“You are an experienced project manager who is certified PMP and PRINCE2-Practitioner. You are also a certified scrum master and practitioner. Isn’t this contradicting?” “Agile doesn’t want project managers where as you are a certified PMP! Do you think you can be a good scrum master or scrum coach?” I have come across such questions many times. Now a days there is a big fuss around agile and especially scrum. Most of the times organization “A” wants to do scrum because organization B is doing it! J So, hiring an experienced scrum coach has also become “a trendy thing” now a days! Nat...

Background Traditionally software development projects have followed a sequential life cycle as shown below. A project starts off by understanding all requirements up front (what the project is about). Then you spend time thinking about the technical solution, the design (how to address the requirement). And then actual construction and then testing and so on and so forth. This life cycle is also well known as “waterfall”. No method or life cycle is perfect and so is this one. Waterfall method has some limitations or challenges and they are: 1. We can see the real end product only at th...

Contents Government Projects: Why Don’t I See The Real Benefits? Abstract: Introduction The Present Challenges So, Then…How to Address These? Project Organization – define clear accountability Define – A Business Case - Always Maintaining the business case: Benefits Review Planning Bringing Visibility for Everyone Conclusion Finally…. Author’s Profile Government Projects: Why Don’t I See The Real Benefits? Authored By: 1) Sachin Sadanand Dhaygude, PMP, PRINCE2-Practitioner, CSM, CSP, PMI-ACP Abstract: This paper reflects a common man’s perspective. A common man is surrounde...

They Say Agile Is Different! So, tell me what’s different? – Part 1   Agile is the buzz word now a days. Still, many times during my training sessions, I face this question “what is so different about agile?” I think there are seven wonders (or wonderful things) about agile. I thought of summarizing them in this series of article. This series will list key differences between agile and traditional approaches (in my opinion). They just happen to be seven :-) Seven Wonders (or wonderful differences) In my opinion (and experience), I think following are seven key differences between...

Definition of a Successful Project – It’s Different. While managing any project, a project manager (PM) is challenged with successfully juggling three variables at a time. And they are scope (includes the quality requirements), cost (due to resources) and time. If you disturb any, the other two may require adjustments to maintain all three in equilibrium. In a traditional approach, we understand scope thoroughly (signed off requirements), using which we try to determine how much it would cost and how long it would take. Once you determine this equation, all three are supposed to be fixed. Th...