer within the squad Process field missions, we moved on to the implementation & Change Accounts, I was responsible for the phase of the project Optimization CCA. E2E processes related to accounts. I joined the squad in the context of the project “Optimization The main optimizations were Robotic process au- CCA “(Cash, Cards and Accounts). tomation. The collaboration with the back office teams was essential in such a project especially During the first six months of my mission, I carried with the team experts who know the process to be out field missions within the back office teams of automated by heart because they have been doing CCA. The purpose of these field missions was to re- it for years. I worked with an expert who was in fa- view all CCA back office activities in order to detect vor of the automation which made our collaboration and get field feedback about existing pain points very pleasant. within processes which can be candidates for optimization ( IT development, Robotic process auto- But, it was not always the case for other colleagues. mation, handover cross teams, ..). It leads me to talk about the change management part of the project which was completely essential Each field mission lasted a sprint of 2 weeks which in order for the change to be successful. » was sometimes quite challenging but so inter- 65

ARTICLES

CHANGE MANAGEMENT & ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Change is unavoidable in a world in constant evo- Artificial Intelligence (AI) appeared in 1950s with lution. In addition, the nature of change includes John MacCarthy. Artificial Intelligence could be also the emergence of new technologies such as defined as “set of theories and techniques used to Artificial Intelligence. The emergence of these new produce machines capable of simulating human technologies disrupt our world: the way we live, we intelligence”[1]. Although controversial, this new work and thus raise a lot of questions. Inherently, technology becomes ever more a reality and trans- society perceives these evolutions as threat more forms our manner of working. 31% of companies than as an opportunity. These new trends mean have Artificial Intelligence project on the agenda plenty of challenges for companies to embrace for the next 12 months[2]. Indeed, in 72% of case, these new technologies, and especially in terms of leaders identify Artificial Intelligence as key for the change management: obtain the adhesion of their development their companies in the future[3]. employees, and eventually follow –and create - the evolution.

BASE: BUSINESS DECISION MAKERS (500) – Q23. WHAT AI-POWERED SOLUTIONS DO YOU IMAGINE HAVING THE LARGEST IMPACT ON YOUR BUSINESS? Source: https://www.Pwc.Com/us/en/industry/entertainment-media/publications/consumer-intelligence-series/assets/pwc-botme-booklet.Pdf 66

Artificial Intelligence is going to genuinely remodel - First of all, companies need to internally com- our social and professional environment and will municate on the reasons they are using Arti- mainly impact the productivity, which is anticipat- ficial Intelligence: ensure the durability of the ed to increase by 40%[4]. No one can ignore the company and to step up against competitors. consequences that AI will bring to businesses and Using new technologies will allow the com- how deep it will modify the way we work bringing pany to remain competitive and therefore to along new major changes, new challenges that will maintain employment. Indeed, more than require companies to have a solid Change Manage- 80% of high executives identify Artificial Intel- ment plan. ligence as a strategic opportunity[5]. This is important that your co-workers understand Change Management (CM) aims to prepare and that the world is changing and the company support the organisational change. It means pro- can only survive if it is part of it. This is only if viding support to the teams, to the organisation and people understand that they will be more in- to the people during these times of transformation. clined to change. Change Management is, more than ever, crucial if we want that adaptation to AI opportunities be- - Secondly, companies need to show that peo- comes a success. Embracing the emergence of ple’s work will evolve towards a job with more opportunities that AI can offer implies potentially added value, and consequently, will better as- reviewing the processes, the working behaviours, sess their real contribution to the firm. Man- the organisation as well as technological transfor- agement needs to highlight the fact that their mation. jobs are not simply vanished but will evolve with emergence of new technologies which Many employees feel worried about their job while will result in an opportunity for employees talking to use AI in the company. Only a few of them to constantly learn and develop new skills to recognize it as an opportunity for their activity and preserve their employability. their company. This is where change management has a role to play and becomes challenging, even - Thirdly, while the employees understand the more when it comes to Artificial Intelligence. In- two above points, companies need to offer deed, Artificial Intelligence aims to be able to mirror relevant training paths and catalogues to their human intelligence. Does it mean that Artificial In- employees to make sure that they are always telligence is a direct competitor? Yes and no. Today, up-to-date with the new trends and perform AI is booming but is not yet able to replace humans. at the state of the art in their own field. There is still a long way to go despite the hopes. And this is exactly what you need to tell your col- Some numbers illustrate these facts[6]. As mention league when moving forward to AI. above, 72% of business executives believe in AI and consider that is going to be one of the next busi- New technologies will replace more and more tasks ness advantage. 67% identify opportunities to op- with lower added-value, leaving people more time timize business efficiency and labour productivity, to focus on what really brings profitability to the 70% automate proactive communications and 59% company. On the other hand, it will require people improve big data analytics. to gain higher qualifications and competences to work on higher value added or more complex tasks. Whether we like it or not, this is a clear trend. To follow that trend Change Management needs to work on three different axes: 67

BASE: BUSINESS DECISION MAKERS (500) – Q23. WHAT AI-POWERED SOLUTIONS DO YOU IMAGINE HABING THE LARGEST IMPACT ON YOUR BUSINESS? Source: https://www.Pwc.Com/us/en/industry/entertainment-media/publications/consumer-intelligence-series/assets/pwc-botme-booklet.Pdf

Currently, Artificial intelligence is essentially used to The use of robot advisors in the Private Banking ease repetitive and unskilled tasks such as paper- industry is a good illustration of what AI can bring work (82%), scheduling (79%) and timesheets (78%) to employees and customers. Artificial Intelligence [7]. The purpose of leaders by using Artificial Intelli- facilitates the investment decisions to build the cli- gence in their companies, industry is essentially to ent’s portfolio. The results are that, on one hand, alleviate the work of their employees while increas- bankers have more time to invest into the relation- ing productivity and competitivity. The ambition is ship with their customers and tailored advice and, clearly not to reduce the number of employees but on the other hand, investors can benefit from real- rather optimize the resources. This is sustained by istic costs. Another application of the above can be a research of Adobe Digital Insights (ADI) which seen in the automation of the treatment of emails. reveals that contrary to popular belief, people who work with robots mention more the support that ro- Implementing new technologies at work is not new bots bring to their daily work than the loss of jobs. and does not necessarily go along with decreasing the number of jobs. There are a lot of example that Thanks to the efficiency brought by AI, employees can illustrate how new technologies can support may free up time and develop their creativity, no- the employees in their operations rather than being tably through the development of innovative prod- a job taker. For instance, taking a look at the work ucts and solutions. AI is also a key tool to provide of an accountant, this activity has been almost re- more tailor-made services and to be more focused invented over the last three decades. In the 90’s, on the relationship with the customers rather than accountancy was all about manual work and treat- on repetitive and menial tasks. Indeed, AI gives the ment of paper work. Nowadays, most of the paper tools to learn more and assess better the custom- work is dealt with automatically thanks to digitali- ers’ needs. sation and automation. Does it mean that account- 68

ants disappeared? No. However, their job evolved Intelligence is radically remodelling our professional towards a higher level of expertise resulting in more environment and will make people feared of losing added-value for the companies and themselves. their jobs. Some might be desperately resisting this Another example is in the financial sector, traders evolution, but AI lies clearly ahead. . and analysts are no longer working as 20 years ago but they are still there. The scope of their tasks just As explained above, getting the most out of new evolved over time but they are still operating. Same technologies is the best way to overcome this tran- in the insurance industry, where new technologies sition. It signifies that people need to accept the up- helped to implement an automated treatment of incoming evolution and get prepared for it. To reach surance claims. The result are additional facilities that state of mind, companies need to communi- for the employees and more efficiency for compa- cate the necessity to adapt, and train their people ny but also led to a faster treatment of the claims. around it: this is where the challenge stands. The good news is that the majority of the jobs will stay New technologies are not only applicable to the fi- but will however evolve to new and more interesting nancial sector but also to commercial companies tasks with higher added value for both employees and into the industry. In the medical sector, technol- and their companies. ogies are also strongly promoted and help everyday surgeons to save more lives, but this position has Humans need to capitalise on what makes them still a bright future. different from robots. Today, Artificial Intelligence remains a support to human’s work. People need In conclusion, change is unavoidable. If companies to make the best use of these new tools instead of want a sustainable growth, and remain compet- fighting against them unnecessarily. Humans will itive, they need to embrace new trends and tech- keep to play a role as they will never be replaced nologies. However, technologies such as Artificial entirely by algorithms.

About the Author

Business Engineer with a Master’s degree in Finance and an International Master’s degree in finance, Jean-Richard Audin has expertise in corporate finance and financial markets. He has a strong interest for private equity, business and strategic transformation, project management, team coaching and management. Throughout his international experience, Jean-Richard developed an expertise in Private Equity, M&A and Financial sector.

References [1] http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/divers/intelligence_artificielle/187257 [2] Source: https://www.cmo.com/features/articles/2018/2/26/adobe-2018-digital-trends-report-findings.html#gs.7jTgupU [3] https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industry/entertainment-media/publications/consumer-intelligence-series/assets/pwc-botme-booklet.pdf [4] Source: https://www.accenture.com/sk-en/insight-artificial-intelligence-future-growth [5] Source: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/projects/reshaping-business-with-artificial-intelligence/ [6] Source: https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industry/entertainment-media/publications/consumer-intelligence-series/assets/pwc-botme- booklet.pdf [7] Source: https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industry/entertainment-media/publications/consumer-intelligence-series/assets/pwc-botme- booklet.pdf 69

THE ADKAR MODEL

Introduction - How to coach people to demonstrate new behaviours? Digital transformation, robotic process automation - What makes changes “stick” in someone’s or organizational restructuration, change is every- work? where! However, change is not an easy process to implement. Indeed, if the organization is forced to A methodology, The ADKAR model for individual evolve in the light of technological developments, change, was developed by Prosci after years of change actually comes from the employees; if they studying how individuals experience and are influ- don’t adopt changes, the organization will fail in its enced in times of change. This model will be devel- initiative to change. It is often complex and difficult oped in this article. to get change accepted by individuals within the When a project has an impact on hundreds or organization. That is what change management is thousands of people, it is often difficult to man- all about. age change on a person-by-person basis. Organi- zational change management provides the steps Change management encourages individuals to to follow at the project level to ensure impacted accept change in order to meet organizational suc- employees will succeed in their individual transi- cess and outcomes. To influence people in their tion to change. Enterprise change management individual transitions to change, change manage- capability is reached when change management ment bases its approach on three levels of change is effectively integrated in each layer of the organi- management: individual change management, or- sation allowing adaptation of the enterprise to the ganizational change management and enterprise ever-changing world. change management capability. Let’s focus on individual change management and more specifically on the ADKAR model. In this ar- Individual change management is based on disci- ticle, you will learn about the ADKAR model and its plines like psychology and neuroscience. It aims to milestones, aligned with some other change ena- understand several factors at individual level like: bling methodologies.

- How is change experienced by individuals? - What do they need to adopt change? The ADKAR model - How can they succeed in their individual transition? The Prosci ADKAR model was created in 1998 by - What messages do individuals need to hear Prosci founder Jeff Hiatt to guide individual and when and from whom? organizational change. According to the acronym - When is the optimal time to teach someone a A.D.K.A.R, five steps must be achieved by individu- new skill? als in order for change to be successful: 70

Awareness of the need of change Knowledge of how to change

The awareness of the business or organizational Once the employee becomes aware of the need need of change is essential for the individual transi- of change and has the desire to support it, he still tion. Awareness may be aroused by explaining why needs to know how to change. A training specific change is needed. Communication of the reasons to the employee’s role in the change will be recom- for change and establishing a justified sense of ur- mended (e.g. personal trainer, workout video, exer- gency are essential and this seems even more ef- cise class). fective when delivered from the most senior leaders within the organization. Ability to demonstrate new skills and behaviours Desire to support the change An employee who is aware of the need of change, Awareness of the need of change is important. who desires to support it and has the knowledge However, an employee can be aware of the need of how to do so, still has to put his knowledge into to change but at the same time show resistance practice. Coaching, practice and time will be nec- to change. The desire to support change depends essary to develop new skills and behaviours at the on the employee’s own motivation. However, a very required performance level. important role can still be played by the direct manager to help the employee accepting the change. Indeed, knowing his day-to-day work, he is the clos- est person in the hierarchy who can listen, discuss Reinforcement to make the change the reasons for resistance to change, reassure and stick give him a sense to change. The employee still has the ultimate decision to accept the transition or Once all the above has been achieved, it must be not. ensured that the change will be sustainable. To make so, reinforcements must be foreseen. Pos- itive recognition and coaching are good ways to reward employees for making the change and to prevent them from reverting to their old habits.

Consequences of missing steps in the ADKAR model

The ADKAR model shows that individuals must achieve five outcomes in order for change to be successful: The following table shows the states induced by missing steps in the ADKAR model.

Consequences of missing steps in the ADKAR model

a) ADKER model without awareness:

b) ADKER model without desire:

c) ADKER model without knowledge:

b) ADKER model without ability:

b) ADKER model without reinforcement:

Source: http://www.reseau-pwdr.be/sites/default/files/fiche_40%20ADKAR.pdf

Now that we have learned more about the ADKAR “waterfall” comes from the cascading “flow” of model, let’s align the milestones of ADKAR with its progress which moves only in one direction some other change enabling methodologies. (“downwards” like a waterfall). In the waterfall model the phases of development do not overlap. This requires well-defined requirements and fewer un- Aligning ADKAR milestones with the certainties. This model is most useful for smaller waterfall model projects.

The waterfall model is a sequential design process The original waterfall model includes six life cycle often used in software development. It is amongst stages: requirements, design, construction, testing the less flexible approach as each stage must be and debugging, installation and maintenance. completed to move on to the next one. The name 72

Requirements definition consists in identifying ex- Aligning ADKAR milestones with the pectations and goals of the project and analyzing Agile model risks. It responses to « why change is needed ». In ADKAR, it corresponds to the awareness of the The Agile methodology is a flexible approach of pro- need of change. ject management based on the collaboration between the stakeholders with a high level of custom- When the goals of the project are well-defined, the er involvement to make requirements and solutions product can be designed with a plan for meeting evolve. Agile methodology continuously adapts to the requirements. At this stage, the awareness of the changing project situation and environment. the need of change is acquired but not necessarily the desire to. Giving a sense to change will be es- There are two classifications of Agile methodology: sential to lead to the desire to change in ADKAR. iterative and adaptive. Construction, also known as « development », « implementation » or « coding » is the phase of imple- Iterations, or sprints, are short time frames mentation of the product. In ADKAR, the individual (time-boxes) with a defined duration (from one will need to know how to change so how to use the to four weeks). At the start of each sprint, a list of new designed product. A training will be here highly prioritized deliverables is defined. Each iteration in- recommended. volves a cross-functional team working in all functions. As work is completed, it can be reviewed and After testing and debugging are completed, evaluated by the stakeholders through daily builds the product is implemented according to the and end-of-sprint demos. At the end of the sprint agreed-upon requirements. The « Go life » is the the work is demonstrated to stakeholders allow- moment when the individual puts his knowledge ing quick adaptations. Planned deliverables for the into practice and demonstrates new skills and be- sprint which couldn’t be completed are reprioritized. haviours in ADKAR. Coaching, practice and suffi- Iterative Agile models are suited for projects where cient time to adopt should be foreseen. most of the solution has been analysed with only a few minor features that are not completed. In many Finally, after the delivery of the product to the cli- cases, alternatives are listed, but the final decision ent, a schedule maintenance and support is put to implement a particular solution is still missing. into place to ensure the product continues to work as designed. It must be ensured that the change Adaptive Agile models are better for projects where will be sustainable. To enable this, reinforcements perhaps very little of the solution is known. Under- must be foreseen. Positive recognition and coach- standing and integrating major functions into the ing are good ways to reward employees for mak- solution are integral to the learning and discovery ing the change and to prevent them from reverting part of adaptive models. to their old habits.

source: https://prosci.wistia.com/medias/1ee37k36ve

In Agile project management, the awareness of the need of change as well as the desire to change will take place at the project level when the expectations and goals of the project are identified. The knowledge of how to change and the ability to demonstrate new skills and behaviours will occur at the release/sprint level. Finally, the reinforcement to make the change stick will occur at the project level.

Source: https://prosci.wistia.com/medias/1ee37k36ve

Aligning ADKAR milestones with Six The purpose of the first step is to define the pro- Sigma ject goals and to understand the expectations (the voice of the customer) and the process to improve. Six Sigma (6σ) is a process improvement meth- It leads to the awareness of the need of change by odology introduced in 1986 by engineer K.B.Gola responding to « why change is needed ». while working at Motorola. At that time, Motoro- la had major problems satisfying its customers After defining the project goals, the next step is the and therefore wanted a method to optimize its measurement and identification of CTQs (char- manufacturing processes. Six Sigma is based on acteristics that are Critical To Quality), as well as the elimination of variability and defects, and the product capabilities, production process capability chances of variability and defects in processes to and risks. At this stage, the awareness of the need improve the quality of the output. of change is acquired but not necessarily the desire to. By measuring and identifying CTQs, it ena- The Six Sigma methodology called DMAIC is based bles to give a sense to change. on five steps: define, measure, analyse, improve and control. In order to find the root cause of a defect and correct it (=change), the data have to be analyzed 74

(=how). The six sigma methodology ensures that employees. The objective is to increase productivi- all factors have been considered and cause-and- ty while improving working conditions. Employees effect relationships verified in order to improve the are involved both in the fight against waste and in current process. improving their working conditions.

Improvement or optimization of the current pro- There are five lean steps: identify value, map value cess is based upon data analysis. To do so, the stream, create flow, establish pull and seek perfec- six sigma methodology uses techniques such as tion. design of experiments, poka yoke or mistake proof- ing, and standard work to create a new future state Value is the starting point of the lean thinking. From process. This reflects the ability to demonstrate a lean point of view, value is always considered new skills and behaviours in ADKAR. from a customer perspective and is defined by the customer’s needs for a specific product or service. The last step enables to ensure that any deviations By identifying the value, it enables the company from the target are corrected before they result in to understand what customers are ready to pay defects. To do so, control must be foreseen until for and to be aware of the need of change and so the desired quality level is obtained. This will enable « why change is needed ». It enables the company the future state process to be sustainable. to identify value-adding and non-value adding ac-

source: https://prosci.wistia.com/medias/1ee37k36ve

Aligning ADKAR milestones with lean tivities but also to detect and eliminate pure waste management and necessary waste activities and to focus on optimizing processes and profitability. Lean management is an industrial organization system initiated in the Japanese factories of the Once the value has been identified, the next step Toyota Group (Toyota Production System) at the is mapping the “value stream,” or all the steps and very beginning of the 1970s. The philosophy of processes in order to identify sources of added val- lean is the search for performance (in terms of ue in order to optimize the processes and sources productivity, quality, lead times and costs) through of waste in order to reduce them or try to eliminate continuous improvement and the elimination of them. It also makes it possible to make the link waste, in order to satisfy the customer. between physical flows and information flows, to reduce stocks, work-in-progress and thus reduce Lean management can be defined as the partici- lead time. The purpose of the value stream map- pation of all employees of a company in the fight ping (VSM) is to determine the direction the com- against waste by eliminating all unprofitable activ- pany wants to take and thus make it possible to list ities of the company. The goal is therefore to do the different projects to be carried out to reach the more, faster and better. But unlike Taylorism, Lean “target” mapping. The VSM enables to better un- management takes into account the well-being of derstand the entire business operation and to give 75

a sense to the change which will be essential to tomer demands quickly without creating excess lead to the desire to change in ADKAR. inventory. With a lean pull system, this makes it much easier for the company to optimize resourc- Now that the waste has been removed from the es and storage costs, and reduce overhead. Here value stream, it must be ensured that the remain- again, the employee will need to know how to do ing value-creating steps flow smoothly meaning the change and put his new skills into practice with without interruptions, delays, or bottlenecks with a lean pull system. Reinforcements must be fore- constant focus on the client. Become cross-func- seen in order for the system to be maintained. tional across all departments is for that crucial. By creating a flow, the employee will need to know Finally, the last step of lean management is perfec- how to do the change but also he will need to put tion. Perfection is reached when lean thinking and his knowledge into practice regarding this new process improvement are part of the corporate flow. Moreover, it has to be ensured that the flow culture. To reach perfection, it requires constant will continue to work as designed so reinforce- effort and all employees involvement. To do so, ac- ments must be foreseen. cording to ADKAR, all employees will need to know how to change, will be able to demonstrate new Establish a lean pull system means workflow is skills and behaviours and it must be ensured that created where work is pulled only if there is a de- the change will be sustainable. mand for it. Such a system enables to answer cus-

source: https://prosci.wistia.com/medias/1ee37k36ve 76

Conclusion ➨ Missing knowledge leads to anxiety ➨ Missing ability leads to frustration In this article, we learned about the ADKAR model ➨ Missing reinforcement leads to reverse and its five steps that must be achieved by individuals in order for change to be successful: Finally, we aligned the milestones of ADKAR with four change enabling methodologies: n The awareness of the need of change • The Waterfall model with its six life cycle n The desire to support the change stages: requirements, design, construction, n The knowledge of how to change testing and debugging, installation and main- n The ability to demonstrate new skills and tenance. behaviours • The Agile model with its two levels: project n The reinforcement to make the change stick. level and sprint level • The Six Sigma methodology based on the five Then, we observed the consequences of missing following steps: define, measure, analyse, im- steps in the ADKAR model. We have seen that: prove and control. • The Lean Management and the five lean ➨ Missing awareness leads to confusion steps: identify value, map value stream, cre- ➨ Missing desire leads to resistance ate flow, establish pull and seek perfection.

About the Author

Sarah Walu Onya has four and a half years of experience in the Banking sector. 3-lingual FR/NL/ENG with a Master’s degree in Economics. Sarah joined Initio in January 2018 as Consultant and is active in the Business Line Governance & Projects. She acquired experience in change management and process analysis in leading Banking projects.

Bibliography Articles: Cookbook Project, Program and Change Management, Business line PM/CM, Initio, August 2018, p 8 - 9 Video: Prosci. Aligning the ADKAR Model with other change enabling systems. https://prosci.wistia.com/medias/1ee37k36ve Websites: Asme. 5 Lean Principles Every Engineer Should Know. https://www.asme.org/engineeringtopics/articles/manufacturing-design/ 5-lean-principles-every-should-know Kanbanize. Lean Management. https://kanbanize.com/lean-management/ Linchpin Seo. Agile Process and Method Overview. https://linchpinseo.com/the-agile-method/ Prosci. Adkar Change Management Model Overview. https://www.prosci.com/adkar/adkar-model Prosci. Wat is Change Management? https://www.prosci.com/change-management/what-is-change-management Réseau wallon de développement rural. Adkar. http://www.reseaupwdr.be/sites/default/files/fiche_40%20ADKAR.pdf Segue technologies. Waterfall vs. Agile: Which is the Right Development Methodology for Your Project? https://www.seguetech.com/ waterfall-vs-agile-methodology/ Wikipedia. Agile software development. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development Wikipedia. Six Sigma. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma Wikipedia. Waterfall model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model 77

CHANGE MANAGEMENT: HOW TO DEAL WITH THE HUMAN IMPACT?

Introduction

In his ground-breaking 1970 book: “Future Shock”, With the business environment experiencing so Alvin Toffler argued that accelerating change in much change, organizations must then learn to technology and society causes in most of us what become comfortable with change as well. There- he coined an ‘information overload’. This leads to fore, the ability to manage and adapt to organi- stress and feeling of being overwhelmed – a future zational change is an essential ability required in shock. On an individual level, in our private lives, the workplace today. Yet, major and rapid organi- adoption of new technology is voluntary and led zational change is profoundly difficult because the mainly by trends, our friends and acquaintances. structure, culture, and routines of organizations But in organizations, workplaces, new technolo- often reflect a persistent and difficult-to-remove gies, structures and work methods are dictated “imprint” of past periods, which are resistant to rad- by a need and by management. A soft conflict be- ical change even as the current environment of the tween individuals, teams and organizations is to be organization changes rapidly. expected, unless carefully managed. Relevant questions that an employee thinks of at In addition, globalization and constant innovation the early stages of change relate to the personal im- of technology results in a constantly evolving busi- pact of change, the impact on the employee’s group ness environment. Phenomena such as social of friends at work, and the impact on the employee’s media and mobile adaptability have revolutionized day-to-day responsibilities. Fear of change and the business and these effects is an ever-increasing unknown, as well as concerns of personal job se- need for change, and therefore change manage- curity usually trump everything else unless some- ment. The growth in technology also has a second- how alleviated. These all could be thought through ary effect of increasing the availability and there- Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (see Maslow’s pyra- fore accountability of knowledge. Easily accessible mid), as being unemployed is a threat to one’s safe- information has resulted in unprecedented scruti- ty, identity and self-esteem, and losing your friends ny from shareholders and the media and pressure undermines one’s sense of belonging. Therefore, on management. one aspect of early change management is allevi- ating the fear of change in employees. 78

Why change management in • Increasing global or departmental companies? productivity (e.g. lean principles) • Developing and implementing new service Due to the growth of technology, modern organi- concepts zational change is largely motivated by exterior in- • Developing new processes or process novations rather than internal factors. When these redesigns developments occur, the organizations that adapt • New organizational structure or new cross- quickest create a competitive advantage for them- functional collaboration selves, while the companies that refuse to change • Cost cutting / FTE (full-time equivalent) get left behind. This can result in drastic profit or reduction market share losses. The role of change management will be to address Organizational or operational changes directly af- the resistance of the employees to adhere: to ad- fects all departments and employees. The entire here to projects aiming at reaching objectives set company must learn how to handle changes to the by leaders. organization. The effectiveness of change management can have a strong positive or rather negative impact on the employee morale. The man- What about employees? agement team’s motivation to implement these changes are based on different criteria that might How do organizations develop traditional change not be known (or typically not well explained) to management programs in the first place? Typi- employees. Projects based on these management cally, in attempting to get an entire workforce on objectives are designed to reach different type of board, programs rely heavily on rational (cost/ goals like such as: benefit) appeals based on a pure set of economics

Fig. 1 – Traditional scheme of recognized behaviors when facing changes. 79

criteria, largely ignoring human psychology and so- • Inconsistent or incompatible leadership cial factors. Many managers turn to spreadsheets styles and PowerPoint decks, along with extrinsic moti- • New expectations of superiors and peers vations (dangling carrots), throughout a change • Loss of status process. This assumes that we are fully rational • Requirements for additional skills and beings seeking to maximize our utility—which, of expertise course, is rarely the case, as much as we’d like to • New and unknown tasks believe this. • New Colleagues

Increasingly, the growing field of behavioural eco- All these elements are feeding the fear and the glob- nomics is challenging these long-held beliefs, al reluctance to change. When human behaviours demonstrating that logical appeals are often in- are influenced by fear, perceptions are distorted effective because they fail to account for irration- and employees will go emotional. The need to ex- ality in human behaviour. People definitely do not press these fears will be higher and management always behave rationally: psychological research will need to deal efficiently with it to bring them on suggests that our beliefs, attitudes, and social board since the beginning of the project. It is far norms often influence our willingness to change, better to anticipate objections than to spend time regardless of whether they conflict with the sin- putting out fires, and knowing how to overcome gle-minded ideal of maximizing our utility. Psycho- resistance to change is a vital part of any change logical studies have identified the different phases management plan. The consequences of not in- through which human beings are going through volving employees in the management plan will not when facing changes and that are identified as just be the low acceptance or accomplishment of potential sources of resistance to change (see fig. the project but can have other consequences for 1). Acknowledging all the sources of resistance to companies: change and validating people’s emotions will give the opportunity to plan a change strategy that ad- • Resistance in teams or line organizations dress these factors. Therefore, our motivation to towards implementation change is much more complex than a stick-and- • Slow or incomplete implementation carrot metaphor. • Lack of decision taking and/or frequent revisions of decisions Expecting that there will be resistance to change • Quality problems and being prepared to manage it is a proactive • Reduced productivity step. Recognizing behaviours that indicate possi- • Loss of “high performers” ble resistance will raise awareness of the need to • Insecurity and increased risk avoidance address the concerns. Involving employees in early • Reduced individual commitment steps of the project is therefore key in the success • Negative word of mouth of it. They will be the ones confronted to changes at different levels and their resistance to it is based If simply applying extrinsic rewards does not work on different factors: to effect sustained change, what would be the better alternative? To answer that, let us look at the • Fear of job loss pervasive role that underlying belief systems play in • Potential loss of responsibility/independence human behavior. Motivational theorist David Dun- • Change of responsibility and decision ning explains why belief systems are so powerful: authority “People desire to live in a world that they can un- • Change of work location derstand, explain, and predict, which means they • New and unknown leadership styles are pressed to build beliefs that dispel chaos and 80

uncertainty and thus seek out meaning and coher- When work is simple and proposed change is ence from the maelstrom of events they experi- within employees’ comfort zone, extrinsic means ence.” are likely sufficient. But the more complex the work, the greater intrinsic drive is needed to move These underlying belief systems evolve over time change forward. to create mental models—the way one interprets the world—which we work hard to protect and Research suggests that people can be inspired to confirm. In an effort to maintain order and consist- change, even in trying circumstances, when lead- ency, we favor the status quo rather than pursue ership can meet their psychological needs of au- change simply because change is unpleasant and tonomy, growth, and meaning. The problem is that stressful, often creating cognitive dissonance, a charts and slides rarely address these needs. As state of discomfort created when new information shown in the figure 2, the management attitude contradicts existing beliefs. Change introduces a can be crucial in dealing with the employees’ resist- new way of thinking, and most of us unconsciously ance and range of emotions. There are different try to make it fit within what we already know rath- ways to get employees involved in a project and er than revamp our underlying assumptions. here are some instances of how organizations can better satisfy these needs during change efforts:

How to get employees on board? 1. Be people centric: negotiate, motivate and gain acceptance. It is a human, cultural and organiza- We know that employees can be inspired to tackle tional element. Promoting the understanding of big challenges. So why do we bludgeon them with project and making employees accountable for chart-packed PowerPoint slides? The PowerPoint the cost impact of resistance are key elements. approach to change undermines employees’ intrin- Employees need to understand what is going sic drivers and psychological needs: employees are to change and why the change is coming. They treated as targets rather than participatory agents cannot be left with unanswered questions at the who help interpret and shape the change process. end of the process.

Fig. 2 – Scheme of employee’s emotions and manager’s attitude when facing changes.

1 David Dunning, “Motivated cognition in self and social thought,” in APA Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology, Volume 1: Attitudes and social cognition, eds. Mario Mikulincer and Phillip R. Shaver (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2015), pp. 777–803 2 Ibid. 81

2. Growth: An unintended consequence of simplify- connect with a benefit for ourselves and those ing and increasing efficiencies in the workplace we care about like our colleagues. is that it can conflict with an employee’s need for growth. Losing key and reliable employees In the scope of a project to improve the efficiency is a challenge that companies are facing when and the productivity of the underwriting depart- starting a project. When employees are deal- ment in an Insurance company, management ing with too many unchallenging tasks, it might decided to include the underwriters in the change leave workers bored and stuck. To keep an em- process from the beginning. To include them, ployee engaged in the change process, we must workshops were organized in order to discuss the consider whether the change offers employees improvement proposals from management. Dur- new challenges and responsibilities. Therefore, ing these sessions, they were able to discuss the considering how the proposed change initiative proposals and give comments or ways to improv- might include growth opportunities, assessing processes like changing rules, tools or even ing whether the initiative will promote or limit questioning outdated controls. The underwriters employees’ ability to acquire new skills are ele- have then the feeling that they were the one pro- ments to take into consideration. viding solutions and ways of improvement and not having to accept changes coming from above. The 3. Meaning: In today’s knowledge economy, it can project implementation was then easily accepted, be easy to lose sight of the value of work, since, as it was perceived as coming from them. This unlike artisans or laborers; we tend to have easy way allows management to reach their goal: mostly emails, task lists, and meeting attend- reduce the number of underwriters. ance to show for our day-to-day work. Meaning becomes less about the task and more about the In the end of the process, all these elements have conditions and people we build around it. Then to be taken into consideration in order to mitigate change should become less about a process the risks in failing to implement changes in a com- and more about an outcome that generates val- pany. Seeking compromise, alternatives, failure ue. Employees will be skeptical if they see little consequence management are elements used in meaning or value in the perceived change. On order to succeed with any project. The ultimate the other hand, work becomes more meaning- goal of change management is meeting human ful when we can see beyond the day-to-day and and business objectives.

About the Author

Senior consultant at Initio, Jorge Toral had an extensive career in leading projects in sectors like banks, financial services, telecommunication and insurance. With his extensive experience, he has been leading projects that improves the process and productivity of companies with a focus on defining new business processes, implementing new services in money transfer, developing reporting tools from scratch, new technology or services implementation and automatizing process.

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ROLE OF THE PROJECT MANAGER

Essential in any project, the person in charge of the ologies, processes, procedures, controls, tools, good delivery is the project manager (PM). He/She people, training, and other components needed to pilots the project and its team, playing on the dif- integrate existing projects, manage the portfolio, ferent constraints while handling the risks, budget control functions, and successfully deliver the or- controls and the communication lines towards ganization’s business objectives. both the sponsors/stakeholders and the clients. From its initiation to its delivery, the project man- Note that the PMO (project management office) ager runs the project on a day-to-day basis, and represents the organizational structure, method- therefore has many responsibilities:

Resources & Activities planning

The PM needs to identify the equipment and the these data and the scope of his project, the PM can people / skills that will be required for the success- now build the project plan and estimate the cost of ful delivery (internal and/or external). Based on the project.

Monitoring progress

At all times the project manager needs to know that will help him measure it. The PM will need to whether his project is on track or not, and to do so investigate any cause of deviations from the plan he can set up KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and take corrective actions to address them.

Definition and production of the deliverables

The PM doesn’t build all the deliverables himself. their production (documents, reports, burn-down However, he needs to define and make sure every- charts, etc.) one is aware of the deliverables and keep track of 84

Risk management

Any risk identified must be assessed and a contin- needs to maintain awareness with other projects gency plan has to be defined if the project is at risk in order to limit the risks of interdependencies and (delay, change of scope…). The project manager duplicated work.

Team management

During the project, the PM needs to dispatch tasks and coordinate and motivate the teams while solv- ing conflicts.

Communication management

The project manager needs to define a good com- • At the project team level, meetings should be munication plan (usually part of the governance frequent in order to retrieve information on structure) with the different stakeholders. This plan the project status, handle the issues/blocking addresses who needs to be informed of what, at points and clarify the next steps. which intervals and by means of which communi- • At the sponsor level, the objective will be to cation channels (meetings, e-mail...) provide an update on the project status, raise alerts and request for additional budget and validate a new timeline or a new scope.

Change management

Either the PM itself, or, when relevant, with the help model, both operationally and on the HR side (e.g. of a dedicated change manager, needs to ensure assess impact on people’s roles) a smooth transition path to the target operating 85

Testimonial

Our consultant Jorge Toral Martin shared his expe- Our consultant Mohammad Farid Fakiri shared his rience as Project Manager: experience as Project Manager:

Mission Purpose Testimonial: Stakeholder Management “As Project Manager, I was assigned a cross-departmental project to reduce the overall workload of the Mission Purpose: underwriters by 50% by automating process and “As a process manager, develop a BPM framework designing new systems improvement to reduce the adapted to the clients’ needs and train internal em- global number of operations.” ployee in order train and educate them in process management with the strategic vision to align their Mission details: core treasury process group-wide.” “As Project Manager, I develop and designed a tailor-made strategy for the project by phasing the pro- Mission details: ject in different development blocks. The gap analy- “The mission entailed setting up three streams, sis between the requirements of the phases and the which consisted of delivering a BPM framework to IT architecture enable to reduce the development the client and provide adequate trainings (stream tasks and increase the impacts of the phases. As A), delivering a group-wide collaboration model in part of the function, I had to design and write the terms of aligning their core treasury process and detailed user requirements by project phases and optimising their daily operational activities in order follow it with the developers within time and budget to increase knowledge, increase controls and identi- constraints. Designing testing tools and perfor- fy energy boosters.” mance reports to follow-up development phase and implementation.” Mission results: “As I senior consultant I managed, to identify the Mission results: needs of the clients, convince the client of a two- “With the implementation of the first phase, we al- years approach to embed process management ready succeeded to reduce the number of failed op- within their organization, and embed a BPM frame- erations by 20% on average. The following phases work within the internal environment of the client.” will keep on improving these results.” 86

ARTICLES

WHY DO PROJECTS FAIL?

A project failure can be considered as project that Afterwards we deep-dive in the different layers of has not delivered its required expectations. In case project failure and as conclusion we elaborate on the project can meet both the business ambitions how to eliminate or overcome project failure. and all stakeholder requirements, then it can be considered as a success. The main project failures can be listed as follows:

However, in reality, expectations of the customers and stakeholders keep on changing constantly, in- hibiting the project team to deal with issues and 1. NO OR POOR PROJECT RISK to achieve project goals. But the question is why MANAGEMENT do project fail? Project failure occurs if the projects are late, crossed their budget, does not deliver the Poor risk and issue management are often the business value as expected or deliver the wrong most important reason for project failure. By na- product. ture, project managers are project solvers and interpret small risks as easy to solve and therefore A failing project is one with severe slippage in have the reaction to report/communicate when it schedule, budget, or quality. The reasons for pro- is already too late. The best and only way to avoid ject failure refer to the lack of presence of success project failure is prevention; the sooner you identify factors for the project. We refer hereunder to the a problem, the bigger the change of project suc- top reasons for the project failure to answer the cess will be. Therefore, monitoring and reporting question why a project fails. In addition, the Cata- on project health is critical to keeping everything logue of Catastrophe provides a database of sam- on track, this way the business can course-correct ples that can serve as a platform for discussing the and help the project become successful by adjust- causes of project failure together with an official ing components like budget, resources, or delivery listing of 8 categories for common project failures. expectations. 87

Rescue at hand: sues, and with corrective actions it can go back to A common way to identify or visualize project green. Red: Serious issues and the project is at risk risks/issues is to set-up a risk or issue log or to of failure; this is the project on fire, reactive phase. make status clear in 1 view and use a Score card. On the surface one would assume the green is Your role as a project manager is to get the right in- where you want to be. Certainly, it is an indication formation into the right hands, at the right time (the that things are on track. However, if all aspects of sooner the better), in order to minimize the impact. your project are in all in green most of the time, you The Scorecard leverages a traffic light system of are probably not monitoring your project in enough green/yellow/red colours to help quickly determine detail. In this framework, yellow means something and report on the status or health of a project. It’s requires attention. It means you have time to make a simple and logical framework: Green: On track, a change. It means you are still in control and have business as usual; all good. Yellow: Potential is- the time to tackle risks/issues proactively.

SOURCE: PROJECTMANAGEMENT.COM 88

2. INEFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION 3. INADEQUATE PROJECT PLANNING Project managers should develop a good communication approach: ranging from communication Project planning is an important part of project plans, project status reports to regular meet-ups management and it is the responsibility of the pro- to keep the project stakeholders up-to-date on the ject manager to set-up a proper plan for the pro- project performance. The way in which you com- ject. Project planning is generally used to organize municate will depend on your target audience. If distinct parts of a project including workload, pro- you do not communicate enough or forget impact- ject plan, management of team(s) etc. You must ed stakeholders, you will lose sight of dependen- have a clear vision of what you are going to do and cies and the project will no longer evolve in a coor- know how to execute tasks to reach the project dinated way. goal. But if the project is not planned properly then it may fail or doesn’t meet all the expectations of Rescue at hand: stakeholders and customers. In order to keep project stakeholders involved and up-to-date on the progress of your project, the pro- Rescue at hand: ject status report provides excellent insights at a In an Agile context, based on my professional ex- glance as it should be no longer than 1 page, send perience, it is important to take into account the out on a weekly or bi-weekly frequency, provide a following lessons learnt: project status summarizing what is on track, what may have deviated from the project plan and identify the corrective actions for areas that are off track.

Status Report - Version 3 : Project Progress Pie Chart

Summary

Good progress with delivery.

Version 2.1 soon to launch.

Staff morale is HIGH

Risks & Issues Next Steps

New Competitiors Sourse supplier Procure service

Raw material costs increase Optimise front end Deliver 2.1

SOURCE: BUSINESS-DOCS.CO.UK 89

Scheduling tips: 4. SHORTAGE OF RESOURCES/ REQUIREMENTS 1. Plan accurately plan in detail only for nearby tasks: Only plan in detail for the next 2 itera- The quantity of resources needed by a project de- tions, forecasting for next weeks, not for several pends on the size and scope of the project. Some- months ahead. times, the project is blocked due to the shortage of resources and necessary requirements. For exam- 2. Active involvement of people doing the work ple, if a project requires a skilled Java programmer in scheduling & estimations: Project resources and the candidate appointed for the project does will be motivated to get it right, they have skills not have that skill then the project cannot continue to understand the dependencies, and they need until a necessary resource is provided. to accept the schedule, at the same time they have already done the work, so they can provide When we talk about project resources, we are re- correct estimates. ferring to all the resources that are required for a project, including: 3. Organize the project into short iterations. By working in short iterations, 1 to 4 weeks is People—managing ‘people’ or team management common, and by delivering finalised user stories focuses on team cooperation, but also about con- each iteration you provide concrete evidence siders the skillsets your project requires, the avail- that your project team is progressing. ability of project members and their respective workloads. 4. Take a requirement-based approach. Schedule the development of requirements (user stories, Funding—managing a budget: having a realistic features, use cases, ...) into iterations as the line idea of how much the project will cost, not exceed- items, not tasks such as design, test. For exam- ing that budget. ple, futures will group user stories on the same functionality, and user stories can be divided in Material Assets— ‘everything else’ in projects rang- tasks to follow up in the online JIRA board. ing from software and hardware to equipment, machinery or temporary property. 5. Remember to include training. As soon as a new tool is implemented, do not forget to in- Assuring these resources are entwined is the most clude the necessary training for the future users. difficult part in which resource allocation plays an important role comprising delivering services that Agile Metrics tips: match what customers wants at the lowest possible cost, having the exact number of people on 1. Velocity: a measure to how much work your hand to complete a project; or perfectly aligning the team can tackle during a sprint; it is calculated reality of project costs with expectations. in story points for all completed user stories. Rescue at hand: 2. Burn Down Chart: run chart of the outstanding Mastering resource allocation in project man- work represented in the backlog versus the time agement can be modelled via famous tools such left: it is easy to predict when all work will be fin- as Tempus Resource (a sophisticated resource ished. management tool that offers real-time visibility over your projects and people, so you can plan for whatever comes your way), or from ProSymmetry, which offers modern and powerful resource allocation with modelling capabilities and what-if sce- 90

narios. Taking a single project or an entire project ing a buffer not only reduces the workload of your portfolio, users can create a resource allocation team member but also let them focus on each task model to test the effects of changing or modify- in a better way. ing their projects in real-time, which can help max- In addition, the Catalogue of Catastrophe provides imize their resource forecasting. This helps both a database of samples that can be used as a plat- project and resource managers to approach re- form for discussing the causes of project failure. source allocation in the most efficient and effective The use of publicly available information helps to way possible, maximizing their resource capacity eliminate the personal aspects of the discussion and getting their project to completion every time and opens the door for participant interactions. and to time.

Classes of project failure 5. NO PROPER USER ENGAGEMENT Classes of project failure aims at categorizing causes for project failure into 8 principal categories. Failure to user engagement in the project leads to The below indicated list summarizes the meaning an improper end result and non-aligned user ex- of each category and corresponding examples: pectations. Market and strategy failures – Projects should only Rescue at hand: be launched, if there is a real interest in what your Include the customer at the beginning of the pro- project wants to set out. Example: Beauty brand ject and continually involve the customer as things Dove created “Real Beauty Bottles” in a limited-edi- change so that the required adjustments can be tion run of six different body wash bottles to illus- made together. It has been observed that success- trate the power of body diversity–ranging from ful projects occur when end users (customers) and curvy to tall, short to slim. However, Dove made a the project members work as teams in the same controversial move to reshape its shampoo bottles cubicle, although this is not always possible. Pro- to reflect different body types. This promotion was jects are less likely to fail if there are informed cus- comparing women’s figures to largely shapeless, tomers giving meaningful input during every phase abstract soap bottles eventually sent the wrong of requirements elicitation, product description and message and was met with both joking and sin- implementation. The customer needs to be asking, cere concern on platforms like Twitter. “how are the project result used over time and what do I get out of the results? Organizational and planning failures – On one hand if the organization is insufficient the project team can quickly lose control. On the other hand, if the controls put in place are more than are needed the 6. UNREALISTIC CUSTOMER project can be slowed down by unnecessary ineffi- EXPECTATIONS ciencies. Example: The story of Sony Betamax cas- sette is a good example of bad marketing planning Unrealistic deadline and expectations will drag because while it was innovative and hit the market projects down the drain. So, take into account all before its competition did, other products proved the factors and constraints involved that might ad- to be cheaper and better. versely affect your project and then set a deadline. Leadership and governance failures – If there is a Rescue at hand: missing project governance set-up, there will be Foresee a buffer that gives you the liberty of com- no management of dependencies and in the end pleting the project without rushing through it. Hav- program management can lose control. Example: 91

SOURCE: HTTP://CALLEAM.COM

Silo based organisation: Projects that are organised Quality failures – If quality checks are not includ- in silos without the proper alignment governance ed in the test planning, serious flaws can escape bodies such as set-up of SCRUMs for different the project and cause issues once the delivera- sub-tracks in a program without having one cen- bles have been deployed. Example: Launch of Ford tralised SCRUMs of SCRUMs meeting. Pinto: In response to competition from Japanese imports, Ford released the Pinto in 1971 – a pop- Underestimation and analysis failures – The pro- ulist car that tried to persuade consumers with its ject team should analyse the complete project to cheap price tag, however, lawsuits emerged for an understand the complexities involved. Those com- alleged structural design fault. The fuel tank was plexities need to be understood before commit- understood to be in close proximity to the rear ments related to timing and budget are confirmed. bumper and rear axle, meaning that rear-end col- If commitments are given before the full complex- lisions would elevate the risk of fires. ity has been clarified a project can easily end up making unrealistic commitments that ultimately Risk failures –Without anticipation or mitigation of create a pressurized environment in which the pro- project risks, not only the project, but the organisa- ject can only fail. Example: Decommissioning Pro- tion as whole can be derailed, but even the organ- jects: these projects are often underestimated as ization as a whole. Example: Merger of Fortis and they are categorised as basic continuous improve- ABN AMRO: This merger did not foresee a clear risk ment and have repetitive project planning, never- plan and derailed the complete company acquisi- theless, also for these projects a proper estimation tion, hence a rollback, and selection of a different and planning should be made. take over scenario. 92

Skills, knowledge and competency failures – Pro- Efficient communication helps to build a better jects will suffer from lower productivity and higher project flow and thus leads to the success of the risk of errors, if the necessary skills and competen- project. Hence, by eliminating the above mentioned cies are lacking. Example: System implementation main project failures, your project is more likely to projects require specific technical skills to deliver become successful. expected quality. Layers in project failure: Engagement, teamwork and communications failures – Poor stakeholder management, uneffective Understanding why projects fail will entail multiple communication and lack of engagement between answers with different layers. For example, project projects team members will lead to working in silos underestimation is not just to be blamed on bad without smooth communication flows. Example: estimate as cause of the failure, but a broader con- Large programs without necessary alignment bod- text or contributing layers should be looked into. ies/governance: In order to avoid double work or To explain the different layers in project failure, the loose the achievement of common program goals, diagram is divided into different layers; the upper a clear governance on alignment/huddles or stan- layer comprises symptoms of project failure such dup meetings has to be organised. budget overruns, the middle layer consists the real causes of failure divided into two general categories: with firstly “Trigger events” (specific individual How to Eliminate Project Failure? actions, mistakes leading or contributing to project failure) and secondly “Behavioural patterns” (broad- The top causes of the project failure specify the er governance or structural problems in project importance of a proper planning to reach the pro- approach or management). At the same time, the ject goals. The successive operation of the project failure is reflecting a dysfunctional environment as tasks and the resource management also helps elemental or deepest layer of the failure. project managers to deliver a successful project.

SOURCE: HTTP://CALLEAM.COM 93

SOURCE: HTTP://CALLEAM.COM

The decision-making layer Project Turnaround Steps

These contributing factors are themselves a re- Determine the root cause. It can often be difficult flection of deeper-seated issues relating to the way to determine the exact root cause. Interviews with decisions are made in the project or the organiza- the team and a careful analysis of the situation are tion as a whole. Projects are not only to be seen required to help you identify the real problem in or- in terms of the activities to be performed, but as der to successfully move forward. If you don’t de- networks of interrelated decisions (See Figure The termine where the issue stems from, you are likely decision-making layer). Decisions are the building to continue experiencing setbacks. blocks of progress in a project and the project outcomes usually depend on the effectiveness of the Reaffirm the goals of the project. A project should decisions made. have been clearly defined and documented at the start of the project, but this is not always the case. To make this more concrete, the symptom under- Or perhaps the project requires new objectives and estimation is not only to be explained via a project deliverables be agreed upon. Either way, now is the resource making a bad estimate, or as an isolat- time to rectify that problem. Work with the client ed action or decision, but influenced by decisions and team to clarify and document the goals, and – not investing in proper training - made either di- make sure everyone re-commits to these goals. rectly or indirectly by the extended team such as stakeholders and sponsor or those who control the Get buy-in from stakeholders on the solutions. environment in which the project is operating. When projects are off-track it is a very important 94

moment to stay engaged with the stakeholders Summary and clients. Keep them informed of the issue, propose new solutions, and get buy in before moving Project success is not fixed, consequently, if a pro- forward. You must maintain trust in your ability to ject succeeds, there are also some chances of its deliver, particularly when troubleshooting. failure. Accordingly, the above-mentioned list of the causes of the project failure will enable a project Motivate the team. During project derailing it is hard manager to stabilize/maintain his/her project. By to stay energized and excited about work, howev- understanding all the factors that may lead to pro- er you can use project setbacks as an opportunity ject failure, the project manager, and his/her team to motivate the team and strengthen relationships can get prepared to tackle the problems that may between project team and clients. Do not allow the arise. It will, in turn, minimize the chances of pro- blame game to damage trust and relationships, ject failure and maximize the possibility of the suc- and try to generate accountability and buy-in, help cess of the project. each team member understand how their role is critical for the success of the project.

About the Author

Sandy Everaerts, has 20 years experience, and worked for leading companies in the Banking & Insurance sector. She has a background in both Business and IT as PMO, project manager & SCRUM Master.

Should Project Managers Be Afraid of Artificial Intelligence?

Project management ArtificiaI Intelligence (AI) is an • Foster a safe environment. For companies integrated system that can administrate projects that have varying working conditions, artifi- without requiring human input. Using the power of cial intelligence can detect invisible-to-the-hu- artificial intelligence, bots will not only be able to man-eye warning signs that influence the like- automate tasks, but can also offer process recom- lihood of a workplace accident. For example, mendations, unveil team insights, and even make a construction project management AI could project decisions. observe equipment performance, air quality, and employee facial expressions to predict For example, technology exists or will exist in the unsafe behaviour or an unsafe work environ- near future that has the ability to: ment, and alert the proper parties to prevent an accident. • Match the right resource to the right role. Piggybacking off the success of applicant • Deliver untiring objectivity and vigilance. tracking systems, HR managers are investing While humans can grow fatigued when in more technology to further improve their checking their deliverable for accuracy and hiring processes. Ideal, an AI-based recruit- quality, an AI system doesn’t tire, nor does it ment software company, finds that compa- make compromises or excuses because it’s nies that have adopted AI for recruiting soft- burned out on the project. ware have seen their performance increase by 20%, their revenue per employee improve Of course, there is not one system that integrates by 4%, and their turnover decrease by 35%. all of these features yet, but project managers, re- Now, imagine if that kind of accuracy could gardless of industry, will undoubtedly encounter be used for project team selection. these job-changing project management AI benefits. • Automatically reduce individual idle time. No need to worry about level of effort (LOE); project management AI can learn the cadence Does project management of each team member’s output and assign regular work based on that individual’s ability software offer artificial intelligence to comply. Tools that can do this are covered capabilities yet? later in this article. There aren’t many project management tools with • Create an ecosystem for knowledge man- AI—it’s an industry that has been slow to adopt the agement. When an employee leaves a com- umbrella of machine learning and artificial intelli- pany, he or she takes a considerable amount gence. of non-transferable understanding of his or her role. Use your project management AI There are some exceptions, however: to aggregate patterns of workplace behaviour and to centralize worker knowledge to Chatbots are most prevalent manifestations of improve consistency, quality, and to prevent artificial intelligence in project management soft- “reinventing the wheel” when change arises. ware. For example, Cisco Spark (a simple, secure While this function is largely still theoretical, it space where you can get things done from any- will likely become available and affordable to where in the world. Connecting your endpoints to enterprise-level businesses in the next year or the cloud), and Redbooth (an easy-to-use online two, and popularize quickly after that. task and project management software for busy 96

teams) teamed up with the Api.ai (which gives us- There is a slow adaptation of Artificial Intelligence/ ers new ways to interact with your product by build- Machine Learning in the current PM ecosystem. ing engaging voice and text-based conversational The closed beta trial has proved to be extremely ef- interfaces powered by AI) platform to create a mes- ficient… already a 20% or more reduction in manual saging bot that asked team members things such user actions occurs after our threshold for optimal as, “What’s happening today?”, “Show me what my amount of data is reached. team is working on,” and “What’s urgent?” Any project manager would be happy Stratejos provides a similar function for Agile soft- with those results. ware development teams as a Slack integration. Similar Siri-like tools are sure to become more prev- As ClickUp leads the charge, more project manage- alent in the next few years. ment software is sure to emerge with more robust AI functionality. Polydone, a Kanban-based project There are a few heavier project management soft- management system, is already promising its us- ware platforms with AI functionality baked into their ers. In the near future, we’ll add artificial intelligence systems as well. For example: and machine learning to Polydone. The objective is to automate even further and estimate project time ZiveBox. A “digital workforce” tool with a healthy and budgets even more accurately. number of PM features, ZiveBox uses AI to determine how long a task should take, to examine the productivity of each team member, and to sort What are the problems with artificial through enterprise-level communication databases (otherwise known as “a bunch of long chat conver- intelligence in the workplace? sations.”) Of course, robo-project managers isn’t the end of project management as a career. Rescoper. This platform claims to “handle the tedious parts of management so your team stays Robots and artificial intelligence may automate the focused on results”—exactly what AI-enabled soft- tedious tasks that assume a small part of project ware should be doing. The project management managers’ time, such as taking information from software automatically alters the “view” of each user multiple sources and putting together nice Pow- so that it’s tailored for their specific permissions erPoint decks, or normalizing project data from settings, automatically schedules tasks based on incompatible systems. However, the most primary workload and task duration, and provides alerts if role of project managers is leadership and commu- the system “thinks” your project is going to run into nication, and these are functions that cannot be budgeting or scheduling trouble. automated. ClickUp. A PM tool that recently came to market, A certain sceptical attitude is to be taken that AI-en- ClickUp, is truly one-of-a-kind in the project man- abled systems will do anything but automate tedi- agement software industry. While still in beta, its ous tasks, meaning the central function of project algorithms can already: managers — ensuring the successful delivery of the project—remains. Some even go as far to say that Predict the best team member for a task and • AI will help project managers manage their team assign those tasks to them management skills. In other words, AI can control Automatically tag users in comments based • for predictable human fallibility, while also enabling on relevancy contexts project managers to be even better at their jobs. Visualize notifications and updates • Consider the following tasks carried out daily by Predict deadlines that won’t be met • project managers: • Correct task time estimates 97

As you can see, people management cannot be They must balance the capabilities and emotions delegated to a robot, nor will we ever be able to do of a diverse set of humans, and lead them toward so. AI lacks the nuance to effectively manage well, success in the chaotic environment of a business. and as emotional intelligence ranks as one of the In the chaos of project management, only humans most important attributes for hiring project man- can really prevail—especially when assisted with agers, they’re not soon to be replaced. Successful artificial intelligence. project managers can balance the unpredictable. 98

What does the future of project management look like with artificial intelligence in the workplace?

Project management is going to change. vices have intelligence that will listen and “learn” and provide guidance and assistance. Siri and Echo are That fact is one that’s alarming to anyone in the primarily geared towards consumers and give per- field, but think about it this way: sonal support, but AI is emerging as a way to also provide quick and thorough business analysis. This • Project management was able to survive Or- technology is used to help prevent credit card fraud acle and Artemis when they launched project and make recommendations for your Netflix queue. management software in 1977. • Project management was able to survive People in the business world feel that, in the near fu- 1979, when spreadsheets first emerged. ture, an app’s ability to interact with AI will be more • Project management was able to survive important than its mobile or cloud capabilities. Im- 1986, when Carnegie Mellon released Capa- agine your project management software “learning” bility Maturity Software. about your nuances and how you like to manage • Project management has been able to survive projects, and customizing its platform to cater to more advanced project management tools, you rather than force you to adapt to its unbending such as Microsoft Project, Atlassian Jira, and structure. AI can provide this customized experi- now Slack. ence.

The project management profession has evolved This is both scary and exciting. The idea of having considerably over the past 50 years, and it’s now our simplest tasks automated simply by speaking more efficient and productive with increased pro- aloud or interacting with a bot can potentially make ject management tool mobility, analysis, and use. our lives much easier. However, since we often And it will continue to evolve—and thrive—under the point to communication breakdown as a key fac- new era of project management AI. tor in our projects going south, do we really want to rely on anything “artificial” to lead us to success? Looking ahead, where will Artificial Intelligence (AI) Or, even worse, are we running the risk of eventually fit into our lives, and more importantly, should we being replaced by an army of project management be afraid? robots? Our job is to understand and then communicate to foster collaboration and ensure productiv- For those unfamiliar with the concept of AI outside ity. The belief is that bots will be able to not only of a Steven Spielberg movie, think about technology automate tasks, but potentially make process rec- such as Siri or Amazon’s Echo. These types of de- ommendations and project decisions. 99

Do we see the same evolution of AI for Project Management in Europe and the USA?

Efforts to create thinking machines do not pose and KPI dashboards in Salesforce or Power BI. If I a threat to our existence, and alarmist views in put a task into Trello or ServiceNow, when might I the media on artificial intelligence risk in project expect and with what level of confidence is the es- management are confusing science with science timate? Give me the 90 percent confidence date. fiction, according to EU Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas. Robotic process automation (RPA) will take over a lot of the repetitive, high-volume tasks from pro- If you do any research on artificial intelligence ject managers, like merging data from different these days, the results are astonishingly pessimis- systems to coordinate deliveries and other logis- tic. Nine articles out of ten on AI are negative in tics and updating case management systems. Europe. Not just negative. Alarmist and panicked, There's a ton of work that could be done as far as sometimes even hysterical. transferring data, moving it around between different systems, handling mass emails, doing report- The Commissioner is betting on AI, a huge area ing and file and document processing. of research at the moment, being a positive force. The fear of artificial intelligence among the public For large, complex projects with a lot of staff where still runs deep. But fearing what is arguably one of the final goal is something repeatable, like setting the most exciting new technologies of our genera- up a new data center or moving applications to a tion and denying ourselves its amazing benefits is container platform, there could be enough data for not the answer. machine learning to identify outliers, anomalies or correlations. Interesting correlations detected are Less dramatic are the concerns that AI will elimi- treating AI as a partner to project managers and nate many jobs: these are not pressing concerns. letting them apply their human-level and emotional intelligence. Whereas in the USA they continue to strongly believe in the idea that AI could revolutionize project Consequently, it is safe to state that robots and management: The risk in a project is always prob- artificial intelligence may automate the tedious abilistic and the human mind is not good at do- tasks that consume a small part of project man- ing risk-based probability management, especially agers’ time, such as taking information from mul- when we’re combining many different probabili- tiple sources and putting together nice PowerPoint ties. AI uses visualizations of confidence, feasibil- decks, or normalizing project data from incompat- ity and whether the risk is going up or down over ible systems. However, the most primary role of time to help you switch between fast and slow project managers is leadership and communica- thinking. These visuals had to be created because tion, and these are functions that cannot be auto- we need to connect with the fast-thinking, intuitive mated. mind to help people see things in a way that lets them make good intuitive decisions. Rest assured, there will always be a need for “people management” and the personal touch we pro- The algorithms and models AI uses were designed vide. Thankfully, no artificial device will ever be for software development but also fit construction able to learn common sense or reasoning or be projects. The first (rather basic) integration is with able to react to the angry face of our client. We Jira and in time it is foreseen to put the visualiza- are skilled in leveraging our experience and hav- tions inside tools project teams use on a daily ba- ing survived many “wars” to allow us to anticipate sis such as Microsoft Project, Primavera construc- and manage the unpredictable. Incorporating AI tion planning, Trello, or even feature roadmaps into our lives will allow the “robots” to concentrate 100

on tasks that often result in careless human er- But this precisely may be the “Achilles heel “ of AI. ror and give us the time to focus less on avoiding these errors and more on providing excellent ser- Human project managers (like any other human) vice. Just think about getting hours back in your are driven by their bounded rationality; they are week, spending more time being creative instead more or less conscious that they don’t have ac- of administrative, and avoiding at least half of the cess to ALL possible information sources, and inevitable “surprise” problems. AI is going to have they are also aware that they don’t have time and a huge impact on our world, both personally and resources to analyze all possible consequences professionally. Business teams that take advan- of decision they could take. By consequence, their tage of the technology will be much more ahead decision is motivated first by the visible short-term of those that don’t. satisfaction (the reward) and potentially by external and nonrational elements specifics to their cor- Whether in project management or in any other porate environment (aka “internal politic”). non-normalized and well defined environment, we don’t think that Project Managers should be afraid The configuration of an AI for project manage- by AI development. At least for the next decade. ment therefore must solve a first paradox:

As well explained previously, the essential tasks • Integrating a maximum of data sources to of project management are related to leadership, be the most exhaustive and the most ration- communication and especially decision making. al possible but in this case with the risk of making decisions certainly logical but pos- Off course, AI are able to take decisions faster sibly hardly incomprehensible for human than any human. They are also able to compile managers (because limited by their bounded and analyse a quantity of data that far exceeds the rationality). cognitive abilities of any human. • Voluntarily limit the number of sources used In a sense, we can say that AI are “supra-ration- to make a decision in order to remain under- al”; a quality that in principle should make AI the standable by a human. In such case, we may perfect decision-makers and by consequence the wonder why using AI… (Except for speed and perfect killer of (Human) Project Managers. standardization of analysis).

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Conclusion

As conclusion, in the current state of development, For all that, keep always in mind the quote of Bill AI powered project management tools can already Gates be very efficient to assist project managers. We always overestimate Today’s AI may allow Project Managers to take the change that will occur more / faster decision, to deal with more projects in parallel or to ensure more consistency and reg- in the next two years and ularity in the way data are analyzed and decisions underestimate the change that made. But as long as they will not be autonomous will occur in the next ten. and able to take semi-intuitive decision based on Don’t let yourself be lulled non-formatted input, human project managers can continue to go to bed safely. into inaction.

About the Author

Sandy Everaerts, has 20 years experience, and worked for leading companies in the Banking & Insurance sector. She has a background in both Business and IT as PMO, project manager & SCRUM Master.

ROLE OF THE CHANGE MANAGER

The Change Manager (CM) has a strategic role in In order to fulfil his mission, the CM requires great any change within a company, may it be to assist interpersonal & communication skills. He needs to the project manager, or to handle more structur- understand the risks related to change, the block- al changes such as the fusion of different depart- ing points that may arise from it and fight the reluc- ments or important organizational changes. The tances to change. main objective of the CM is to ensure a smooth operational transition, making sure it doesn’t disrupt Hence the tasks of the change manager might the normal conduct of business and to foresee and look like the ones of the project manager, but his address issues that might arise with the upcoming main focus lies within the business interests and changes. impacts, highlighting the social side of it:

Transition management

The CM is responsible for assessing the risk of define the risks linked to the new target operating the implementation of the change, the operation- model. al impact it may have, and the oppositions it can face. Doing so, it requires an extensive knowl- He must then define action plans to counter edge of the business, and profound analysis to these risks.

Definition of the action plans

The goal is to prepare the different business ar- communication plans, the formation plans, the eas for the transition and limit the risk. To do so, coaching required, the knowledge sharing etc. the CM needs to define and organise the different 104

Communication management

The CM must ensure the interests of the spon- the ones impacted, requiring both relational and sors are kept and manage the involvement of communication skills.

Conflict management

May it be due to power struggles and/or politi- ple’s minds and prevent them from blocking the cal interventions, systemic resistance to change change (work on embracing changes instead by (e.g. due to union interventions), or a too large means of implementing proper change manage- or sudden impact to the organisation, the CM ment guidelines upfront) has to provide the right solutions to change peo-

Tracking progress

Having defined a planning for the change, the CM needs to track its progress and adapt his estimation and action plans as the project moves on.

Planning for the worst

The CM has to define a contingency plan in the handover rules when the project is finished and event of any major issue during or after the tran- ‘returned’ back to the organization – as to assure sition, whether it be a major disruption to the nor- the day to day activities can be handled by the mal run of business that would require some kind core organization without any outside interven- of rollback, or simply additional evolutions / for- tion. mations required. He also has to assure proper 105

ROLE OF THE PRODUCT OWNER (AGILE/SCRUM)

The basics of Agile/scrum are fun and easy! You An important part in Scrum is that the product can kickstart your project with 3 roles (product backlog needs to be prioritized by the product owner, scrum master, team members), 4 ceremo- owner. It’s also important what he does not do: he nies (daily scrum, sprint planning, sprint review, does not impose his ideas to the team on how to retrospective) and 3 artefacts (product increment, do things, he does not impose the amount of work product backlog, sprint backlog). Agile/Scrum is in a sprint, he never ignores the team input, he does an iterative method that results quickly towards a not stand in between the user and the team! minimum viable product, looks at what the end client (end-user) really needs through the definition of personas and user stories, and adapts quickly to a changing environment (iterative process). TESTIMONIAL

The role of the product owner is: to represent the Our consultant Arnaud Devallée shares his expe- final user’s best interest, be knowledgeable on the rience as Business/Process Analyst and Product product/service eco-system and requirements and Owner: to have the authority to say what goes into the final product. The product owner will manage the prod- Project: uct backlog, a list of tasks and requirements the “Creation and incremental development of digital final product/service will need. The product back- tool for Mortgage Credit acquisition.” log is typically fed by ‘user stories’. A user story is a nice way to define the needs of the end-user, writ- Mission Purpose: ten from his/her point of view, and that in a typical “As a Business/Process Analyst within an agile en- format: "As a car driver I want a rear-view mirror in vironment, refine the business requirements and order to be able to see the traffic behind me”. break it down into well-structured user stories and acceptance criteria. 106

As a PO, organize and prioritize a large backlog coordinate the incoming developments on few pro- composed of numerous features and user stories ject (including the project I was working on, as P/ on a broader applications scope, for 3 agile squads.” BA). This coordination was concretized through my participation in the QAP (Quarterly Agile Planning) of Mission details: my tribe, representing the squads I was momentary “As a Business/Process Analyst, I lead the interac- PO of.” tion with every involved business stakeholder in my project. After having detailed their needs, I decom- Mission results: pose it to describe multiple the user stories, few “On the last major release, we successful provided sprints ahead of the developers squad. I also have a new mortgage credit application tool to BNPPF’s to present the user stories potentially selected for branches and a offered a more flexible processes the sprint development to the team, during each for its clients, especially by allowing an online digital bi-monthly sprint planning. Once the user stories signature on documents. Thanks to a redesigned delivered by the squad, my role is to test the end- credit process flow, relationship manager can intro- to-end flow. duce a credit demand an beneficiated from a criti- cally reduced elapsed time between the validation of As a PO during short period of time, the scope of a credit simulation to the fund release to the client. the credit tool I had to cover was widened. I thus Currently limited to the scope of demand for Reup- had to consider the dependencies and interactions takes purposes, this application is soon to be the between a large number of IT assets, in order to main mortgage credit acquisition tool of the bank.” 107

ROLE OF THE SCRUM MASTER (AGILE/SCRUM)

Agile/Scrum works with sprints. A sprint is a prede- Daily scrums, product backlog reviews, sprints termined timeframe within which the team com- and sprint reviews are all facilitated by the scrum pletes sets of tasks from the backlog. The length master. The scrum master manages the (hierar- of time depends on the needs of the team, usually chical) managers around the project, removes the 2 weeks. impediments of the team, coaches, mentors and facilitates. He/she should be 100% dedicated to Teams meet every day to give progress updates the team. in the daily scrum. This is usually also known as ‘daily stand-ups’. If you want to learn more about Agile/Scrum and its roles in 15 minutes, have a look at this youtube Each sprint ends with a review, or retrospective, video that explains it all (https://www.youtube. where the team reviews their work and discusses com/watch?v=502ILHjX9EE) ways to improve the next sprint (iterative process). 108 109

SETUP OF A PROJECT PLANNING Including capacity management & budgeting/work break-down structure

Project planning definition

What’s a project planning, what’s its purpose? These Why? two definitions give us a good indication: The project plan needs to define why the project “A project plan, according to the Project Manage- exist. It gives the reasons to launch the project and ment Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), is: "...a formal, shows what’s going to be delivered at the end of approved document used to guide both project exe- the project. cution and project control. The primary uses of the project plan are to document planning assumptions What? and decisions, facilitate communication among pro- The project plan gives the way that the purpose is ject stakeholders, and document approved scope, going to be reached. You need to give information cost, and schedule baselines. A project plan may be about how the work is going to perform and what summarized or detailed."”3 are the big steps of the project. “Project planning is the process of establishing the scope, defining the objectives and steps to Who? obtain them. It is one of the most important of the The project plan indicates who is going to be in- processes that make up project management. The volved in the project, what are his responsibilities output of the project planning process is a project and how he is going to be organized. The project management plan.”4 plan also defines the role of each stakeholders.

The project planning is so a document that could When? be formal which is going to help the project manager, the project team as the stakeholders to man- The project plan needs to give the roadmap of the age and to control the project. This document must project with the essential milestones. It gives us answer at least to these fundamental questions: the important moment when meaningful point has Why?, What?, Who? and When? to be delivered.

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_plan 4 https://www.teamgantt.com/guide-to-project-management/how-to-plan-a-project 110

A project planning in 10 steps

To be sure to answer to these fundamental ques- 1. Define the scope of your tions, you can follow the 10 following steps. Thanks to these 10 steps you will be sure to answer to the project fundamental questions with a structural approach. This step is maybe one of the most important of The 10 steps to build your project planning: the 10 steps. Indeed, in order to fulfil successfully your project, the scope definition is crucial to be 1. Define the scope of your project sure to deliver the right product. This first step is 2. Define the roles and responsibilities going to answer to the question “Why”. 3. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) 4. Define the planning, the Gantt Chart and In this step, it must be clear about what needs to identify the Critical Path be delivered, when and what are the features of 5. Define the resources your project. 6. Define the communication plan 7. Risk management At the end, a clear and accurate definition of your 8. Write your full and complete project project with the key success factor need to be de- planning livered so as the agreement of all the stakeholders 9. Present your final project planning on this scope definition. 10. Follow up of your project planning and adapt it if necessary It could be difficult to make the difference between what is in the scope and what is out of scope and Below, we are going to detail each step to help you not covered by the project. One way is, is it docu- to define your project planning. mented or not? If it’s not documented, normally it’s not to be part of the project. A project well documented can help to answer to these questions. The other way is: what is the objective of the project? If the project is well defined, the objective is clear and so, is that contribute or not to the objective of the project? If not, it is out of scope. Other ways to identify what could be out of scope is, is it budget- ed and is it in the plan? If the answers are no, it is probably out of scope. 111

2. Define the roles and responsibilities

By defining the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholders, we can construct an organigram and define who is responsible for which task or part of project. It’s going also to give us an indication on how we can escalate a problem.

A tool that could be very useful is the RACI matrix (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed matrix). This matrix clarifies the roles and responsibilities of people in the completion of tasks or deliverables.5

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assignment_matrix

3. The Work Breakdown signed to a single person or team. This last step defines the work package, a sort of “to-do list” to Structure complete the work.

This step consists in decomposing the project in These guidelines should be used when building a as many independent tasks as needed. It can take work breakdown structure4: a long time to do that because you need to go into • The top level represents the final deliverable a certain level of details and be precise. or project • Sub-deliverables contain work packages that To create the project work breakdown structure, are assigned to an organization’s department the first step is to identify the major functional de- or unit liverables. These deliverables are decomposed in • All elements of the work breakdown structure sub-deliverables until the deliverables can be as- don’t need to be defined to the same level

5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assignment_matrix 112

• The work package defines the work, duration, 6. Define the and costs for the tasks required to produce the sub-deliverable communication plan • Work packages should not exceed 10 days of duration For your project, you need to define a communica- • Work packages should be independent of other tion plan. This plan must to answer to these ques- work packages in the work breakdown struc- tions: what, to whom, how, who, when, how many ture times, where. • Work packages are unique and should not be duplicated across the work breakdown struc- You need to identify the different message types ture and for each one, define who is going to communicate this message to whom, how, when, how many times and where?

4. Define the planning, It’s very important to have these rules in order to the Gantt Chart and have a right communication. The communication is too often a problem and can conduct to catastro- identify the Critical Path phe. To avoid that, be sure to have a good and clear communication plan. From this decomposition, a PERT (Program Evalua- tion and Review Technique) chart that represents the In function of the meeting, the communication and interdependence between the tasks and the duration message are going to be different. Some of the dif- associated to them can be drawn. The CPM (Critical ferent meetings are7: Path Method) applied to this PERT chart identifies the critical path which highlights the most important • Kick-Off meeting: First meeting to start a new tasks that could delay the project if the timing is not project. respected. It gives also an indication about the buff- • Project meeting: Different meetings during ers that could exist between some tasks. the project to give a status and to discuss about the project: planning, next steps … With all this information, a Gantt Chart6 for your pro- • Steering Committee Meetings (Steerco): ject can be designed. Meetings to take strategic decisions about projects for the company.

5. Define the resources 7. Risk management The resources are the people and budget needed to realise the project. You must attribute each task to Any project involves risks and you need to be able someone and eventually estimate the cost for your to manage them when they occur. The first step project budget. In function of your budget and peo- is to identify the different types of risk that could ple that you can onboard on the project you will see occur during your project, their probability and their that your planning changes as well as the critical consequence, on the project. Then, after your risk path. assessment, you can establish rules to manage these risks, how you are going to communicate When you talk about your resources, try always to about them, who is going to manage them … How- keep buffers because making a project involves un- ever, you can not identify all project risks meaning foreseen events which require to be able to manage to be able to deal with this type of situation. this risk.

6 For more details about the Gantt Chart : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagramme_de_Gantt 7 For more details: https://247meeting.com/blog/meeting-thesaurus/ 113

This risk assessment must also consider the in- 10. Follow up of your terdependence with other projects or within a program and the consequences. project planning and adapt it if necessary

8. Publish your plan As explained above, your project is not going to be without obstacles and so you need to plan mo- Now you have all the necessary information to ment to make a follow up of your project planning, write your definitive project planning. During the identify what’s going well, what’s going wrong and writing of your project planning you must be very be prepared to adjust. clear and precise in the terms used. Be sure that every stakeholder agrees on your project planning and that there are not ambiguities. Testimonial Your project planning is going to be a kind of con- Our consultant Jean-Richard Audin shared his ex- tract between the stakeholders, which requires a perience about the importance to set up a project good and precise redaction. planning:

“As Project Manager, we know the importance to 9. Present your final project setup of a project planning. A project planning is a key document for your project. The document de- planning fines the scope, the objectives and facilitate the project management. It’s a basic document that allows Once your final project planning is written, that to manage the relations between the stakeholders. everyone has validated it, you are going to present It’s also very useful to follow up the progress of the your plan to your stakeholders. That’s going to be a project. Thanks to this document, we can make ref- little bit the trigger of your project. erence at any moment of the project to this project planning for the role, responsibilities, planning etc. During this presentation session, be prepared It’s like a contract. because you need to be able to answer to all the questions and have the approval of everyone. Be When I’m working on a project, I always give impor- cleared, prepared and structured! tance and dedicate time at the beginning to set up of a project planning. Firstly, because it’s the occa- The key people who validate the execution phase sion to have discussions to obtain alignment of the of the project are the project sponsor and the exec- stakeholders and can reveal paint points which we utive sponsor. The other key people who can have didn’t think. According the size and the importance an influence are the program manager and portfo- of the project, I’m going more or less in the details. lio manager. Secondly, this document has been very useful during my different projects. For example, to remember what has it been decided at the beginning and what’s the goal concretely. It’s also facilitate the on-boarding of new stakeholders. In case of conflict, it’s also very important. Finally, it’s one of the most important document that’s going to document your project. 114

By experience, my advice is always take a little time this stage, the planning of the project is still impre- at the beginning of your project to make a project cise and the initiation phase will help to get a clear planning even if it’s a small project. It takes a little view on plans and budgets. At the end of this phase, bite time but it’s a time well invested. ” the project must be approved by a second committee that will give its agreement to launch the execu- Our consultant Marie Misson shares her experi- tion of the project. This committee will assess the ence: Set-up of a transversal PMO (IT and busi- planning of the project and its budget, based on a ness, cross-border) in a private bank. project plan document. The project manager must also confirm that he has the agreement of the team Mission purpose: leaders in order to allocate resources on its project. “The objective is to set-up a transversal PMO that If approved, the project may start. Furthermore, follows all the projects of the bank and to create a there are always unplanned ideas (not listed in the tailored-made project management methodology yearly roadmap) that must be launched (regulatory with appropriate tools and processes.” requests, priority changes, unplanned technical upgrades,…). We anticipate them by adding a capacity Mission details: reserve (in mandays) to the yearly roadmap. “A good project planning is key in order to have an overview of the progress, to monitor budgets and to A key challenge is to monitor priorities between pro- feed governance with accurate information. After a jects and interactions between project managers few iterations, we established a process in order to and team leaders. It’s even more complex for teams plan and follow projects during the year. that do not only work on projects. The PMO plays a central role between operational teams and projects At the end of the previous year, a first high-level teams and the various boards of the bank.” roadmap is established. It includes the main programs, portfolios and their projects. A first version Mission results: of the planning is suggested with only start and end “We managed to set-up a transversal PMO and to dates, interdependencies and broad budget estima- create a methodology in order to follow all the pro- tions. This high-level roadmap is approved at the jects of the bank. After a few iterations, we have beginning of the year. Throughout the year, projects created processes to feed governance bodies with listed in the roadmap are approved by a first com- accurate information regarding progress, planning mittee (including representatives of transformation and budget. The PMO has a central role as the main office, IT and business teams), in order to launch the interlocutor between the stakeholders and is the initiation phase of the projects: analysis, business guardian of the methodology (training, creation of requirements establishment, scope definition... At processes and tools, change management…).”

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SETUP OF A CHANGE MANAGEMENT PLAN

What? • Issues/challenges to consider and mitigate through the Change Plan. The Change Plan defines the solution to ensure • Change management approach such as change adoption and benefits realization. It out- change commitment curve, change process. lines the change management activities select- • Assumptions and guiding principles such as ed for the projects as needed to move impacted change ownership. stakeholders along the change commitment • An overview of the change solution. curve. Change Plan typically includes any or all of • Key change management activities mapped the following: to the project lifecycle/timeline. • Roles and responsibilities for the change ef- Business readiness • fort. Stakeholder engagement and communica- • • Additional information that is relevant to the tions Change Plan and/or project. • Learning and performance support Organization design • There are essentially two situations where a Talent management/performance manage- • change management planning can be necessary: ment Change leadership development • • The first situation is the situation where you Culture and behaviour change • need to manage an organizational change. • The second situation is the situation where you need to manage a change in de scope of The Change Plan contains: your project.

• An overview of the change and how it fits into The steps to build your change management plan- the project. ning are going to be different in function of the • Project timelines and key dates situation. • A summary of high-level audience impacts 116

Change management planning in a context of organisational change

In the first situation of a change management planning in the scope of an organizational change, you need to follow these steps:

You need to communicate on the reasons of this change and how it is going to Step 1 impact the organizations, teams. …

Identify all the stakeholders who are going to be impacted by this change and try Step 2 to assess the resistance or support level.

Step 3 Put in place a team which is going to manage and responsible for this change.

Define a plan to put in place this change and implicate the stakeholders in this Step 4 definition. It will be easier if the people impacted by the change take part to it and participate actively.

Define the communication plan. In this type of situation, communication is very Step 5 important and cannot be neglected. It’s also important to track and to be able to manage the resistance to change coming from people . 117

Change management planning in a context of project change

In the second situation, you need to put in place a change management planning because the scope of your project needs to be changed.

Step 1 To define the people who are going to manage this change.

Step 2 To define clearly what is going to be the change, the cost, time …

To act this change and write a document that your are going to add to your initial Step 3 project. It’s your proof that everyone agrees with this change, the way that is going to be operated and consequently with the new scope.

Step 4 To track your change and the planning project.

Step 5 Don’t forget to communicate around this change and its progress. 118 119

PROJECT GOVERNANCE AND STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT

1. Definition of stakeholder management

2. Stakeholder management 120

The model

Stakeholder Assessment (High-Level) 121

Change Readiness Assessment (CRA)

Change Readiness Assessment (CRA) approach 122

Potential Change Readiness Assessment (CRA) Formats

Key Objectives of Change Critical Success Factors 123

Change Impact Assessment

ARTICLE

How to setup a good project governance structure

This article describes project governance, its role What is governance? within the organization and the principles, tasks and elements of good governance. It deals with The Cambridge dictionary describes governance the questions: as ‘the way that organizations or countries are managed at the highest level, and the systems • What is governance? Why is it needed? for doing this’, and also: ‘the activity of governing • What are the principles of good governance? something’. • How to assure good governance structures (roles, tasks and elements), can be easily set- Translating this into our world of business organi- up, accepted and maintained? zations and project- and/or program management, • Why is governance critical to project suc- a more precise definition could be: ‘Establishment cess? of policies, and continuous monitoring of their proper implementation, by the members of the Finally, it looks at the traditional governance struc- governing body of an organization. It includes the ture versus agile/scrum governance and describes mechanisms required to balance the powers of the some hands-on tips and tricks to implement good members (with the associated accountability), and governance at every stage of your project. their primary duty of enhancing the prosperity and viability of the organization’. 124

Hence project governance is the management Project governance framework within which project decisions are made. Purpose

The purpose of project governance is to provide a Problem statement: lack of decision-making framework that is logical, robust and repeatable to govern any type of project or pro- organizational knowledge on gram, and independent of the underlying usage of project governance project methodology. In this way, an organization will have a structured approach for conducting Project governance is a critical element of any pro- both its business as usual activities and its busi- ject since typically an organization usually has in ness change, or project-activities. place a ‘static’ governance model through a traditional organization chart but has seldom defined Project governance will formalise the ‘what if’ sce- an equivalent ‘dynamic’ or temporary framework narios in case of issue management (like budget to govern the development of its ongoing projects. restrictions, unforeseen project events, scope Typically, a company’s organization chart provides creep, ...) and decision management. It will resolve a good indication of who in the organization is re- the uncertainties of ‘who can decide what’ in a tem- sponsible for any particular operational activity the porary environment, and it should clarify the roles organization conducts. But not all organizations of all defined and designated stakeholders. have specifically developed a project governance policy or have thought about a proper governance structure upfront when starting up their projects. 125

Principles in place for the life of the project (and is distinct from a Project Management Plan which is more Good project governance is supported by a set of detailed and only comes into existence during the guiding principles: development of the project).

Principle 1: Assure single point of accountability Projects may have many stakeholders and an ef- for the project success fective project governance framework must address their needs. The next principle deals with the Every project needs a clear leadership to assure manner in which this should occur: success. The concept of a single point of accountability is the first principle of effective project gov- Principle 3: Ensure separation of stakeholder man- ernance. agement and project decision making activities. The decision-making effectiveness of a committee However, it is not enough to nominate someone to can be thought of as being inversely proportional be accountable – the right person must be made to its size. Not only can large committees fail to accountable and endorsed/empowered by the make timely decisions, those who do are often senior management to hold sufficient authority ill-considered because of the particular group dy- within the organization. namics at play.

Principle 2: Separate project ownership from As project decision making forums grow in size, stakeholder(s) they tend to morph into stakeholder management groups. When numbers increase, the detailed un- It is imperative that the project lead defines a stake- derstanding of each attendee of the critical project holder map of all its stakeholders and a project issues reduces. Many of the stakeholders tend to specific governance structure for a formal decision attend not to make decisions but as a way of find- process along the project lifecycle. ing out what is happening on the project. Not only is there insufficient time for each person to make The only proven mechanism to ensure that pro- their point, but those with the most valid input jects meet customer and stakeholder needs, while must compete for time and influence with those optimizing value for money, is to allocate the pro- with only a peripheral involvement in the project. ject ownership to a specialist party, that otherwise Further not all present will have the same level of would not be a stakeholder to the project. This is understanding of the issues and so time is wast- principle No. 2 of project governance. ed bringing everyone up to speed on the particular issues being discussed. Hence, to all intents and The Project Owner is engaged under clear terms purposes, large project committees are consti- which outline the organization’s key result areas tuted more as a stakeholder management forum and the organization’s view of the key project stake- than a project decision making forum. This is a holders. Often, organizations establish a Govern- major issue when the project is depending upon ance of Projects Committee, which identifies the the committee to make timely decisions. existence of projects and appoints project owners as early as possible in a project's life, establishes There is no question that both activities, project de- Project Councils which form the basis of customer cision making and stakeholder management, are and stakeholder engagement, establishes the key essential to the success of the project. The issue is result areas for a project consistent with the or- that they are two separate activities and need to be ganisation’s values, and oversees the performance treated as such. This is the third principle of effec- of projects. These parameters are commonly de- tive project governance. If this separation can be tailed in a Project Governance Plan which remains achieved, it will avoid clogging the decision-making 126

forum with numerous stakeholders by constraining fully empower the current steering committee/pro- its membership to only those select stakeholders ject board. The steering committee/project board absolutely central to its success. is responsible for approving, reviewing progress, and delivering the project outcomes, and its intend- There is always the concern that this solution will ed benefits, therefore, they must have capacity to lead to a further problem if disgruntled stakeholders make decisions, which may commit resources and do not consider their needs are being met. What- funding outside the original plan. This is the final ever stakeholder management mechanism that is principle of effective project governance. put in place must adequately address the needs of all project stakeholders. It will need to capture their input and views and address their concerns to their Roles satisfaction. This can be achieved in part by chair- ing of any key stakeholder groups by the chair of PROJECT SPONSOR the Project Board. This ensures that stakeholders A key role in project governance is that of the pro- have the project owner to champion their issues ject sponsor. The project sponsor has three main and concerns within the Project Board. areas of responsibility which are to the board, the project manager and the project stakeholders. Principle 4: Ensure separation of project governance and organizational governance structure The project sponsor engages with stakeholders, governs stakeholder communications, directs Project governance structures are established pre- client relationship, directs governance of users, cisely because it is recognized that organizational directs governance of suppliers and arbitrates be- structures do not provide the necessary frame- tween stakeholders. work to deliver a project. Projects require flexibility and speed of decision making and the hierarchical BOARD mechanisms associated with traditional organiza- The board has overall responsibility for governance tion charts do not enable this. Project governance of project management but is usually not involved structures overcome this by drawing the key deci- in detailed project follow up. It consists of senior sion makers out of the organization structure and managers/executive members and can be called placing them in a forum thereby avoiding the serial upon in case of serious issues such as critical de- decision-making process associated with hierar- cision-making needs, additional budget allocations, chies. urgent risk issues, contingency measures etc...

Consequently, the project governance framework All projects have an approved plan containing au- established for a project should remain separate thorization points, at which the business case is from the organization structure. It is recognized that reviewed and approved. Decisions made at author- the organization has valid requirements in terms of ization points are recorded and communicated. reporting and stakeholder involvement. However Members of delegated authorization bodies need dedicated reporting mechanisms established by to have sufficient representation, competence, au- the project can address the former and the project thority and resources to enable them to make ap- governance framework must itself address the lat- propriate decisions. The project business case is ter. What should be avoided is the situation where supported by relevant and realistic information that the decisions of the steering committee or project provides a reliable basis for making authorization board are required to be ratified by one or more per- decisions. sons in the organization outside of that project decision making forum; either include these individuals The board or its delegated agents decide when in- as members of the project decision making body or dependent scrutiny of projects and project man- 127

agement systems is required and implement such Project stakeholders scrutiny accordingly. Your project stakeholders are usually mid- to senior For the board, the sponsor provides leadership on level management and hand-picked by the project culture and values, owns the business case, keeps sponsor. the project aligned with the organization's strategy and portfolio direction, governs project risk, works A stakeholder is either an individual, group or or- with other sponsors, focuses on realization of ben- ganization who is impacted by the outcome of a efits, recommends opportunities to optimize cost/ project. They have an interest in the success of the benefits, ensures continuity of sponsorship, pro- project and can be within or outside the organiza- vides assurance and provides feedback and les- tion that is sponsoring the project. Stakeholders sons learnt. can have a positive or negative influence on the project and might have their own personal agendas to deal with, therefore stakeholder engagement is The project manager crucial. The first step is to identify all the relevant stakeholders. This seems like a daunting and as- The project manager owns the day-to-day respon- inine task but it is actually key. If one stakeholder sibility of the project. He manages the milestones, is left out, this can derail the entire project and can and information flows that inform decision makers: have a detrimental impact. certain key documents that describe the project, foremost of which is the business case regular re- Steering Committee ports on the project issues and risks escalation Project sponsor, project manager and project The sponsor and the project manager align close- stakeholders usually come together at the Steering ly on timely decisions, clarify the decision-making Committee - to be organized by the project manag- framework, clarify business priorities and strategy, er on a regular basis: communicate on business issues, deal with provi- sioning of resources, engender trust, manage relationships, and promote ethical working within the project team. 128

Tasks and elements of project • A defined method of communication to each governance stakeholder • A set of business-level requirements as Project governance will: agreed by all stakeholders • Outline the relationships between all internal • An agreed specification for the project deliver- and external groups involved in the project ables • Describe the proper flow of information re- • The appointment of a project manager garding the project to all stakeholders • Clear assignment of project roles and respon- • Ensure the appropriate review of issues en- sibilities countered within each project • A current, published project plan that spans all • Ensure that required approvals and direction project stages from project initiation through for the project is obtained at each appropriate development to the transition to operations. stage of the project. • A system of accurate upward status- and progress-reporting including time records. Important specific elements of good project gov- • A central document repository for the project ernance include: • A centrally-held glossary of project terms • A compelling business case, stating the ob- • A process for the management and resolu- jects of the project and specifying the in- tion of issues that arise during the project scope and out-of-scope aspects • A process for the recording and communica- • A mechanism to assess the compliance of tion of risks identified during the project the completed project to its original objec- • A standard for quality review of the key gov- tives ernance documents and of the project deliv- • Identifying all stakeholders with an interest in erables. the project 129

Traditional governance versus Final Thoughts: Why Is Project Agile/Scrum governance Governance Critical to the Success of a Project? Establishing project governance is not a simple task. Significant investment on this task needs to Establishing a good project governance is not a be made when embarking on a new project. It is simple task. Significant investment needs to be often challenging to quantify what the benefits are made when embarking on a new project. It is often when it comes to investing in the creation of the challenging to quantify what the benefits are when project governance framework. it comes to investing in the creation of the project governance framework. The following are four key While the traditional governance tends to put in benefits of project governance: place a rather formal governance structure while Agile promotes in principle a more self-steering • Single point of accountability; control of the project team members, it is in my • Outlines roles, responsibility and relationships opinion wise to use common sense in setting up a among project stakeholders; proper governance for your project, irrespective of • Issue management and resolution; and the underlying methodology used. These are some • Information dissemination and transparent recommendations to do so: communication.

• Assure that all your defined governance bod- Project governance provides a single point of ac- ies are actively involved and can add value to countability. This mandates clarity and fosters your project. Do not over-engineer your gov- consistency of decision making for the lifecycle ernance with entities that are only there for of the project. By appointing one focal point of ac- political reasons, but do not contribute value. countability, the individual's primary focus will be • Setup your governance structure (steerco on delivering on the project's objectives and will members, issue management, governance be not be deterred for the duration of the project. meeting agendas) as ‘lean’ as possible, and This does not mean that there will be “one throat trust your project team in decision making to choke,” but one person will be responsible for the abilities until proven otherwise direction and focus of the project and having multi- (Agile principle) ple individuals accountable will not blur this. • Use common sense to manage governance agenda’s: it’s always difficult to have everyone In addition, project governance defines and clear- aboard for every (governance) meeting – use ly articulates structured roles, responsibilities and the principle to confirm the meeting if at least accountabilities within the project, which also fa- half of the invitees have accepted. cilitates decision making. This is critical when the • Manage your stakeholders carefully – ulti- project manager has a deviation in scope, budget, mately, they will make or break the project in time, resources, or quality, or when a risk has pre- case of red-zone issues. sented itself. Project governance defines whom • Always take time to de-escalate team mem- these issues impact and how to deal with the im- ber issues, do not neglect or delay. pact.

The governance framework will provide ’guidelines’ on how to deal with issues on the project. Not only does it define to whom the issues impact, but also it details mechanisms for how to deal with the issues. It ensures that the appropriate review on the issues is done and who are the key points 130

of contact for addressing and approving any devi- Finally, project governance provides a vehicle for ations in the project requirements. Project govern- information gathering and reporting to all stake- ance provides direction and defines decision-mak- holders. This framework ensures that the commu- ing procedures and metrics for validating impacts nication plan is well defined, updated and execut- to the project. It also enables the project team to ed. It also facilitates consistent, standardized and deliver on requirements and creates a forum for is- transparent reporting. This promotes nibble status sue resolution to occur in a timely manner. updates on productivity as well as communicates and addresses stakeholder expectations.

About the Author

Frank Smits is a managing consultant at Initio Belgium, with over 20 years of hands-on project-, program management and business case management experience. He is also a certified Agile/Scrum product owner. 131

OVERVIEW PROJECT TOOLS

CA ClarityTM PPM

Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project is a project management software product developed and sold by Microsoft.

Features

Project plan Resources management

• creation of tasks and milestones • project team creation • prioritization • resource definition (people, equipment • links between tasks and materials) • duration and workload estimation • shared resource pool (between projects) • graphical representations (Gantt chart, • resources assignment network of tasks, …) • team planner • resource audit

Budget management Progress track & workload analysis

• costs calculation • project data analysis • overtime management • reports • comparison (initial budget VS calculated • Export in Microsoft Excel or Microsoft costs) Visio

Communication

• copy of the Gantt chart • printing • exportable timeline to Microsoft PowerPoint or in an electronic message

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CA Clarity PPM

CA Clarity PPM is an integrated solution part of CA technologies known as Computer Associates International, Inc. and CA, Inc. Flexibility to choose Waterfall (Traditional), Agile (Scum) or Hybrid planning in the same project.

Features

Project plan Scheduling and staffing

• support for any level of project planning • timesheets creation by users • project plan automatically built based • automatically linked to their assignments on project managers’ answers to project • time spent working on tasks and incident profile questions • billing charges and explanatory notes • key tasks, milestones, role assignments attached and forms • auto-populating timesheets • tasks management against a timeline • timesheet approval before being • deliverables tracked submitted to billing • Browser based WBS management • timesheets enabled for workflows (split • project baselines (forecasted tasks and approval allowed) effort with current requirements and • offline timesheets original budgets comparison, ..) • complete access for the PM to all of the • costs control work and the costs associated • custom fields and pages creation

Program management Risk, change management

• Project roll-up into programs (enabling • PMBOK-compliant risk scoring projects to be grouped into programs) • Risk sorting and filtering (risk mitigation • Program and project level planning strategies) • Program dashboard (to see whether the • Portfolio risk assessment (risk scores overall project portfolio is on track in terms rolled up to the project portfolio in CA of budget, issues, schedule,..) Clarity PPM) • milestones and risk profile • Program drill-down (assess risk and ROI, actual spending versus budget, forecast cost expenditure and expected benefit delivery) • Benefit realization graph (top-down program benefit estimates with bottom-up project accruals comparison)

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JIRA SOFTWARE

Originally, Jira is a proprietary issue tracking product developed by Atlassian. Currently, Jira Software is a project management tool for agile teams.

Features

Project plan Boards and reports

• user stories creation • real time • issues creation • visual data • sprint planning • customizable scrum board • tasks distribution • flexible Kanban board • tracking (complete visibility) • agile reporting (out-of-the-box reports • agile roadmap planning (with the Portfolio with real time) for Jira app) • out-of-the-box workflow or created one to • plan shared with stakeholders match the way team works • workflow upgraded with Confluence, Bitbucket, and hundreds of other developer tools 134

OPEN WORKBENCH

Open Workbench is a free project management software focused on scheduling.

Features

• work breakdown structure definition • dependencies and resource constraints setting • resources to tasks assignment • tasks scheduling based on resource effort (VS MS Project’s default scheduling method based on task duration) • Progress monitoring Initio Belgium NV Boulevard Brand Whitlock 60 1200 Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe

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