self evident truths of agile project management

Often I get asked how you ensure that your project is done one time when you use an Agile approach. Upon deeper probing, what I find they are really asking is how do you protect against a run-away project. There has developed a common misconception in the industry that, just like agile engineering techniques, agile project management is a cowboy approach. The view is that with continuous iterations and “releaseable” code, when do you stop and, indeed, how do you stop all that requirements-creep?

To me, what this is, is a cry for help. Clearly, the project manager is not managing the project (or perhaps even the people). Regardless of what methodology is being used, the project manager is that person who has been given the role with delivery responsibility for the project. In many of the canonical depictions of agile methods tend to tread lightly on the role responsible for project delivery: often it is implied that the team itself takes on this responsibility. Well, that in itself is fine. This makes the team the defacto PM and collectively responsible for delivery.

In Agile methods, we commonly assure customers that we are geared up to meet their expectations, but there is a non-diminishing perception that once we are given control, we don’t give back product on their schedule. Further, there is a palpable and growing fear that the development teams will estimate poorly and the product release will string out continuously to “Next Iteration” – the agile developer’s version of manana. However, if the project team is collectively the responsible for delivery – as a PM collaborative, they should be holding each other to as delivery standard such that the Release is as time boxed as the iterations and that, if the customer directs, the release happens on schedule, but with less content if necessary.

If we can establish a new commonly held truth that agile teams deliver within time boxes and that the time boxes are indeed that: time boxes, then much of the fear of transformation will, in my estimation ebb away.