1. Attend|Learn|Grow Taking Your Career to the Next Level
4th Annual Professional Development Days!
May 23-24th, 2018

2. Larry Schriver 29 years - primarily software development and
maintenance
Several IT shops using various software development approaches
Collection of observations and comparisons

3. How can I take my career to the next level?
By gaining knowledge and skills that create opportunities to lead business change in a variety of business situations
We are marketable to a wider selection of organizations

4. Selecting the Approach
Waterfall?
PRINCE2?
Agile Scrum?

5. What’s to stop us from using elements of all 3 approaches?
Or other approaches?

6. Many things are common across approaches
There is already overlap in PM processes
Initiate
Manage Scope
Manage Risk
Manage issues
Estimate
report progress
Manage dependencies

7. Variations
When the artifacts are delivered When the code is delivered When the code is tested

8. Overview of Approaches
Waterfall
PRINCE2
Agile Scrum

9. Waterfall
Initiate
Plan
Analyze
Design
Construct
Test
Implement
Close

10. PRINCE2 Startup Initiate Manage Stage Boundary Control Stage
Manage Product Delivery
Close Project

11. Scrum Initiate Release Planning
Sprints: stories/design/construct/test/demo
“Minimum Viable Product”
Close

12. Pros and Cons
Situation-dependent

13. Waterfall - pros
Allows different groups to complete their work at pre-defined stages
Groups can provide value to the organization on other projects / meet operational commitments while development continues

14. Waterfall - pros
The team builds deep knowledge of the desired functionality
onboarding a new team member less disruptive than other approaches

15. Waterfall pros
Developers with much experience with an application can design from the user perspective

16. Waterfall - cons
Incomplete or inaccurate requirements result in major re-work

17. Waterfall - cons
Takes longer to deliver initial business value than some other approaches…probably

18. PRINCE2 – pros
Excellent templates for project definition and execution

19. PRINCE2 – pros
Can be used in virtually every situation

20. PRINCE2 – pros Much focus on gating
Business owners have control – and understanding - at each stage

21. PRINCE2 - cons Large amount of documentation is required up front
The Project Initiation Documentation can be time consuming

22. Scrum - Pros PM and the team are “close to the action” daily
-ability to identify problems immediately -

23. Scrum - Pros
“Minimum Viable Product” means deliver business value as early as possible

24. Scrum - cons Much re-factoring of code
(examine some of the Manifesto principles here)

25. Scrum - cons
Probably much more re-testing required than the other approaches, especially regression testing
Do we have automated testing tools and the knowledge to build scripts for regression?

26. Scrum - cons
Getting the MVP live with the intent to develop more phases results in:
planning and executing multiple system implementations, and
developing the next enhancements, and
supporting production application
at the same time
stress

27. How do we determine the best approach?
If we work in an organization that uses a single approach the decision is already made for us But if recognize serious constraints, can we promote another way?

28. What is our daily objective?
Predictable
and
Repeatable

29. Predictable and Repeatable
What are the questions we need to ask?
What are the PM processes we need to implement?
Considerations

30. Scenario 1 Entire team is in-house Business Team is experienced
Technical team is experienced
Both business and technical teams have worked with Waterfall, PRINCE2 and Scrum
Existing technical architecture – enhance existing application

31. Scenario 1 Conclusion – Part 1
Scrum using story points and sub-tasks with hours of effort/burndown
But only if both the business team and technical team accept that each task will be estimated (ideally before before next sprint) for burndown reporting
Immediate awareness of sprint deadline being missed
PRINCE2 artifacts:
PID
Highlight Report, Exception Report
…however…

32. Scenario 1 Conclusion - Part 2
...if the team wishes to manage the work based on story points, I would reconsider: With such an experienced team, a waterfall approach might work just as well because of the increased chances of getting the major requirements right

33. Sample Burndown Chart

34. Scenario 2 Summary Entire team is in-house
Business Team is experienced
Technical team is experienced
Both business and technical teams have worked with Waterfall, PRINCE2 and Scrum
New technical architecture – microservices introduced for deployment efficiencies

35. Scenario 2 Conclusion – Part 1
New architecture – Scrum by default?

36. Scenario 2 Conclusion – Part 2
Waterfall prototype?

37. Insourced/Outsourced perspective is relevant
Internal perspective – we want resourcing to be adequate External perspective – gaps in roles might mean there’s an opportunity to hire another resource

38. Each individual situation will have its own best approach

39. “Taking Your Career to the Next Level” Summary
Gain knowledge and skills that allow us to work around organizational constraints
Predictable and Repeatable

40. Questions / Discussion