Overview Of Traditional And Agile Project Management Approaches

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

INTRODUCTION

"He, who fails to plan, plans to fail." As once said by my lecturer, Mr.Goolamally. This saying cannot be overemphasized as everyday activities require proper planning and effective use of time and resources. It is important to note that proper project planning could lead to effective project management, and applying the right approach to project management is essential to every successful project delivery.

Even though project work may never occur as planned, proper planning helps to reduce uncertainty and also to analyse risk that may be associated with the project beforehand. Project planning according to PMBok (2008) is a process required to establish the scope of the project, refine the objectives, and define the course of action required to attend the objectives that the project was undertaken to achieve.

This essay sets out to critically analyse and contrast the traditional and agile project management approaches, and will explore some of the tools, techniques, models and project life cycle models used in the project planning process. In more details, this essay will set out two planning tools and analyse them with clear justification.

OVERVIEW OF TRADITIONAL AND AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT APPROACHES

The Traditional approach otherwise called "Heavyweight methodology" is acknowledged to be the initial way of developing software. The proposed philosophies are dependent upon successive progression of steps for example requirement analysis, design, coding, testing, and support. Accepted procedures are plan-driven i.e. work starts with the elicitation and fitting documentation of a complete set of requirement.

According to Dawson (2009), it represents a unidirectional, sequential process – once a stage has been completed, the results of that stage become a fixed baseline from which the following stages develop – there is no revision.

In addition, Traditional project management approach has many methodologies like; Waterfall model, Spiral model, Unified process etc. These methodologies however involve very disciplined and deliberate planning processes. For example, the waterfall model emphasizes a structured progression between defined phases. Every stage creates a deliverable; normally an archive that catches what the stage has fulfilled (Teresa, Joseph. 2006).

Although these phases are always named differently, the basic idea is that the first phase tries to capture what the system will do, its system and software requirements. The second phase determines how it will be designed, the third stage is where the developers start writing the code, while the fourth phase is the Testing of the system and the final phase is focused on implementation tasks such as training and heavy documentation. According to Kathy Schwalbe (2010), "the waterfall life cycle model has well-defined, linear stages of systems analysis, design, construction, testing and support. This life cycle model assumes that requirements will remain stable after they are defined".

Agile on the other hand, denotes "the quality of being agile; nimbleness, activity readiness for motion; dexterity in motion" as mentioned in the (Oxford Dictionary,1895). Change they say is constant! As always it evolves around us, new challenges are met every day and a high demand for the development of yesterday’s practice is necessary. (John Naisbitt, 1982)

In an attempt to offer once again an answer to the business community asking for faster, lighter and nimbler software development processes. Agile tends to answer the calling as it is designed to adapt to change and can be used when the goal is clearly defined but how to reach the goal the solution is not (Robert K. Wysocki, 2009). Robert in his own words says that, "Agile was first codified through the ‘Agile Manifesto’ put forth by Martin Fowler and Jim Highsmith. This manifesto however has been a guiding principle in all Agile Project management (APM) models". (Robert K. Wysocki, 2009).

Agile like Traditional methodology has several methods such as; Scrum, Extreme programming, Dynamic system development method, feature driven development, lean software development to mention but the few. In a nutshell, scrum is an iterative, incremental process for developing any product or managing any work. Scrum concentrates on how the team members should function in order to produce the system flexibility in a constantly changing environment. The term ‘Scrum’ originated from a strategy in the game of rugby where it denotes "getting an out-of-play ball back into the game" with teamwork

(K. Schwaber, M. Beedle, 2001).

Moreover, the scrum team being led by the "Scrum Master" is responsible for the process, teaching, implementing and delivering expected benefits and ensuring that everyone follows scrum rules and practices. The scrum team usually consists of about five to nine members including the product owner and the scrum master. Scrum does not require or provide any specific software development methods to be used, instead it relies on certain practice and tools in different phases of scrum to avoid chaos by unpredictability and complexity (L. Rising, N. S. Janoff, pp. 26-32 , 2000 ).

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TRADITIONAL AND AGILE PROJECT PLANNING

According to B. Biafore (2011), the initial plan in Agile project management is at a high level and does not include much detail. However, it develops a partial plan based on the highest priority deliverables as more details plans for additional work are developed during the Iteration. In contrast, Traditional project management requires big design upfront definition and comprehensive documentation of a stable set of requirement at the beginning of the project (Biafore. B, 2011).

Secondly, Agile lays its emphasis on meeting stakeholder’s requirement and target, As a result of that, its supports changes and allows immediate modification of the product requirement on each phase of delivery. While on the other hand, Traditional approach conforms to process and gives priority to documented requirements. This requirement however serves as a baseline to project throughout the project lifecycle. In the real world of business today, the window of opportunity is narrowing and constantly moving, the best fit project management approach recognizes the realities of frequent change accommodate it and embrace it (Robert K. Wysocki, 2009).

Thirdly, Traditional approach states out the steps for development and stresses the importance of requirement. Moreover, it assumes that events affecting the project are predictable and that tools and techniques are well understood if proper documentation and planning is done (Kathleen Hass, 2007). While Agile involves minimal documentation as the team relies almost exclusively on information and internal communication with the client. Again, this is different from the heavyweight where a considerable amount of time is invested in planning and production of a significant amount of requirement documentation (Kathleen Hass, 2007).

Finally, One of the differences of Agile is its emphasis on smaller development teams (which are invariably working together in open plan offices); and face-face communication with the users who are quite often based in the same working environment as the developers (C, Dawson 2009). This however is very essential as more client involvement reduces uncertainty in a project. While traditional approach clearly states stakeholder’s desired expectations before initiating a project. However it gives the project team a comprehensive understanding of the project aim and objectives.

As interesting as it may sound, it is important to note that these approaches (Agile and Traditional) are not without their challenges and limitations. According to Kathleen Hass, The limitations of traditional approach are that projects rarely follow the sequential flow, and clients usually finds it difficult to completely states all requirements early in the project (Kathleen Hass, 2007). While agile development is more difficult for larger teams. As size grows, coordinating interface becomes a dominant issue. Communication breakdown becomes more complex and difficult with a larger number of developers.

TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES IN PROJECT PLANNING PROCESS

Project planning involves the establishment of project requirements and objectives; however this is done with various tools and techniques. Some of the basic tools required in project planning are: Gantt chart, Work breakdown Structure (WBS), Critical path analysis and PERT Chart, Project proposal etc. Each of these tools is used to archive different task such as; project time estimation, resources requirement and gaining approval.

Gantt charts were developed almost 100 years ago by Henry L, Gantt, a mechanical engineer and manager consultant. His goal was to design a chart that could show planned and actual progress on a complex project (Gary B, Thomas J and Rosenblatt, 2010). Additionally, Gantt charts provides a standard format for displaying project schedule information by listing project activities and their corresponding start and finish dates in a calendar format(Kathy Schwalbe, 2010).

While Work breakdown structure is a deliverable oriented hierarchical decomposition of work to be executed by the project team. This tool can be used to monitor and control a project as it states what to be done and by whom.

Linear Project life cycle is the process of executing the five process groups in a straight line order. There is no looping back to repeat a process group based on learning from a later process group. This however is a major weakness of Linear PMLC as knowledge gained from one process group cannot be used to revise and improve the deliverables from a previously completed process group (Robert K. Wysocki, 2009).

While the Incremental PMLC deliver the project objectives in an incremental approach according to schedule. This means a partial solution is initially released and at a later point in time, the additional parts are added until the final increment is released to complete the solution.

According to Donald Reifer, using an incremental life-cycle model is critical because many of the conflicts observed are rooted in the all up-front thinking that comes with the single-increment waterfall model. Incremental thinking is fundamental to agile methods and crucial to bridging the two methods (Donald J, et al. 2006)

Explained below are the processes in the Linear and incremental project life cycle.

FIGURE 1.1 Linear and incremental Project Life Cycle Model (Robert K. Wysocki, 2009).

Adaptive PMLC model consists of a number of phases that are repeated in cycles, with a feedback loop after each cycle is completed. Each cycle proceeds based on an incomplete and limited understanding of the solution. Each cycle learns from the preceding cycle and plans the next cycle in an attempt to converge on an acceptable solution. At the discretion of the client, a cycle may release a partial solution.

Unlike the iterative model, where some of the features are missing or not clearly defined. As the name implies, iteration is the repetition of the processes until the desired functionality or project requirement is met. The diagram below explains the iterative flow of each process.

FIGURE 1.2 Iterative Project Life Cycle Model (Robert K. Wysocki, 2009).

If at this stage the stakeholders are not satisfied with the deliverables, Next Iteration is introduced and the processes are re-initiated from the Plan Iteration. Once the expected outcome is met, the last process which is Close Project is executed (Robert K. Wysocki, 2009).

CONCLUSSION

It is apparent that there are two sides to the coin. While traditional approaches are best use when the requirement is clear and properly stated out; Agile on the other hand, works perfectly well when the requirement is vague and uncertain by both the client and the project manager. However, these two approaches till date seem to be among the best methodologies in the history of project management and should be used in the manner stated above.