Talk is Cheap

Now we all know in the project management world the impact that Agile principles have had.  If you haven’t been exposed personally to them, you would have certainly have heard of them.  It is even being applied out of its traditional base in software development and into IT infrastructure and even physical infrastructure in certain circumstances.   Agile is not going anywhere. Its use will increase over time.

We should also know that Agile principles are not the one-size fits all solution to managing all projects.  It is not ideal for highly complex projects or risk adverse organisations.  But is it possible that Agile concepts could have an even broader impact in the world of change management than project management?

This was brought home to me once when assigned to manage the change aspects of a project.  A directive was issued by senior management to manage a project to deliver a system.  The project team was assembled and they started developing the system.  I was brought on towards the end of the project to socialise the project’s outputs, and gain approval from management of those, and manage the adoption of the usage of that system.

As I went door-to-door meeting to meeting, presentation to presentation it became rapidly obvious that there was no customer for the system, there would be no users of its outputs, what was already available, though not ideal in management’s eyes, was more useful than this new system.

How could an Agile approach have helped in this situation?

Well if you think about the Agile manifesto:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

There are many ways that kind of thinking would have averted this disaster.

The main one being that conversations with the customers and users up front, prior to the intricate project or change management planning being done, possibly with some sort of mock-up (or not), would have averted this situation.  With that early feedback the project could have been stopped, or even better, the project (system, output, delivery method, project team) could have been shaped such that something of greater value would have been provided at the end. The organisation would have saved many thousands of dollars, years of effort, and egg on the face of the messenger (me). 

Humans often don’t like to step into the unknown.  That is why we love to plan.  Planning is essential both in project management and change management, Agile or Waterfall.  But sometimes we have to start up those awkward conversations early, even before the plan is developed, to shape the plan.  And not just within the organisation that came up with the project but with the people that will actually use it.  And once the conversations have started don’t stop. Keep them going throughout the planning and delivery stages and after the project is delivered and into operation.  Of course this approach will work outside of project and change management and into product development and even business development via approaches like Lean StartUp. 

I remember someone once said to me “don’t start on a new venture until you’ve had a hundred conversations about it”. Or as the old saying goes, “talk is cheap”.  Well it certainly is.  It could save you a lot of money.