A few months ago my software developer colleagues infected me with the bacillus ‚agile‘. My immune system was already weakend by the intensive theoretical examination of the principles and planning processes of classical project management in the course of the preperation for a PM certification.
Then I saw the first production line of a renown european aircraft company that was redesigned by practising diverse lean management methods (e.g. Kanban) and better visualization. At the same time, first rumours were heard from my SAP-related colleagues, that CIOs are interested in ‚Scrum‘ – one of the agile PM methods – to force their projects to more consistent success: from their development executives they heard, that one could improve software-/product quality while still saving resources, i.e. money … Woh!
Felt similarities with lean principles are not accidental: the agile methods were partly derived from lean management principles centuries ago and adapted to the fastly growing complexity of software development projects.
I was flashed by the agile manifesto, the constitution of agile methods. Especially the focus it sets to people and their cooperation and their reaction to changes instead of following obsolete project plans! And the way, communication is institutionalized within the agile management framework Scrum, gave me new inspiration for my nearly burried hope for working in (expert) networks with a lively knowledge exchange and culture of co-operation even within grown and large companies.
According to diverse studies still about a third of all projects are said to fail or die due to lack of communication and transparency (incomplete, unknows requirements can also be subsumed)! So, the everlasting question is, how do you institutionalize direct communication and transparency? Is it possible without a massive cultural change in some organisations?
And how can we carry this philosophy into the rest of the organisation? How can colleagues profit from those principles?
These considerations brought a German consultancy into my focus, that already supports client companies in managing change to more ‚agility‘ in also using the agile management framework ‚Scrum‘ for the change initialization itself.
They present their ideas in open seminars. My course will start in April and will be continued in September with part 2. So I will report on this later.
Have a great time in exploring lean, agile and scrum yourself for the moment.
What are the success factors of your projects? What makes them difficult?
Share your experience and challanges with us!