Agile Project Planning - what are the planning myths?
Don’t be fooled by the latest fad in project management, Agile. Agile is pitched as a revolutionary method, but the fact is, it simply DOES NOT GET THE RESULTS that visual waterfall approaches do. Period.
We see team after team fail using Agile methods, for very specific reasons. Let’s look at the painful TRUTHs of using Agile methods:
To optimize project speed, a variety of tools are needed, not just sprints and standup meetings. Mapping the critical path, finding all dependencies, and visually laying out the path forward are all critical elements of success. In fact, they are absolutely REQUIRED to execute effectively and achieve goals. This is true even for highly innovative projects where details are not known a priori and flexibility is needed. The Agile methodology strips away some of the most critical, proven project management tools, leaving teams "flying blind". This leads to unnecessary chaos that radically slows progress.
All planning techniques must adapt to change. Agile is not a magical method that allows for teams to react to change in a way that other methods do not. The reality is that all project teams must work dynamically. If a change to intermediate or end goals is needed, or an innovation or market shift drives a change of direction, teams must re-scope and get the change immediately into the planning. (That is, if they cannot eliminate or defer the scope creep.)
Agile tools are nothing new. In fact, they're just a rebranded subset of techniques the best project managers have been using for decades. For example, sprints serve to keep the team focused on achieving near-term deliverables. Effective PM's always keep near term deliverables front-and-center and hold people accountable to the deadlines. Another example is the stand-up meeting, again, something effective PM's have always used for rapid-fire daily updates to drive urgency without getting bogged down. Standup meetings are only truly effective within the context of a detailed plan – team members must understand and report on those actions due each week to achieve the critical path milestone deadlines.
Agile project management DOES NOT provide visibility to top-level project goals and dependencies among deliverables. Sprints are fine, but projects are often complex marathons. A team making sprints without seeing the master plan and context is just spinning its wheels. Teams that sprint from point to point without a clear idea of the big-picture route lose their way, wasting precious time and resources. Agile methods completely fail to "connect the dots" among dependencies (the waterfall), leading to avoidable delays. Sadly, we see it all the time.
Action is not the same as progress. Agile is deceptive because it provides the illusion of speed, while actually causing confusion, thereby slowing things down. Agile methods keep teams busy, but their activity is often not aligned with top-level project goals. Misaligned actions that don't drive toward the desired business goals are the very definition of wasted resources.
Team organization is TERRIBLE with Agile. Teams get stuck closing out tickets with no vision of the overall project roadmap. It's like a fog has descended – no one can explain the importance of assigned deliverables and no one is clear on what the milestones are. This leads to a lack of accountability for results. How many software teams have you tried to manage where all actions are hidden inside a ticketing tool (such as Jira), resulting in poor ability to predict outcomes or track progress to deadlines, and no visibility to recognize if things are going off track so you can quickly course-correct? We have to re-set teams all the time and generate highly visible plans using waterfall techniques to drive alignment, accountability, and progress.
In summary, don’t let your organization be fooled by the latest fad in project management. Re-branding a subset of project management tools into “Agile” is not a novel magic bullet. In fact, it's entirely counterproductive. Project managers navigate the toughest of projects using ALL of the best tools available; when done right, they always include a waterfall approach that drives visibility and accountability.
"Plans are worthless, but planning is indispensable." – Dwight Eisenhower
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