1 00:00:09,030 --> 00:00:12,330 Welcome to the IBM podcast. AIM is the chartered body for 2 00:00:12,340 --> 00:00:15,270 the project profession. My name is Emma De Vita and I'm 3 00:00:15,280 --> 00:00:18,900 the editor of Project APM's quarterly journal and your host. 4 00:00:19,190 --> 00:00:22,220 In this podcast, I'm speaking to Darren Dalcher, Professor of 5 00:00:22,230 --> 00:00:25,210 Strategic Project Management at the University of Lancaster. 6 00:00:25,970 --> 00:00:29,060 Few people have started project management as closely or for as 7 00:00:29,070 --> 00:00:31,700 long as Darren, who's also a director of the National Centre 8 00:00:31,710 --> 00:00:34,940 for Project Management and Co editor of the 7th edition of 9 00:00:34,950 --> 00:00:38,320 OPM's Body of Knowledge. In a career spanning more than 10 00:00:38,330 --> 00:00:41,710 25 years, Darren has become very interested in why projects fail 11 00:00:42,610 --> 00:00:45,150 when it comes to Agile. Darren was there from the start 12 00:00:45,160 --> 00:00:48,240 when it was being experimented with in software development. 13 00:00:48,430 --> 00:00:51,600 Who better than to explore the origins of Agile and its impact 14 00:00:51,610 --> 00:00:53,360 on projects? Listen on. 15 00:00:58,740 --> 00:01:01,150 Welcome Darren, Thank you for your time. 16 00:01:01,220 --> 00:01:04,410 Could you tell us how you originally got interested in 17 00:01:04,420 --> 00:01:09,180 Agile, what its origins were? I was involved in software 18 00:01:09,190 --> 00:01:14,170 development originally as an engineer developer, and then I 19 00:01:14,180 --> 00:01:19,750 moved away from that and at some point I developed an interest in 20 00:01:19,840 --> 00:01:23,130 failures. As a practitioner, I'd worked on 21 00:01:23,140 --> 00:01:26,550 a number of on IT projects. They're all kinds of challenges 22 00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:30,240 around them, and personally I was trying to make sense of some 23 00:01:30,250 --> 00:01:33,390 of the challenges, some of what I was seeing around me. 24 00:01:33,440 --> 00:01:36,450 The whole notion of success and failure were a little bit 25 00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:41,230 dubious, as far as I could see. We had fixed deadline, fixed 26 00:01:41,240 --> 00:01:46,190 ideas about what what we needed to be produced, and sometimes we 27 00:01:46,200 --> 00:01:49,550 delivered on time, sometimes we didn't, Probably around 28 00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:54,310 19818283. I was working on a number of 29 00:01:54,320 --> 00:01:57,720 projects. We were using this new idea 30 00:01:57,730 --> 00:02:00,580 called prototyping when we were spending a lot of time with the 31 00:02:00,590 --> 00:02:02,080 users. We were trying to understand 32 00:02:02,090 --> 00:02:05,070 what they were after and essentially a lot of people 33 00:02:05,080 --> 00:02:07,090 didn't have an idea what computer technology could 34 00:02:07,100 --> 00:02:09,479 deliver. So working with the users was an 35 00:02:09,490 --> 00:02:13,100 opportunity to introduce to them different ways, different 36 00:02:13,110 --> 00:02:16,140 options. Very often we didn't know that 37 00:02:16,150 --> 00:02:20,100 much about the users world. We would have a client coming in 38 00:02:20,230 --> 00:02:23,700 getting us to do a system. We came from the technical side, 39 00:02:23,710 --> 00:02:26,530 so we had an idea about how to develop things, but not 40 00:02:26,540 --> 00:02:31,580 necessarily the user's world. And essentially it was a way of 41 00:02:31,590 --> 00:02:34,640 interacting with people. So for me, prototyping was a way 42 00:02:34,650 --> 00:02:37,510 of interacting. Prototyping made the project 43 00:02:37,520 --> 00:02:41,180 longer because once you started interacting with the users, once 44 00:02:41,190 --> 00:02:44,020 you spend time with them, it was all about the dialogue, all 45 00:02:44,030 --> 00:02:47,230 about the understanding. This is where you'd realise that 46 00:02:47,520 --> 00:02:51,510 the requirements that you were given or the the need statement 47 00:02:51,520 --> 00:02:55,730 that was passed along wasn't exactly what the users needed. 48 00:02:56,100 --> 00:02:59,570 But we've kind of gone the complete circle now and we 49 00:02:59,580 --> 00:03:01,890 recognise that we need to get the users on board. 50 00:03:01,900 --> 00:03:04,340 There's no point delivering if nobody uses the system. 51 00:03:04,350 --> 00:03:08,230 We deliver systems, we deliver projects so that it can be used. 52 00:03:08,290 --> 00:03:11,950 So the results need to be deployed, the results need to be 53 00:03:11,960 --> 00:03:13,370 used. There's no point delivering a 54 00:03:13,380 --> 00:03:15,820 bridge if no one's going to go across it if no one lives. 55 00:03:15,890 --> 00:03:18,930 In the area so, so it's all about the use, but we were 56 00:03:18,940 --> 00:03:23,330 learning that as we work it to computer technology was becoming 57 00:03:23,380 --> 00:03:26,010 more and more enabling. There was more that you could do 58 00:03:26,020 --> 00:03:29,920 with it. And it became all about creating 59 00:03:29,930 --> 00:03:32,820 the interaction, creating the relationships and understanding 60 00:03:32,830 --> 00:03:36,020 what people wanted. And how they could do their job 61 00:03:36,030 --> 00:03:39,500 better and what we could achieve for them through computers. 62 00:03:39,550 --> 00:03:44,200 So really my journey there starts with an understanding 63 00:03:44,210 --> 00:03:48,290 that we need to gain a better insight into what people are 64 00:03:48,300 --> 00:03:50,360 trying to achieve. And it's only when we understand 65 00:03:50,370 --> 00:03:52,560 what we're trying, what they're trying to achieve, that we can 66 00:03:52,570 --> 00:03:54,690 deliver something meaningful and useful to them. 67 00:03:56,210 --> 00:03:58,700 So is that really the core of what Agile meant? 68 00:03:59,680 --> 00:04:02,870 So this to a large extent predates Agile. 69 00:04:02,880 --> 00:04:06,170 This is prototyping, It's experimentation, It's something 70 00:04:06,180 --> 00:04:09,290 that people have been doing for a long time. 71 00:04:09,380 --> 00:04:13,390 We have been experimenting, we've been trying things out. 72 00:04:13,700 --> 00:04:16,730 So rather than have a fixed idea about what we could deliver, 73 00:04:16,740 --> 00:04:20,649 what needs to be done, it's playing with it a little bit and 74 00:04:20,660 --> 00:04:23,470 and trying to make sense of what we're getting and seeing if we 75 00:04:23,480 --> 00:04:26,090 can, if we can find a better solution. 76 00:04:26,780 --> 00:04:32,410 Tinkering with the solution being empiricist, being playful 77 00:04:32,540 --> 00:04:37,860 developers. The way we develop things has a 78 00:04:38,110 --> 00:04:40,640 has the sense of a problem solving cycle. 79 00:04:40,650 --> 00:04:43,600 We move some problem towards solution and we try not to 80 00:04:43,610 --> 00:04:45,200 engage with this solution too early. 81 00:04:45,210 --> 00:04:48,300 We go through different modes of development and to a large 82 00:04:48,310 --> 00:04:50,960 extent computers enabled us to do a lot of things that we 83 00:04:50,970 --> 00:04:54,860 couldn't do before. So they they enabled us to to 84 00:04:54,870 --> 00:04:58,940 process large volumes of data, to do so very quickly, to do 85 00:04:58,950 --> 00:05:03,500 amazing calculations, to change how we how we implement systems, 86 00:05:03,510 --> 00:05:07,110 how we deal with people. They enabled us to do a lot, so 87 00:05:07,120 --> 00:05:11,590 I was involved initially in trying to utilise computers in 88 00:05:11,600 --> 00:05:14,630 useful ways, but also trying to make sense of what is success 89 00:05:14,640 --> 00:05:17,740 and failure. And for me, prototyping was very 90 00:05:17,750 --> 00:05:20,390 much an early precursor of of Agile. 91 00:05:20,560 --> 00:05:22,980 We were doing exactly what our journey is doing. 92 00:05:22,990 --> 00:05:27,370 The challenge was as soon as you introduced prototyping, as soon 93 00:05:27,380 --> 00:05:30,350 as you engaged with the users, the user they wanted more. 94 00:05:30,780 --> 00:05:34,430 So the challenge was not not a technical challenge, but there 95 00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:37,760 was a management challenge. How do you control this, this 96 00:05:37,770 --> 00:05:40,380 effort? It can go on forever. 97 00:05:40,650 --> 00:05:44,080 And then the real challenge is how do you pay for it? 98 00:05:44,090 --> 00:05:47,360 How do you structure it? So it became about. 99 00:05:48,250 --> 00:05:49,720 How? How do we control this 100 00:05:49,730 --> 00:05:53,370 prototyping activity? Do we only allow? 101 00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:57,410 3 increments however long does increments are. 102 00:05:57,420 --> 00:06:01,310 So we could say, well we will do 3 versions of the system we will 103 00:06:01,320 --> 00:06:04,550 go through in three times. Or we can just do it for two 104 00:06:04,560 --> 00:06:08,770 months and at the end of the two months what we have is really 105 00:06:08,780 --> 00:06:12,410 the the answer unless you want to pay more and then we we will 106 00:06:12,420 --> 00:06:15,740 do another increment. So it was really imposing some 107 00:06:15,750 --> 00:06:19,310 kind of a managerial structure around it, and I was trying to 108 00:06:19,320 --> 00:06:23,810 make sense of what seemed rather arbitrary at the time, the 109 00:06:23,820 --> 00:06:26,360 notions of success. Failure, because if you say, 110 00:06:26,370 --> 00:06:28,710 well, I'm going to deliver a system in six months. 111 00:06:29,790 --> 00:06:32,880 And then you spend 10 months with the users because they're 112 00:06:32,890 --> 00:06:35,560 engaging with it and you're delivering a better system. 113 00:06:35,790 --> 00:06:39,300 Are you failing or are you succeeding? 114 00:06:39,310 --> 00:06:43,760 More so? This is kind of in the 80s. 115 00:06:44,050 --> 00:06:47,180 The Agile Manifesto was published in 2001. 116 00:06:47,190 --> 00:06:51,340 So what was it trying to achieve and how did it fit with what was 117 00:06:51,350 --> 00:06:54,320 going on with prototyping? You know, if you cast your mind 118 00:06:54,330 --> 00:06:56,940 back to them, what what? What did you think its value 119 00:06:56,950 --> 00:07:01,960 might be? To set the context in a way that 120 00:07:02,070 --> 00:07:06,140 we are still dealing with project failures, they're quite 121 00:07:06,150 --> 00:07:09,680 a few challenges around projects, primarily because we 122 00:07:09,690 --> 00:07:11,600 are doing things that have not been done before. 123 00:07:11,610 --> 00:07:16,000 So computers enable us to seventies 80s, really. 124 00:07:16,050 --> 00:07:18,800 Even before that, some amazing things are happening through 125 00:07:18,810 --> 00:07:20,280 computers. They're really exciting 126 00:07:20,290 --> 00:07:22,620 projects. The problem is it's they're 127 00:07:22,630 --> 00:07:24,850 quite difficult to predict. They're quite difficult to 128 00:07:24,860 --> 00:07:26,400 control. It's back to this control 129 00:07:26,410 --> 00:07:28,900 question. So there is a perception of 130 00:07:28,910 --> 00:07:31,160 failure. There's a perception that 131 00:07:31,660 --> 00:07:35,830 software projects fail a lot. And something needs to be done 132 00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:38,550 about it. And they're various efforts, 133 00:07:38,560 --> 00:07:41,530 various communities are formed and they're looking at different 134 00:07:41,540 --> 00:07:44,070 kinds of solutions. So some of them are looking at 135 00:07:44,080 --> 00:07:46,480 various ways of introducing quality. 136 00:07:46,640 --> 00:07:49,230 So all kinds of quality structures, some of them are 137 00:07:49,240 --> 00:07:51,900 looking. At what would later become the 138 00:07:51,910 --> 00:07:56,050 idea of benefits. And some of them are looking at 139 00:07:56,060 --> 00:08:01,270 ways of creating a craft, a discipline that is more 140 00:08:01,280 --> 00:08:04,370 controlled. So software engineering is born 141 00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:09,700 around 1969. In the NATO conference, which 142 00:08:09,710 --> 00:08:13,140 brings together a lot of scientists who concerned about 143 00:08:13,390 --> 00:08:16,300 suffer being out of control. So the idea of engineering 144 00:08:16,310 --> 00:08:19,080 software engineering is to impose engineering structures. 145 00:08:19,130 --> 00:08:22,960 So bring in that control over what we're doing and software 146 00:08:22,970 --> 00:08:27,640 engineering allows us. To plan, go through the 147 00:08:27,650 --> 00:08:31,500 requirements, design, develop and deliver. 148 00:08:32,429 --> 00:08:36,559 And deploy meaningful software almost in an engineering kind of 149 00:08:36,570 --> 00:08:37,530 way. So there are different 150 00:08:37,539 --> 00:08:40,320 communities all over the place and the different communities 151 00:08:40,330 --> 00:08:43,159 are engaging with different types of approaches. 152 00:08:43,169 --> 00:08:45,820 Some of them more formal. Software Engineers will try and 153 00:08:45,830 --> 00:08:49,860 find formal methods, but within that some would argue we still 154 00:08:49,870 --> 00:08:53,760 need to work with people. Back to this if you like the 155 00:08:53,770 --> 00:08:58,470 fight between. Creativity and control. 156 00:08:58,850 --> 00:09:03,450 Various methods are created and throughout the Seventies, 80s 157 00:09:03,460 --> 00:09:06,480 and 90s there are all kinds of structured approaches. 158 00:09:07,460 --> 00:09:11,170 To obtaining requirement and structured approaches to design. 159 00:09:11,280 --> 00:09:14,230 So the structured requirements, structured design and our 160 00:09:14,240 --> 00:09:16,870 communities. Now those methods are becoming 161 00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:19,290 more and more structured and more and more controlled in 162 00:09:19,300 --> 00:09:22,070 response to the failures. We need to control the effort. 163 00:09:22,080 --> 00:09:23,140 We need to know what we're doing. 164 00:09:23,150 --> 00:09:25,110 We need to start here and finish over there. 165 00:09:25,890 --> 00:09:30,480 And suffering engineering becomes quite controlled and at 166 00:09:30,490 --> 00:09:33,780 a time I'm teaching systems and software engineering, so I'm 167 00:09:33,790 --> 00:09:39,780 doing, I'm doing a lot of that. I've shifted from doing to to 168 00:09:39,790 --> 00:09:42,480 teaching, researching, making sense of things. 169 00:09:42,810 --> 00:09:47,330 And we we are particularly focused on some of the methods 170 00:09:47,630 --> 00:09:50,960 that are emerging. So I had a strong interest in 171 00:09:50,970 --> 00:09:54,440 methods. I had a strong interest in what 172 00:09:54,450 --> 00:09:58,100 could be achieved and in this shift between control and 173 00:09:58,110 --> 00:10:01,660 creativity and they have various efforts that are going on. 174 00:10:01,670 --> 00:10:05,980 So in Japan, Takeuchi and Nonaka are saying, well to do, you 175 00:10:05,990 --> 00:10:08,400 know, when you look at innovation, when you look at 176 00:10:08,510 --> 00:10:12,970 creativity and how people work, it's not really a relay race 177 00:10:12,980 --> 00:10:15,000 where you hand over to someone else. 178 00:10:15,050 --> 00:10:19,400 So this is I think 1996, they're this, they're saying it's more 179 00:10:19,410 --> 00:10:21,740 for. It's more like a rugby match. 180 00:10:22,360 --> 00:10:25,560 When you pass the ball backwards and forwards that they come up 181 00:10:25,570 --> 00:10:28,750 with the notion of it's a rugby match and this is the idea of 182 00:10:28,760 --> 00:10:31,810 scrum being born. It goes in all kinds of 183 00:10:31,820 --> 00:10:36,650 directions and at the same time other people are coming up with 184 00:10:36,800 --> 00:10:40,630 other lighter methodologies. They're calling them, but 185 00:10:40,640 --> 00:10:42,830 they're really methods. Lighter approaches to 186 00:10:42,840 --> 00:10:44,860 development, lighter life cycles. 187 00:10:45,620 --> 00:10:52,380 So what happens in 2001 is 17 people involved in the creation 188 00:10:52,390 --> 00:10:55,450 and the development of of flight and methods. 189 00:10:56,190 --> 00:10:58,820 Get together. What they have in common is that 190 00:10:58,830 --> 00:11:01,390 they all believe that there's too much, if you like, structure 191 00:11:01,400 --> 00:11:05,170 and control. And we need to be we need to 192 00:11:05,220 --> 00:11:08,920 liberate ourselves a little bit. And we need to recognise these 193 00:11:08,930 --> 00:11:12,340 are the people that come into the meeting, they've all created 194 00:11:12,390 --> 00:11:15,380 their own methods or selling particular approaches. 195 00:11:16,300 --> 00:11:18,920 That emphasise working with users. 196 00:11:20,270 --> 00:11:22,900 Little bits of prototyping. Some of the methods can be 197 00:11:22,910 --> 00:11:26,400 traced back to prototyping. Some of them are. 198 00:11:27,110 --> 00:11:30,190 Simply lighter approaches. They're not project managers, 199 00:11:30,200 --> 00:11:33,800 they're software developers. They're interested in software 200 00:11:33,930 --> 00:11:37,350 and what they do is they they get together for a weekend. 201 00:11:37,360 --> 00:11:40,600 There were a number of similar get togethers and this is this 202 00:11:40,610 --> 00:11:44,400 was one particular group and they do want a lot of groups to 203 00:11:44,410 --> 00:11:45,760 get together. Do they? 204 00:11:45,770 --> 00:11:47,950 They come up with a manifesto, of course. 205 00:11:48,030 --> 00:11:51,800 Wouldn't it be great if we could shape the world in the way we 206 00:11:51,810 --> 00:11:54,050 like it and everyone used like methods? 207 00:11:55,110 --> 00:11:58,180 So they come up with a statement, and a statement 208 00:11:58,190 --> 00:12:00,700 reflects the kind of thinking at a time. 209 00:12:00,710 --> 00:12:04,760 It comes a little bit from manufacturing, a little bit from 210 00:12:04,810 --> 00:12:07,360 innovation. They're inspired by other 211 00:12:07,370 --> 00:12:09,500 developments that are going on at the time. 212 00:12:09,570 --> 00:12:12,700 And they're really saying we think we should be working in 213 00:12:12,710 --> 00:12:16,140 different ways. We should be using lighter 214 00:12:16,150 --> 00:12:18,070 methods. We should be doing things with 215 00:12:18,080 --> 00:12:22,360 those lighter methods that without the control, without the 216 00:12:22,370 --> 00:12:25,620 structure, without the imposition of of the. 217 00:12:25,700 --> 00:12:28,330 Bureaucracy and they're all trying to sell their own 218 00:12:28,340 --> 00:12:31,790 individual methods at the time. So the challenge for them, for 219 00:12:31,800 --> 00:12:36,640 17 people in that in that room is to to come up with a coherent 220 00:12:36,650 --> 00:12:41,260 statement that reflects. The flexibility, the freedom, 221 00:12:41,270 --> 00:12:46,100 the that are common across the all the methods that they're all 222 00:12:46,110 --> 00:12:47,770 representing. So. 223 00:12:47,780 --> 00:12:50,870 So how do we create a sort of a statement of independence? 224 00:12:50,920 --> 00:12:56,300 What is our our common cause? Did you know any of them 225 00:12:56,310 --> 00:12:58,380 personally? Had you met any of these people 226 00:12:58,390 --> 00:13:01,780 in that room? Yes, I knew a few, quite a few 227 00:13:01,790 --> 00:13:04,300 of them at the time. I've met since. 228 00:13:05,680 --> 00:13:10,150 I've done keynotes and I've spoken at conferences with many 229 00:13:10,160 --> 00:13:13,430 of them, so I've so, yes, very much so. 230 00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:16,620 And. I knew many others liked them. 231 00:13:16,630 --> 00:13:19,770 It was pretty much the prevailing kind of approach. 232 00:13:20,460 --> 00:13:23,290 Programmers don't like structure. 233 00:13:23,300 --> 00:13:25,610 They don't like controls. So having come from that 234 00:13:25,620 --> 00:13:28,990 background, I was familiar with. I was familiar with the 235 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:31,870 constraints. I was familiar with the ways of 236 00:13:31,880 --> 00:13:34,610 thinking. So they basically work on the 237 00:13:34,620 --> 00:13:38,480 manifesto over the weekend and the manifesto is 4 statements of 238 00:13:38,490 --> 00:13:41,270 value. So we prefer something over 239 00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:45,840 something else. We prefer people over tools, 240 00:13:45,850 --> 00:13:49,300 essentially. The relationships and working 241 00:13:49,310 --> 00:13:52,930 with people of the tools and methods and approaches, we 242 00:13:52,940 --> 00:13:57,650 prefer delivering working products over comprehensive 243 00:13:57,660 --> 00:14:01,110 documentation. So so we like to do things. 244 00:14:01,180 --> 00:14:03,340 So the first one is saying we like to work with people. 245 00:14:04,300 --> 00:14:06,170 And I suppose that's quite a strong statement for 246 00:14:06,180 --> 00:14:08,430 programmers. Remember, programmers are the 247 00:14:08,440 --> 00:14:11,190 people you keep in the basement. Now they're coming out. 248 00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:12,900 They're saying we want to work with people. 249 00:14:12,910 --> 00:14:15,760 Let me work with people. So they're working with people 250 00:14:15,770 --> 00:14:18,760 now. And like me, I suppose they got 251 00:14:18,770 --> 00:14:21,830 excited by the fact that ohh, I can shape things for you, I can 252 00:14:21,840 --> 00:14:24,310 shape the world for you, I can use the computer to create a 253 00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:25,470 better world for you. So. 254 00:14:25,540 --> 00:14:27,500 So we work with people we prefer. 255 00:14:28,470 --> 00:14:33,320 Delivering, working things, doing rather than documenting 256 00:14:33,330 --> 00:14:37,160 and documentation wasn't a popular part of the software 257 00:14:37,170 --> 00:14:38,800 process. It's the thing that came at the 258 00:14:38,810 --> 00:14:41,580 end and it was you think you've done the thing. 259 00:14:41,590 --> 00:14:45,050 Now go and test and then go and do the documentation. 260 00:14:45,470 --> 00:14:49,580 We prefer customer collaboration over really contract 261 00:14:49,590 --> 00:14:53,630 negotiation. And we prefer responding to 262 00:14:53,640 --> 00:14:55,690 change over just following a plan. 263 00:14:55,700 --> 00:14:58,230 If something changes, let's go with it. 264 00:14:58,240 --> 00:15:03,060 Let's flow with it. So it represents an attitude, it 265 00:15:03,070 --> 00:15:05,990 represents an age, it represents the people in the room, it 266 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:11,270 represents a long weekend in the cold February holiday resort. 267 00:15:11,950 --> 00:15:14,560 It's a group of people saying wouldn't it be great if we could 268 00:15:14,570 --> 00:15:16,500 change the world? So they come up with those 269 00:15:16,510 --> 00:15:20,140 statements. Later on they will add the the 270 00:15:20,150 --> 00:15:26,880 12 principles, but those four values really about 30, I don't 271 00:15:26,890 --> 00:15:29,290 know, 40 words, something like that. 272 00:15:29,300 --> 00:15:31,630 This is our manifesto. This is what we think we'd like 273 00:15:31,640 --> 00:15:34,340 the world to look like. And one of them goes and posts 274 00:15:34,350 --> 00:15:38,300 it on the web because you can now and reasonably quickly 275 00:15:38,310 --> 00:15:42,290 there's some traction. Various communities realise 276 00:15:42,300 --> 00:15:43,350 that. This is going on. 277 00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:45,490 And they say, yeah, yeah, yeah, me too, me too. 278 00:15:45,500 --> 00:15:47,450 I want to be part of this movement. 279 00:15:47,500 --> 00:15:49,490 I believe in those principles as well. 280 00:15:50,740 --> 00:15:54,480 So it becomes something within the software development 281 00:15:54,490 --> 00:15:59,070 community, becomes a way of thinking about how we do, how we 282 00:15:59,080 --> 00:16:01,040 develop software. I don't want to say how we do 283 00:16:01,050 --> 00:16:03,620 projects, but certainly how we develop software, because there 284 00:16:03,630 --> 00:16:06,140 is an implication that we're back to this creativity and 285 00:16:06,150 --> 00:16:09,460 control. So it becomes perhaps an 286 00:16:09,470 --> 00:16:12,650 alternative way of looking at how we develop. 287 00:16:14,260 --> 00:16:18,130 I mean, I'm understanding that it was never intended to be a 288 00:16:18,140 --> 00:16:23,230 management method or a project management method, but it has 289 00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:26,610 permeated not only project management but management in 290 00:16:26,620 --> 00:16:29,190 general. What's your take on this? 291 00:16:29,260 --> 00:16:32,260 Do you think the people who originally created this are 292 00:16:32,270 --> 00:16:33,810 surprised that this has happened? 293 00:16:34,560 --> 00:16:39,010 What's your view on how Agile has influenced project 294 00:16:39,020 --> 00:16:41,610 management and what it's become now? 295 00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:45,250 Right. So when they post the manifesto, 296 00:16:45,260 --> 00:16:48,210 it's the manifesto for Agile software development. 297 00:16:48,260 --> 00:16:51,730 So that's quite explicit that that that's the title of it and 298 00:16:51,780 --> 00:16:55,800 and and it remains like that. The document hasn't changed 299 00:16:55,810 --> 00:16:58,480 since 2001. There was a conscious decision. 300 00:16:58,610 --> 00:17:02,080 It reflects a point in time when they got together. 301 00:17:02,610 --> 00:17:06,359 So what essentially was the the manifesto for Agile software 302 00:17:06,369 --> 00:17:10,000 development became known as the Agile Manifesto. 303 00:17:10,290 --> 00:17:12,960 So at some point we we dropped the software development. 304 00:17:12,970 --> 00:17:16,380 But when I first knew it, it was this manifesto for Agile 305 00:17:16,390 --> 00:17:18,910 software development. And within the software 306 00:17:18,920 --> 00:17:22,339 development community there was a mixed response. 307 00:17:22,589 --> 00:17:24,869 Some people got excited about what Agile? 308 00:17:24,940 --> 00:17:27,380 And deliver. About the fact that it could 309 00:17:27,390 --> 00:17:31,300 liberate you from some bureaucracy, it enabled you to 310 00:17:31,310 --> 00:17:34,580 do things differently. It was quite an exciting 311 00:17:34,590 --> 00:17:38,040 development certainly for programmers and a lot of the 312 00:17:38,050 --> 00:17:41,810 agile literature from that time is saying we don't need project 313 00:17:41,820 --> 00:17:44,950 managers, It's the end of the project manager. 314 00:17:45,170 --> 00:17:48,040 Project manager can can disappear. 315 00:17:48,050 --> 00:17:51,380 One of them is saying the role of the project manager is to 316 00:17:51,390 --> 00:17:54,110 deliver pizza. So, so there are different 317 00:17:54,120 --> 00:17:57,520 perspectives around that, but somewhere along the line. 318 00:17:57,860 --> 00:17:59,830 People get excited by the concept. 319 00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:01,450 Now. The software development 320 00:18:01,460 --> 00:18:04,620 community, to a large extent, has moved on from Agile. 321 00:18:05,420 --> 00:18:08,970 This suffering the software development community, if I 322 00:18:08,980 --> 00:18:12,010 reflect back over the years, roughly every 10 years there's a 323 00:18:12,020 --> 00:18:14,330 new trend and a new trend coming comes in. 324 00:18:14,340 --> 00:18:17,670 And it could be structured systems analysis or it could be 325 00:18:17,720 --> 00:18:20,630 structured design or software engineer. 326 00:18:20,740 --> 00:18:24,310 Something will come along and it will grasp everyone and they'll 327 00:18:24,320 --> 00:18:26,770 get excited by it. And then there'll be a new toy. 328 00:18:27,600 --> 00:18:31,730 And we are looking at roughly every 10 years being there's a 329 00:18:31,740 --> 00:18:37,100 new exciting development and to a large extent software 330 00:18:37,110 --> 00:18:40,250 development and software engineering have moved on to 331 00:18:40,780 --> 00:18:45,330 thinking about the delivery of services rather than products 332 00:18:45,860 --> 00:18:48,720 and looking at continuous delivery, continuous testing, 333 00:18:48,730 --> 00:18:53,270 continuous delivery, continuous deployment, So delivery becomes 334 00:18:53,320 --> 00:18:56,750 more constant. The agile community has in 335 00:18:56,760 --> 00:18:59,110 software development has certainly moved on. 336 00:18:59,330 --> 00:19:03,380 But a lot of others, as you said, have have picked up on on 337 00:19:03,390 --> 00:19:05,170 Djali. Do we need to be agile? 338 00:19:05,810 --> 00:19:08,020 And that's without fully understanding what our journey 339 00:19:08,030 --> 00:19:11,200 is. Our journey is this mythical 340 00:19:11,210 --> 00:19:13,150 thing that we can do so we can be agile. 341 00:19:13,160 --> 00:19:14,820 That that sounds good. We can be. 342 00:19:15,250 --> 00:19:17,820 I want to be able to do magic. I want to do all kinds of 343 00:19:17,830 --> 00:19:20,280 exciting things. So, so we can be agile, we can 344 00:19:20,290 --> 00:19:24,050 do things, and we can pivot. We can respond. 345 00:19:24,730 --> 00:19:27,780 And a lot of what our child gives you is the ability to. 346 00:19:28,790 --> 00:19:33,340 Ready to to respond to change, Going back to where I started 347 00:19:33,350 --> 00:19:36,060 and those experiments. Agile allows you to do little 348 00:19:36,070 --> 00:19:40,440 experiments and on the basis of those experiments to amend to 349 00:19:40,450 --> 00:19:44,150 some extent what you're doing. So you're being more responsive, 350 00:19:44,160 --> 00:19:48,550 you're being more adaptive. And in terms of management, 351 00:19:48,560 --> 00:19:51,900 management goes back to the bureaucracy to control the. 352 00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:55,650 So having this magic ability to, yeah, do you want to be agile? 353 00:19:55,660 --> 00:19:58,930 Yes, of course I do agile. Agile is exciting. 354 00:19:58,940 --> 00:20:02,860 It's not boring old structure, it's I can be agile, I can do 355 00:20:02,870 --> 00:20:05,110 what I like. It allows me to do all sorts of 356 00:20:05,120 --> 00:20:07,850 amazing things. So there's a lot of traction, 357 00:20:07,860 --> 00:20:10,250 There's a lot of people are impressed by it. 358 00:20:10,540 --> 00:20:14,690 Some of the origins, as I pointed out, also go back to 359 00:20:14,740 --> 00:20:19,400 production and manufacturing. And innovation management. 360 00:20:19,530 --> 00:20:22,920 And there's a challenge around finding the balance between 361 00:20:23,190 --> 00:20:26,400 product development and project management. 362 00:20:26,450 --> 00:20:30,310 And is it a technical development that we are doing? 363 00:20:30,320 --> 00:20:33,950 Can we get, can we do away with the project manager? 364 00:20:33,960 --> 00:20:36,430 Can we? So the project management 365 00:20:36,440 --> 00:20:39,950 community has found agile. Now they're very it seems like 366 00:20:39,960 --> 00:20:43,800 an exciting development, and there are all kinds of 367 00:20:43,880 --> 00:20:48,720 conversations around what replaces what does all this 368 00:20:48,730 --> 00:20:53,240 waterfall V agile discussion everywhere, and which is 369 00:20:53,250 --> 00:20:56,240 relatively meaningless because neither of them is a project 370 00:20:56,250 --> 00:21:01,400 management approach. We're APM, the only chartered 371 00:21:01,410 --> 00:21:03,940 membership organisation for the project profession. 372 00:21:04,600 --> 00:21:07,650 When you become an AP member, you'll receive the resources and 373 00:21:07,660 --> 00:21:10,430 support you need to make an impact, delivering better 374 00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:14,070 projects with better outcomes. Plus you'll access exclusive 375 00:21:14,080 --> 00:21:17,690 training and benefits to support your ongoing career development. 376 00:21:17,860 --> 00:21:20,970 Find out how we can help you reach your potential by visiting 377 00:21:20,980 --> 00:21:26,210 apm.org.uk, Because when projects succeed, society 378 00:21:26,220 --> 00:21:30,950 benefits. Is the project management 379 00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:35,650 profession using Agile? However, they define it as an 380 00:21:35,660 --> 00:21:39,390 effective way to have fewer project failures. 381 00:21:39,460 --> 00:21:43,210 Is it a useful tool? Interesting question. 382 00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:46,510 We have fewer of the old failures, but our job will 383 00:21:46,520 --> 00:21:49,510 introduce inevitably introduce its own kinds of failures. 384 00:21:49,520 --> 00:21:52,970 I've been collecting failures for literally all of my career, 385 00:21:52,980 --> 00:21:56,010 not just my own. I'm I'm less fussy nowadays. 386 00:21:56,020 --> 00:21:59,650 I'm I'm happy to welcome anyone to the club. 10s of thousands of 387 00:21:59,660 --> 00:22:03,690 failures have made it in and there are some major failures 388 00:22:03,760 --> 00:22:07,890 and they're very different. What what Agile allows you to do 389 00:22:07,900 --> 00:22:11,670 is you've got small, small teams doing things and this is what 390 00:22:11,780 --> 00:22:16,620 the essence going back to 2001. This is the essence of that 391 00:22:16,630 --> 00:22:19,080 meeting. This is what it was all about. 392 00:22:19,630 --> 00:22:24,190 It was a small solution to a small problem of a small group 393 00:22:24,200 --> 00:22:26,740 of people working together to do small things. 394 00:22:26,750 --> 00:22:31,270 This is what our job enables you to do and this is what they were 395 00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:35,300 talking about. So this is it liberates a small 396 00:22:35,310 --> 00:22:38,160 team to do things far more creatively. 397 00:22:38,370 --> 00:22:44,730 And at the time we were doing some research around Agile which 398 00:22:44,740 --> 00:22:48,970 the view of determining whether it had, whether it had values. 399 00:22:48,980 --> 00:22:51,820 We were looking at the quality of what the teams were producing 400 00:22:52,570 --> 00:22:56,440 and we did a one year study where we we looked at multiple 401 00:22:56,450 --> 00:23:00,900 projects and we looked at the outputs of teams in the banking 402 00:23:00,910 --> 00:23:06,100 sector and we we measured the the output and the agile teams 403 00:23:06,110 --> 00:23:10,920 produced far more code which means they produced far more 404 00:23:11,170 --> 00:23:13,930 functionality. The obvious question would be 405 00:23:13,940 --> 00:23:16,560 was that useful functionality? The answer would be to spend a 406 00:23:16,570 --> 00:23:19,500 lot more time with your clients. So they did a lot more. 407 00:23:19,510 --> 00:23:23,190 They delivered a lot more. But it introduced different 408 00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:25,770 challenges. The fact that the software 409 00:23:25,780 --> 00:23:30,730 community has moved on and is interested in dev OPS reflects 410 00:23:30,740 --> 00:23:34,130 an interest in continuing operations. 411 00:23:34,500 --> 00:23:39,370 It reflects a need to integrate other activities all the time to 412 00:23:39,380 --> 00:23:44,930 to to continue to develop and to have backlogs that allow you to 413 00:23:44,940 --> 00:23:49,210 bring in items from different areas and integrate them into 414 00:23:49,220 --> 00:23:53,410 your deliverables. It means that agility. 415 00:23:53,460 --> 00:23:56,700 So make the chef now. Agility allows you to do things 416 00:23:56,710 --> 00:23:59,650 differently. Agility allows you to deal with 417 00:23:59,660 --> 00:24:01,960 uncertainty. Agility allows you to see what 418 00:24:01,970 --> 00:24:05,230 you can do. Action has been really exciting 419 00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:08,500 during the Pandemic actually allows you to start. 420 00:24:08,630 --> 00:24:11,500 You have a small team run with it, go with it. 421 00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:15,030 Here's the ball run. So Agile allows you to enables 422 00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:19,480 you to do all kinds of things. It's up to the project manager 423 00:24:19,810 --> 00:24:24,020 to decide whether it is the most useful way of deploying off 424 00:24:24,030 --> 00:24:26,980 using their team and the most useful way of doing things. 425 00:24:27,050 --> 00:24:29,200 It's still the skills of the project managers. 426 00:24:29,890 --> 00:24:32,070 I don't think the world is just to deliver pizza. 427 00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:35,800 The role is to decide what you're hoping to deliver and to 428 00:24:35,810 --> 00:24:39,780 say, well, we can do things together, we can do exciting 429 00:24:39,790 --> 00:24:43,340 things and agile will allow us to experiment going back to 430 00:24:43,350 --> 00:24:45,720 where we're starting, you can do your experiments. 431 00:24:45,730 --> 00:24:47,080 You can see whether it makes sense. 432 00:24:47,090 --> 00:24:49,210 During the pandemic, that was amazing. 433 00:24:49,450 --> 00:24:53,680 You actually said to the team, so we need to start. 434 00:24:54,210 --> 00:24:57,320 Rules are changing from This is a Friday afternoon announcement. 435 00:24:57,330 --> 00:25:00,500 Rules are changing from Monday. Go run with it. 436 00:25:00,510 --> 00:25:02,080 We don't really know what it means. 437 00:25:02,090 --> 00:25:06,530 Let's go and explore the boundaries and it it liberates 438 00:25:06,540 --> 00:25:09,830 teams. It enables them to do things but 439 00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:13,770 it it's something that allows a small a small team to do things. 440 00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:18,190 Somewhere along the line we realised, wait a minute, if one 441 00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:22,060 team can be our gel, can we have lots of teams playing in the 442 00:25:22,070 --> 00:25:24,720 same field being agile? So then we started talking about 443 00:25:24,730 --> 00:25:27,800 scaling agile, and now we're talking about business agility. 444 00:25:27,810 --> 00:25:31,180 And now we're talking about all kinds of other notions which are 445 00:25:31,190 --> 00:25:35,360 far more complex. The problem is, if you allow one 446 00:25:35,370 --> 00:25:37,970 team to, I'm not gonna say misbehave. 447 00:25:37,980 --> 00:25:40,420 If you allow one team to have fun, you have to allow all of 448 00:25:40,430 --> 00:25:44,250 them to have give everyone the ability to have fun together. 449 00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:49,970 And that's where we come back to that good old balancing act 450 00:25:49,980 --> 00:25:54,440 between creativity and structure and control. 451 00:25:55,150 --> 00:25:58,770 One team having fun is exciting enough and noisy enough, but can 452 00:25:58,780 --> 00:26:02,730 you let hundred teams, thousand teams do that? 453 00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:07,130 So we are back to OK, now we need to introduce scaling 454 00:26:07,140 --> 00:26:11,110 methods and approaches to to to getting multiple teams work 455 00:26:11,120 --> 00:26:13,190 together. So we are beginning to put some 456 00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:16,660 certain controls around that. If you ask the original people 457 00:26:16,670 --> 00:26:20,580 who attended the the meeting and created the Agile Manifesto what 458 00:26:20,590 --> 00:26:22,170 they think about it, They hate it. 459 00:26:22,300 --> 00:26:26,300 Their view is that Agile was this liberating activity and 460 00:26:26,310 --> 00:26:29,120 they don't like the many of them, don't like the scaling 461 00:26:29,130 --> 00:26:31,080 approaches. There are various methods that 462 00:26:31,090 --> 00:26:33,570 have been designed to do that and they feel that they are 463 00:26:33,580 --> 00:26:37,270 adding a lot of structure, which you would need to do when you 464 00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:40,350 have multiple teams playing and having fun together at the same 465 00:26:40,360 --> 00:26:41,830 time. You want to control the noise, 466 00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:44,230 you want to control the space, you want to control what's going 467 00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:47,550 on. You need to manage it, so the 468 00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:50,670 challenge for project managers is to think what it can achieve 469 00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:53,160 through our journey. It goes back to the skills of 470 00:26:53,170 --> 00:26:56,880 the project manager. We if we don't assume that all 471 00:26:56,890 --> 00:27:00,460 the knowledge is there, it's really how do we deploy, how do 472 00:27:00,470 --> 00:27:04,610 we create, how do we become pragmatic managers use their 473 00:27:04,620 --> 00:27:08,500 professional judgement and decide how to deliver, how to 474 00:27:08,510 --> 00:27:12,000 shape, how to deploy in meaningful ways. 475 00:27:12,250 --> 00:27:16,280 So it's creating strategies that will allow the mix that will 476 00:27:16,290 --> 00:27:19,240 allow the different activities that need to take place to 477 00:27:19,250 --> 00:27:21,160 happen together at the same time. 478 00:27:22,590 --> 00:27:24,620 Darren That's a. Fantastic way to end this 479 00:27:24,630 --> 00:27:27,140 podcast. Thank you so much for your time. 480 00:27:27,230 --> 00:27:29,790 Really, really interesting speaking to you about this. 481 00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:32,830 So thank you again. It's a pleasure. 482 00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:40,460 Thank you very much. Thanks again to. 483 00:27:40,470 --> 00:27:42,930 Darren for joining us and to you for listening to the APM 484 00:27:42,940 --> 00:27:45,210 Podcast. Don't forget to look out for 485 00:27:45,220 --> 00:27:48,070 more episodes or to rate and review us wherever you get your 486 00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:50,620 podcasts. We welcome you to get in touch 487 00:27:50,630 --> 00:27:53,910 with your comments, feedback and suggestions by emailing us at 488 00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:59,950 apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk. This podcast has been brought to 489 00:27:59,960 --> 00:28:02,820 you by APM, The Chartered Body for the project profession. 490 00:28:03,540 --> 00:28:07,520 For more information on APM, visit to apm.org.uk.