All Agile Projects Fail.

That was the wise insight provided by Martin Granell when answering a panel question at our recent Night of Excellence event.  Now, before all the Agile zeolites out there call for Martin's lynching, let me give some context.

The panel was asked the perennial question about their preference for Agile versus Waterfall project management in a Digital Excellence environment.  The point Martin was making, which I wholeheartedly agree with, is that when business cases are assessed against traditional finance measures that demand no change in scope, cost, or time, all the Agile PM wizardry in the world won't deliver to those exacting and unrealistic expectations, particularly for a complex project running over a long period of time.  That's the point of Agile.

In a Digitally Excellent organisation, Finance, the Business Sponsor, and the Project Delivery team will all be working from a common approach that accommodates everyone's needs for stringent governance whilst accepting that requirements, and the very business environment in which we are operating, will change within relatively short timeframes.

Transfit's Delivery Excellence Framework deals with this by breaking long running project deliverables, and the associated funding milestones, into short ~4 month iterations of requirements setting, funding approval, resourcing, and delivery, with each iteration completed with a formal stakeholder review of delivery success before agreeing to continue with the next iteration.  This provides enough time to deliver material benefits from each iteration whilst ensuring disciplined project governance over workable timeframes that accommodate the realities of constant change. Many years of customer success at Readify taught me that this required a multi disciplinary approach to achieve this stakeholder alignment.

Clearly this approach draws on Agile project management methodologies however Agile is not the only, nor even the major, methodology underpinning our framework.  It is equally founded in Design Thinking, Lean, Product Ownership, Solution Architecture, Full Life Cycle costing, and Change Management principles, all working like an orchestra with a Digital Excellence lead conductor coordinating the distinct elements.  The end result removes the religious debate between Agile versus Waterfall and delivers a more holistic and inclusive stakeholder framework.

 I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences on similar approaches.