Primavera goes Agile

Case Study 3: Primavera Gets Agile

CIS 525

Strayer University

Case Study 3: Primavera Gets Agile

TABLE OF CONTENT

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….…..3

Identify the problems with Primavera’s development organization prior to its adoption of agile strategies…………………………………………………………………………………….…….4

Analyze if agile techniques should be considered in solving Primavera’s problems. Support your response……………………………………………………………………………………………5

Identify and evaluate Primavera’s strategies and steps on adopting agile methodologies………..6

Identify the challenges and obstacles Primavera was facing at its first attempt with agile project management and analyze how Primavera removed those obstacles………………………………7

Analyze why agile methodology that Primavera used produced better and bigger business values than traditional project management methodologies………………………………………..……8

Explain Primavera’s business development since the publication of this case study. Analyze agile’s continued impact on Primavera’s project management and its economic growth………..9

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….10

References…………………………………………………………………………………….….11

Introduction

The popular buss word now is Agile in any IT project, this is because, it has considerable impact on how projects are planned and executed. In this era of modern technology, we see most organizations are implementing agile methodology;this management approach is useful for vendor of project portfoliomanagement solutions. Some may argue that traditional methods like waterfall approaches are well-established scientific management principles that will lead to high quality project portfolios;Primavera contend that agile methodologies have the distinctive attributes of a job-shop or craft industry and are the paramount approach for project portfolio management solutions.

In order to answer the research questions, this monogram willidentify the problems with Primavera’s development organization prior to its adoption of agile strategies,Analyze if agile techniques should be considered in solving Primavera’s problems. Furthermore, the paper will identify and evaluate Primavera’s strategies and steps on adopting agile methodologies and Identify the challenges and obstacles Primavera was facing at its first attempt with agile project management and analyze how Primavera removed those obstacles (University of Strayer Materials, July, 2014).

Problems with Primavera’s development organization prior to its adoption of agile strategies

Outdated waterfall technique: The Waterfall technique used before the adoption of agile techniques the system was too outdated where one step is dependent on the other and the other step can only start after the completion of the first step.

No proper timing while scheduling the time limit for the project: It has been mentioned in the project that the subsequent steps were not planned and once the marketing team gives the document describing the requirement to the production team the release is then planned (Chubirka et al, 2013). Scheduling is done haphazardly where hundreds of projects were scheduled by their developers and other people.

Command and control system: The system works with a command and control system which seems to be opted out of the system in many of the companies. These days the successful companies try and include all the employees in the decision making of the project and giving them a sense of responsibility and increasing their morale.

Changes added in the middle of each system: The requirements were been taken by the customers in the middle of the project and between the release date the changes were been taken which would have postponed the release of the product according to the schedule.

Release time problem: Due to the mismanagement the release date the changes were been postponed and the product ran out of the schedule.

Unable to meet change management: The major problem which the Primavera was facing was the change management because of the complexity in the working environment. Change management is a very painful process and it often erupted into argument.

Analyze if agile techniques should be considered in solving Primavera’s problems. Support your response

Agile techniques should be used to solve the current issues faced by the company as agile techniques normally being used by the software industry help the business to act in response under the unpredictable situations faced. In Agile methodologies opportunities are been provided to evaluate whether the project is under the direction all through its development cycle. All this is being accomplished with the help of regular tempo kept in work, and the teams must show a product which is having the desired potential.

Focus is kept on the recurrence of condensed work cycles and also at the functional product yielded by the outcome, but in waterfall technique only once chance is been given to the development team to keep the project aspects right. But under the agile technique each and every feature of development including the design, requirements, is thoroughly checked under its lifecycle (Mahfuj et al, 2012). There is always some time to steer in another direction if a team stops at regular interval say after every two weeks and re-evaluates the project done.

This “inspect-and-adapt” technique reduces the development cost and release time for the project is kept within the schedule time. With the help of Agile development methodology the team and company can build a right product acceptable by the customer. Agile empowers teams to replan their release and its optimal value increases all through the development project, giving the project outcome competitiveness in the market. A products user relevance in the market increases with the help of agile methodologies in the development of the product.

Identify and evaluate Primavera’s strategies and steps on adopting agile methodologies

Sprint review: With the help of sprint review the work is been demonstrated to the management by each team giving enough confidence in to the management and also in the team that the project can be completed within the time and according to the need of the customer (Chubirka et al, 2013).

Team work: It is a universal proven fact that team work is a strategy that will definitely work under any given situation and when teams come out of their cubicles they like to share their views and decisions hence making the work easier for Primavera.

Cross functionality: One of the strategies used for implementing the agile techniques was the cross functioning of the project where each and every employee gathers experience of the other department and also raises the employee morale.

Change management: When the entire staff of 90 people was divided in to a team size of 10 people each the work is being divided among them and giving them a chance to handle the change and plan the schedule accordingly.

Self-management approach: Under the order and control system no team can be motivated and could be brought together to work as a team. But under the self-management approach the team and its members can manage themselves and perform better.

Identify the challenges and obstacles Primavera was facing at its first attempt with agile project management

Cross functioning issue –Before implementation of the agile techniques it never happened that the cross functioning was prevalent in the company. Under the waterfall technique the employee was only concerned of his own performance and never took any interest in the functioning of the other tasks. But after the scrum was introduced in the Primavera the employees started to do multi or cross functioning.

Quality Issue –When Primavera first introduced the Scrum technique in the system the issues faced by the management was the quality issue and it became important to have a feedback system with the help of which we can have the views and approval of the people associated with the project.

Speeding up of work – It was become quite difficult to keep the pace, and checking progress of the project at the same time. As said in the case that at a speed of 90mph it becomes difficult to drive by seeing in the rear view mirror. For the employee working in Primavera who was familiar with the waterfall technique of the working felt the burn under the SCRUM agile technique as they were facing the difficulty of speeding their work but at the same time the team working and morale development help the team members to complete the schedule work in time.

Change Management – One of the major problems that confronted the development team was that the problems kept on coming and then they realized that due to the changing environment the problems are bound to occur. But this is the nature of the agile techniques to keep on solving the changing problems at the site.

Analyze why agile methodology that Primavera used produced better and bigger business values

Agile methodologies have definitely produced better result than the traditional methodologies because of the following points:

It can meet the Change management – More and more requirements were being changed or added in the middle of release schedules. The relationships between development and the other departments were strained. The releases were not meeting the ever-changing market needs and the time frames between releases were unacceptable to their customers. Just to start a release, marketing and development would have to meet for several months to devise a plan that would optimally employ all of the staff on the release. Unfortunately, the plan went out-of-date the day it was published as the marketplace and customers demanded changes (ORG et al, 2014). Change management, or as it was called then, Change Control was a very painful process that often erupted into arguments.

It brings the team together, hence creating a good team work feel

Cross functionality benefit – under the guidance of Scrum they now employ cross-functional teams. Everyone on a team is responsible for doing whatever they can to build the best increment possible. If this means that the tester needs to help analysts write specifications for the coders, that’s what happens. By using cross-functional teams, various aspects of the increment are inspected from all different angles as it is developed, increasing the overall quality (MT et al, 2013),

Timely reviewing

Release time gets as per schedule

Quality level gets high

Sharing of understanding is present in the agile techniques used

Stakeholder involvement is high

Self-management and responsibility comes with agile methodologies

Primavera’s business development since the publication of this case study

Over the years Primavera has done a tremendous work in the field of IT software, today Primavera has collaborated with Oracle and produced products like Oracle Primavera which is one of the top Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM) solutions for project-intensive industries. Oracle Primavera enables enterprise agility, team productivity, portfolio predictability and overall project management efficiency. It offers best-in-class capabilities focused on mission critical PPM requirements of industries like engineering & construction, discrete and process manufacturing, public administration, financial services and others. With the help of Oracle Primavera the result achieved is to risk minimizing, cost cutting, and result delivery to the most important stakeholders.

Conclusion

The hardest change for the organization was the backsliding. Allowing members of the team to figure out how to work together rather than telling them how to work together is a major shift in management philosophy.

References

Mahfuj (2012), “Agile Methodology”, Referred from http://www.slideshare.net/MahediMahfujAnik/agile-methodology-14523691

ORG (2014), “Agile Methodology”, Referred from http://agilemethodology.org/

Chubirka (2013), “Agile vs. Waterfall development: Embracing each method appropriately”, Referred from http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/opinion/Agile-vs-Waterfall-development-Embracing-each-method-appropriately

MT (2013), “Agile project management”, referred from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/agile-project-management.htm