A client shares their experience of using our system to deliver their late running project...the good, the bad AND the ugly.

Last week a client shared their experience of using our methodology to get their late running project back on track.

NOTE: Like many of our clients this is a large blue chip and as such, to avoid months of getting sign off, I can’t share the client’s name. Also, in the interview I aimed to ask questions that provided insight not just about what we do and how we do it, but also the challenges that need to be overcome when trying to fix a late running project.

Me:

Tell me about the problem you were trying to solve?

Client:

Whilst most of our projects are late running, we wanted to test the Descartes Accelerated Project Method in a particularly challenging area. Our aim was to get a proof of concept from which we could extrapolate to other projects. Our main aim is to be able to deliver projects with greater reliability and consistency.?In today’s market place first mover advantage can give a huge competitive position.

Me:

What had you already tried to fix the problem?

Client:

Oh you name it, scrum, agile, the usual suspects. ?

Me:

And what changed?

Client:

Basically nothing, our projects are still running late, still getting de-scoped, and all the existing problems that existed before we introduced agile were still there, just now mirrored in two-week sprints and fancy ceremonies. The multi-tasking, picking up and putting?down work, the lack of a process for unblocking work, the non-existence of predictive measurement is all still there. ?

Me:

When we start working with a new client there are always the naysayers that claim, ‘we are already doing all the ways of working proposed by Descartes’. What would you say to those people who think they are already working in optimum way?

Client:

I believe that there is a mix of some people who really did believe that they were already doing what we actually implemented.?Maybe it was our fault that we didn’t make it clear enough about what we were going to change.

And there were those who didn’t want to believe it could be made better because they had worked hard at trying to deliver using traditional delivery methods, no one wants to think they’ve lost face. ?

But our big challenge was that change was owned by a central function rather than by the business which meant it had become an industry in and of itself, and changing would mean challenging the change function itself. Whereas, had the business owned the change I believe that they would have been less wedded to their existing methods and it would have been an easier process for us. So, there were some that couldn’t see what was different and some that really were threatened by it.

Me:

And what would you say were the big things that required a fundamental shift in thinking.

Client:

First of all, I think we did the right thing by taking a late running project and intervened at the half way point, but this, of course, caused resistance by challenging ways of working in an existing project. And whilst there’s a part of me that thinks It might have been easier to start with a brand-new project I felt it wouldn’t give as obvious an illustration of the benefits of the new ways of working.

But, because the project was already running so late we had a team, most of whom hadn’t been involved at the start of the project.? This meant that two years in, the outcomes were still unclear.?We’d also hugely over planned, every single story had been written for the next two years, which meant we were now working on stories that were years out of date and when team members picked them up they had no clue what they were about or what was to be built.

Another challenge was with the agile ways of working, the team were measured, and therefore focused, on activity through arbitrary sprints. This was detrimental to our delivery as teams were more concerned with looking busy rather than delivering real blocks of value.?This meant ditching the two-week sprint and working to an increment of work that delivers the value, even though (and obviously) the increments would be of different sizes. ?

The whole issue around buffer management has been key to our delivery, we found that there was massive safety being built into our plans and then blown due to poor ways of working. The whole concept of using safety strategically and providing daily updates on safety consumption as a means of demonstrating progress has been game changing, and has led to much faster delivery.?We now had daily updates, fever charts, and fast visibility of our blockers, but of course this meant another challenge for leaders, which was we needed them to remove those blockers quickly – this is critical, and at first we simply didn’t get this right.?

Me:

What are the teams saying about the method and the new ways of working? For example, many agile consultants would say that ‘teams should be allowed to create their own ways of working and work on the things they enjoy working on.

As a result, a strict adherence to working on the right thing at the right time is assumed not to be popular?

Client:

You’re right, our leaders said that the team wouldn’t like this way of working and even went as far as to say it was making the team unhappy at work. But the evidence from the team themselves through anonymous questionnaires and discussions is that they are loving this new approach to working.?

My own fear was that they would think were micromanaging them, i.e. that we were telling them what to do every day, but because the team were building and sequencing the tasks for the each block of work, they were just doing what they knew needed to be done.They loved being able to focus on one thing at a time and they loved the concept of delivering value regularly.?

Leaders would have us believe that this is not a popular way of working but the evidence is that what is needed is for leaders to get to grips with how to design and manage work to improve flow. This means understanding how to plan, execute and measure project related work.

Me:

Let’s talk results, what’s happened in terms of delivery, money savings.

Client:

We are still very much in the middle of what was left of the delivery, but we now have a real objective confidence and predictability in terms of what will be delivered when. ?

We now know (because of the problem solving approach) the repeat problems that pop up during the project, which incidentally are not just limited to this project but common across most of our projects. As such we are moving from putting in temporary fixes to root cause analysis. ?

We are identifying and implementing better ways of working across the board. We know now for a fact that we will deliver this project early, (remember before there was no confidence the project could even be delivered). We have proof that those using the method prefer it as a way of working so their life has improved. ?We no longer talk about ‘If this will be delivered’ but now we’re taking about rolling this out across the business. And, of course were now getting up to four times more work out the door, which means we can have options with cost savings and a greater competitive advantage.

The Decartes Team Critiques:

Honestly, Stuart should have taken the leaders into the work to study how the work is designed and managed today, he should have done this before he started any planning or execution work, this would have reduced much of the resistance and got them on board much faster. What a schoolboy error!

Me: ??

If you have a late running project that you want to fix or a slow running product team we may be able to help.

The starting point to find out more, and for us to see if we are right for you (and if you're right for us) is to book a call to have a chat or arrange a two hour project seminar where we cover all the reasons why projects run late and the strategies and tactics to fix them.

1. You can book a call here: https://calendly.com/stuart-corrigan/consult
2. Or you can DM me or e-mail me on [email protected]

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