Time Box Project Management A Real World Example

Sunil Sreenivasan President, Citibank Singapore

Sunil and Citibank e-Citi Initiative 1998 – Citibank Chairman John Reed saw the need to focus on e-commerce (read, conversion to digits and bits) in consumer and commercial banking. Reed commissioned the formation of E-Citi to focus on emerging technologies and their relationships to new product development. Funding model was a form of taxation on each worldwide business unit based on relative revenue contribution. In one year, E-Citi spent $1.4 billion and delivered zero products to market.

Sunil and Citibank e-Citi Initiative 1999 – Sunil decided enough was enough. He convinced the other Citibank regions in Asia-Pacific to revolt and refuse to pay the “tax”. He embarked on an alternative model to E-Citi. This new team was called e-Team. This new team was composed on top line producers from all business lines. This commitment of high-revenue producing people to this initiative was intended to send a message of top management commitment to the new initiative.

Sunil and Citibank e-Citi Initiative 2000 – I was recommended to Sunil to serve as a consultant to his initiative. This new adventure resulted in 11 round trips to Singapore in 10 months! Through this project, my collaboration with e-Team resulted in today’s discussion – the time box approach

Time Box Project Management Based on the premise that it is better to have a working system with limited functionality than to wait for years to have a complete system. The project team can guarantee the delivery of the most important requirements on specific dates, with other requirements scheduled for release on successive dates. As opposed to conventional project management, the resource under strict control became time rather than money. As you can imagine, this was a major paradigm shift for bankers!

Basic Time Box Execution Software Process Basic Time Box Execution Linear Timeboxing Requirements Build Deploy TB1 TB2 Software Requirements Build Deploy TB1 TB2 TB3 TB4 Pipelined Timeboxing

Linear Timeboxing This itself very useful in many situations Has predictable delivery times Overall product release and marketing can be better planned Makes time a non-negotiable parameter and helps focus attention on schedule Prevents requirements bloating Overall development time is still unchanged

Pipelined Timeboxing Multiple iterations executing in parallel Software Process Pipelined Timeboxing Multiple iterations executing in parallel Can reduce the average completion time by exploiting parallelism For parallel execution, can borrow pipelining concepts from hardware This leads to Pipelined Timeboxing Process Model

Pipelined Timeboxing Model – Basics Software Process Pipelined Timeboxing Model – Basics Development is done iteratively in fixed duration time boxes Each time box divided in fixed stages Each stage performs a clearly defined task that can be done independently Each stage approximately equal in duration There is a dedicated team for each stage When one stage team finishes, it hands over the project to the next team

Software Process Brook’s Law “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later". Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month (1975)

Motivation for Timeboxing an Iteration Parkinson’s Law “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” The team has to focus on making decisions to deliver available executable and tested products or components on a given date. Otherwise resources are wasted, project is killed, and little is accomplished. But, in the end, much is saved!

Citibank A-Pac e-Team Timebox E-Team Notification Time 0 Exco Decision Time 1 Default position is “YES” Proof of Concept Time 2 Prep for Market Time 3 Product Launch Time 4 48 Hours 7 Days 90 Days 90 Days Project Cycle 189 Days Project termination Next phase Learning feedback Best practices update

Time Box Project Management Discussion

Time Box Project Management A Real World Example