Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Agile 2009 Slides Now Available

I’ve made my slides for Agile 2009 available in the document archive of agilemanagement.net for everyone who attended or not to use. The great news is that Ryan Martens is interested in applying these ideas at Rally Development already.

I should also mention that my 3rd technique in these slides is similar to Todd Little’s model which appeared in the recent book, Stand Back and Deliver! The model uses four classifications of projects that Todd calls Sheep Dogs, Colts, Bulls and Cows. The Cows are analogous to my Cash Cows, Bulls to Major Growth Market and Colts to Innovative/New. If there is a difference it’s that my model is entirely market driven / external while Todd considers a complexity a dimension in the classification. These models are so similar that I will consider merging mine with Todd’s with full attribution.

Chris Matts’ believes that my first technique, previously published here in 2005 is similar to but less useful than Neil Nickolaisen’s model also published in the recent book, Stand Back and Deliver! Neil’s model maps projects at a portfolio level into 4 categories via a 2x2 matrix or dimensional assessment of market differentiation and alignment with corporate mission. He calls the segments: Don’t Care; Partner; Differentiating; Parity. While this model is certainly compatible with my model they are not the same. Neil’s model works at the project and portfolio level and assumes that the corporate mission is somehow correctly aligned with a strategic position and the market demands. My model works at the individual feature level and is again directly market facing insuring that the feature mix chosen for a project or iteration are aligned with the strategic positioning of the business and the allocation of types is aligned with the propensity for risk in the business plan or prospectus. Neil’s model is certainly compatible with mine. If for example, a project initiative assessed as “Parity” but the product owner was picking a lot of “Differentiator” class features for the product mix then there is clearly a miss match. So I believe that Neil’s model could be added as a fourth technique to the three presented here.

However, it’s worth noting that these are tools that can be used as choices and are not necessarily all designed to be used together. My 3rd technique, like Todd’s and Neil’s are designed to allocate resources to control commitment to projects across a portfolio. To spread risk effectively. It may not make sense to use more than one of these techniques at any one company or division. Choose the one that resonates best with your organization. Technorati tag: David+Anderson, Agile+Management, Agile, Lean, Kanban, Software+Engineering, Project+Management, Risk+Management, Risk, Portfolio+Management, Program+Management