projectified

News of Project's Death with Regard to Software Projects Has Been Exaggerated. Again!

 So the guys over at Target Process just informed the world that Project is based on the waterfall process and is therefore unsuitable for use in managing a software project! LOL Wow that is news to me and the thousands of others that have used to manage iterative software development projects! :-)

I posted a comment on their post that talked about my disagreement and have had this response in draft form ever since and had forgotten about it until Glen posted on the subject. It was not until I read Glen’s post that I realized that Target Process markets a product that competes with Project! This certainly casts the post in a different light. When I first read it  I did so with the thought in mind that the writer was just not understanding how scheduling software really works or what the basis is for building and indeed using such software. But knowing that the poster works for a company that competes with Project it now just smacks of an intentional distortion of the facts with the end goal of boosting sales of their product. While this certainly may NOT be the case (I really want to believe that this was not the thrust of their post) it certainly starts to look that way.

Microsoft Project is not based on “Waterfall”
It just isn’t. Neither are the scheduling engine components of Primavera, Niku (sorry I meant CA), Artemis, Planview or any other major scheduling application that I have seen. You can MAKE them do waterfall. You can make any application do waterfall. I can make Basecamp do waterfall and you could likely make Target Process’s tool do waterfall too no mater how centered it’s design is on Agile. Hell, I can make 3x5 cards like the ones used in XP\Scrum do waterfall!! Waterfall is a process for planning a project. It is not tool specific. It is project environment specific. Waterfall can work as a method for scheduling software projects. Not many in my opinion but they are out there. The method you use to plan your work (be it a software project or the creation of marketing materials or the building of a dam) should be context sensitive. If you have the requirements up front and they will not likely change through the course of the project then waterfall might be the thing. In a case like this an iterative approach might add loops that are a waste of time given the locked down nature of the requirements. If you are building something there the requirements are fuzzy and likely to change over time then the obvious choice is a method that is iterative at it’s core (whichever method that might be for your case.)

As I mentioned in my comment on the original post I agree that the Help file that comes with Project should address other planning processes. In fact in my Outlook outbox (I’m on a plane right now without Internet access) there is currently an email to several people on the Project development team suggesting just that. However, the mere fact that the Help only mentions waterfall type methods does not mean it is based on waterfall nor does it mean that you cannot use Project to do iterative projects. To suggest otherwise is like saying you cannot toast a bagel in your new toaster because the instructions only mention bread and English muffins. :-)

Project IS “Connected”
These comments really just seem like marketing spin to me and have been covered in my comments on the original post and in Glen’s post. Suffice to say that Project Server addresses these comments have little to do with the suitability of Project as a scheduling engine for software projects. A deck of 3x5 cards used to organize SCRUM or XP tasks are not ‘connected’ either since only one person can ‘hold’ them at a time so give me a break. :-)

 

Iterative Design\Build Loops in the Configuration of Project Server: First Pass and Initial Thoughts

I have always been a fan (and in fact a major proponent) of the idea of iteration in the long term deployment and roll out of Project Server across an organization. Myself and Russ Young of QuantumPM were one of the first ones to talk about this in the Enterprise Project Management Deployment Guide way back during the Project Server 2002 days. Our work in this area was based on ideas that were widely held not only in the Project Server consulting world but in almost all enterprise software organizations. These iterations were fairly large scale ones dealing with the staged, incremental roll out of Project Server to the many organizations within a larger organization as opposed to the massive one-time dropping of Project Server on the entire company. This approach started with a small but representative (as much as possible) group or small organization and then using the lessons learned from this group the system would be adjusted (new fields added, new views, server architecture adjusted, etc) and then another group would be added. This process would repeat until the entire organization was using the tool. Each iteration added not only new people but also new or fixed functionality in the form of views, security, process, etc. This method is now used by virtually every consulting company doing Project Server deployments.

The kind of iteration I’m talking about here happen on a much, much smaller scale and deal with the actual design and production of the configuration of the Project Server system for a given organization. Instead of dealing with the successive roll out to new organizations I'm now talking about the iterative design\build loops around adding new fields, views, security configurations within any one of those larger iterations.

Understanding of the Environment and the Problem(s) to be solved
This includes the collection of what the users want the system to do for them in addition to the observation of the system at work so that you as the consultant can help make suggestions.

Configuration\Build
From the knowledge gained so far the system is configured to the best of your ability. Fields, views, security, etc.

Simulations
most organizational uses of tools like Project Server revolve around the capture and editing of project data and then in the use of that data to make specific business decisions that effect the ability of the organization or project team to function with regard to projects. I look at kernel, the very core of Project Server’s use in an organization as the viewing of data via views or reports by decision makers. Everything else that project Server does supports this in some way or another. With this driving principle in mind the check or test of the configuration\build ‘stage’ is a simulation where decision makers use the tool as it is currently configured to simulate the decision making processes they must go through to manage their work\projects\portfolios\etc. These simulations have the decision makers using the tool in a conference room with the design team and other decision makers up on a projector. Talking through the decisions they need to make and what data they would need to see to make them. How it would need to be displayed, grouped, sorted, how it should be secured, who can see it, who can’t see it, etc.All effort toward a better understanding of how the tool will be used and what decisions it will be used to support.

Revisiting the build stage…
At this point we jump into a loop of Configuration\Build and Simulation loops that successively improve the suitability of the Project Server configuration to the needs of the decision makers that will be using it to run the business\projects\work.  If this means new views or fields then so be it. If it means configuring and rolling out the use of timesheets to those doing the work or the development of custom OLAP cube building routines to provide company specific data in Portfolio Analyzer views then that is fine too.The point is that the design\configuration happens based on simulated use of the product as it is configured currently.

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This process can take place either prior to the system ‘going live’ or as part of the addition of new users to the system. Also, a variation on this process happens on an ongoing basis while the system is being used by the organization. As people touch the system and use it as part of their project management\portfolio management processes their new experiences and new expectations become, often, new requirements for the system. The administrator of the Project Server system should constantly collect suggestions and new requirements and evaluate them with the team for inclusion in the system. This constant updating of the product’s configuration ensures that it keeps up with the most current processes in use within the organization.

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Obviously this is not rocket science and I'm not claiming to have ‘invented’ it by any means. I’m sure that many others are using similar processes for their Project Server (or other PM software) roll outs. I should also mention that this process is only suitable where the organization is able to devote several weeks (at least 3 or 4) to this initial design process. Often organizations that are rolling out Project Server have only a very short time to do their initial design and configuration. In cases like this the process laid out here may require too much time. But it should be said that while this process requires more time than many methodologies it is much more likely to produce a usable system. Shorter term processes get you up and running very quickly but at the cost of fully understanding the processes and needs of the organization.

This is just an initial layout of rough thoughts on this process. It is by no means final.