Having interviewed over 600 software SME's, a recent study from Engprax uncovers that agile software projects experience failure rates of up to 268%. Credit to original article.
Having implemented over 250 projects revolving around Microsoft Dynamics 365, (Microsoft's biz app suite) over the past ~20 years; it has been interesting to see the large move towards agile. I don't necessarily agree with the above statistic from Engprax, but I do see a lot of organizations trending towards agile and assuming the methodology alone will guarantee success.
The PMI (Project Management Institute) share these top three reasons for agile project failures:
- Inadequate experience with agile methods
- Little understanding of the required broader organizational change
- Company philosophy or culture at odds with agile values
When planning your D365 agile project, I would urge organizations to consider my following top ten agile project pitfalls:
- Is your organization agile ready? Being "agile ready" is an organizational mind shift and it takes time. Don't have your 1st agile project be a mission critical transformational ERP project.
- Agile projects are not always cheaper than waterfall projects. There are many reasons why agile projects can cost more than waterfall projects. Continuous testing, significant product ownership, rebuilding, remediation and automation are a few considerations.
- Automation is critical to your success. Any lengthy agile project will require many deployments, testing and training cycles. All supported by dev ops and automation software, which takes time effort and money to setup.
- Not all resources are equal. Any agile D365 project will need a variety of SME's to be involved during the project lifecycle. No one resource can do everything! These resources will need to be transitioned into and out of the project at the right times. Too early and the cost will be too high; too late and they won't have sufficient context around the previous builds.
- Organizational product ownership is critical. Waterfall projects allow product owners (and end users) to transition into the project later during testing and training. Agile projects demand organizational product owners, testers and trainers be involved into the project from the beginning. Without their regular feedback and guidance the project will fail.
- We don't need a Project Manager. Project governance is still critical for agile projects. It may surface in the form of project directors, scrum masters, team leaders etc. It is still very much required.
- Sprint effectiveness. Agile teams need between 2-4 sprints to gain momentum and effectiveness. The first few weeks of any agile project can look chaotic. The teams need time to learn how to work effectively together.
- Agile tools for project tracking. While you may not use traditional project plans, you will need tools to manage roadmaps, features, sprints, bugs, releases, resources and team velocity.
- Team burnout. Agile projects are faster pace due to the nature of the sprint cycles. Multi year projects can result in resource turnover and burnouts. Working with global delivery teams sounds great, but can result in lengthy work hours and increased work life balance challenges.
- You get what you get. It's important to understand that agile projects are based on an evolving solution that is developed throughout a serious of stages "sprints". Once the set amount of sprints are complete you are left with a solution that is "completed". But may not in reality be finished. If you are expecting a fixed scope project, prepare to align your expectations accordingly.
There are many other considerations when working within an agile methodology. Please add your comments below.....
In Summary, think carefully when selecting your project delivery methodology. Agile is ideal for flexible, projects, teams and environments and encourages continuous improvement. Waterfall is preferable for projects with well-defined requirements, large complex processes and limited internal resource availability.
Each methodology can offer predictability and success with practice. But, beware of the hype, trend and "guarantees" many offer with agile.
Written by Richard Dennis – Digital Business Transformation, D365 CRM & ERP Implementation Specialist.
US Citizen, Clearable | Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE - Solution Architect | Hands-on Technical Lead
5 个月Very well summarized, there are obvious advantages in agile methodology, but it also carries a lot of downside things. Many lengthy mandatory ceremonies can take time from actual development, also building and showing something now, may lead to rework later on in all stores are not well thought through