Managing Successful Programmes

I’m planning to attend Agile Approaches for Delivering Business Value next week.

It looks like an interesting set of sessions, and although I doubt I’ll be liveblogging, I aim to post some notes here as soon afterwards as I can.

I’m particularly interested in two of the talks on the second day:

“A Square Peg in a Round Hole: Agile and fixed-price contracts” by Duncan Pierce;

“When XP Met Outsourcing” by Angela Martin.

In my current environment almost all our systems development is carried out by suppliers in various contractual models, and I’ve hit some frustrations in getting acceptance of Agile methods. I’m keen to learn how others may have constructed a “win-win” in this sort of situation.

(cross-posted on main blog)

Via Brad Appleton’s excellent post of links to Agile Programme Management resources, a paper on Combining Agile Methods with Stage-Gate Project Management.

Based on studies in three engineering companies, the conclusion is that are benefits from both the management and engineering perspective.

Good things:

• Agile method add microplanning and day-to-day control to the stage-gate methods
• Engineering teams felt more in control of their work
• Stage-gate approach improves ability of agile methods to interact with other engineering teams, other functions (such as marketing) and senior management.

Things to watch out for:

• Need to manage expectations
• Challenge on large projects of finding a “customer representative” as required by Agile methods