1. Time Box Project Management
A Real World Example

2. Sunil Sreenivasan President, Citibank Singapore

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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!

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

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

12. 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!

13. 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

14. Time Box Project Management
Discussion

15. Time Box Project Management
A Real World Example