Applying Project Control Processes to Agile Development Projects

Known Success Factors From Government Research For Aerospace And Defense Programs Are Augmented With Agile Development Good Practices And The Enablers Of These Good Practices.

Good Practices and Enablers of Good Practices, based on a report from Comptroller and Auditor General, Ministry of Defence, National Audit Office for the acquisition of major defense systems.

Establishing and Sustaining the Right Cultural Environment
Good Practices	Enablers of Good Practices	Implementation in Enterprise Agile
Open, trusting, and honest relationships between all members of the product or project development participants. Internal and external suppliers and consumers	Explicit no surprises/no blame culture ‚ defined as not penalizing staff for bringing potential problems to light early between all parties.	Define Measures of Effectiveness (MOE) and Measures of Performance (MOP) for each Capability and assess progress to plan on short time intervals‚ Sprints, Cadence Releases, and Capabilities Releases.
	Regular and timely discussion of all matters that affect the project with no no-go areas.	Sprint and Release retrospectives, with corrective and preventive actions for each gap discovered.
	Mutual benefits through shared ownership of end products and shared outcomes between all parties.	Value Stream map connected to Product Road Map and Release Plan.
	Clarity of purpose and common understanding at all levels throughout all organizations.	Concept of Operations connected to MOPs and MOEs for each organizational activity including product development and all its supporting activities
	Agreements between all parties to undertake a project as a partnership or alliance.	A shared agreement for all Capabilities with their MOEs and MOPs documented in the Product Roadmap
Measurement of consumer-provider relationships in units of effectiveness and performance against goals and objectives. This is done through a Balanced Scorecard for deploying process improvements	Regular independent assessments of client-contractor relationships as they develop during the project	When development underway, Sprint Retrospectives to confirm deliverables roll up to Capabilities with the proper MOEs and MOPs Early on, regular meetings to confirm the Capabilities being described in the Systems Engineering decomposition match the needed Capabilities in the ConOps
Support from an open corporate environment for cultural processes and changes to increase the probability of project success	Explicit no surprises / no blame culture on the project and within the wider project and business organization	No surprises can only be established when Physical Percent Complete is used for all work activities.
	Clear information requirements with a clear purpose	Product Road Map from ConOps, with MOEs and MOPs.
	Clear bounds of authority and action defined in an Impact Map and Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS).	Impact map from OBS.
	Clear link between corporate governance and project governance	SEMP and SEP contain these descriptions of roles and responsibilities

 

 

Creating Clear Structures and Boundaries
Good Practices	Enablers of Good Practices	Implementation in Enterprise Agile
Efficient organizational structure, responsibilities, and line of authority	Management boards, frequency, and purpose of meetings, project controls, and performance measures all agreed upon at the start.	Steering committee style management of processes. The teams are self-organizing, but not self-directed
	Clear delegated authorities and decision-making and escalation processes and criteria.	Structure of Agile teams organized in a similar manner of standard HI projects
	A flexible approach demonstrated by both consumers and providers.	An Integrated Product and Project Team
Project management, commercial, financial, and technical skills available	Projects self-select staff.	Self-organized team.
	The organization has a career development and skills training structure in place that covers each area of expertise.	Roadmap for career development.
	Tenure of post for a large proportion of a phase or key events.	Agile team members, product owners, and Product Managers, and Project Management dedicated to team.
Through review and understanding of project delivery plan, objectives, assumptions, risks, and opportunities	Explicit review and agreement of work packages, costs, specification, risks, and opportunities prior to project start and setting of performance, time, and cost boundaries	Agile business rhythm matches the Product Road Map and Release Plan
	All stakeholders clearly informed and engaged in establishing structure foundations and boundaries	Impact map of staff against Business Rhythm and Product Roadmap
	Subject Matter experts used in creating cost and risk models
Set performance, time, and cost boundaries when risks are understood and formal approval gates entered	Performance, time, cost boundaries based on clear understanding of risk and ground in realistic model of project uncertainties – reducible and irreducible	Stories estimated in hours through a progressive development process with team concurrence
	Performance, time, and cost boundaries and delivery plan independently reviewed commitment to proceed	The performance captured in an agile development tool
	Clear information and evidence requirements for business case	Product Roadmap connected to Business Plan
Ability to make trade-offs by applying change management mechanisms	Working group  in place for making informed tradeoffs between time, performance and cost as the project progresses and delegated authority to do so.	Trade space defined in Product Roadmap and Release in MOPs, MOEs, KPPs, and TPMs
	All stakeholders clearly informed and in agreement.	Product Roadmap and Impact Map of all planned work
	A mechanism to apply lessons learned as the project progresses.	Retrospectives integrated into continuous process improvements

 

Measuring progress and making decisions focused on successful project delivery
Good Practices	Enablers of Good Practices	Implementation in Enterprise Agile
Analysis of credible, timely and relevant metrics monitoring progress against the performance, time and cost baseline	A forward-looking analysis of information from techniques (such as Earned Value Management, milestones, planning/scheduling or risk management) and metrics (such as costs or in-service availability measures).	Product Roadmap and Release Plan show milestones, planned physical percent complete, and MOE/MOP of deliverables
	Verification and Validation of project performance data	Daily status of Sprint and Stories using Physical Percent Complete captured in the Agile Development tool. Jira and Rally do this as a default
Arrangements for transparency and accuracy	Shared Data Environment or a clear method for sharing documentation between all stakeholders.	Agile development system, with reporting and graphical representation of progress to plan for Capabilities
	Co-location of client and contractor teams/staff.	Co-located development teams
	Arrangements for access to contractor/client’s data.	Shared database for all work
	Use of IT where practical (common software, email connection).	Integrated development environment with business management systems
Program Performance Management Process Directives	Recognition of contract as a control tool during negotiation.	Business rhythm guides daily work
	Commercial staff resides with the project.
	The contract is realistic, mutually beneficial and reflects ownership of risk.	Contract (internal or external) based on needed Capabilities, described in ConOps, SOW, SOO, with Requirements flow down, mapped to Product Roadmap
Project-to-project peer reviews and Learning From Experience	Formal and informal mechanisms for exchange of ideas, problem-solving and sharing experience between projects for benefit of project staff.	Retrospectives conducted end of each Sprint and Release
	Formal capture of lessons learned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reporting to Enable Strategic Decisions
Good Practices	Enablers of Good Practices	Implementation in Enterprise Agile
A consistent reporting system to projects feeding into analysis for senior management	Reporting System based on the principle of “generate once, use many times”.	Use agile development tools to collect, report, and assess data for decision making for corrective and preventive actions to sustain the planned delivery of Capabilities.
	A clear purpose for reporting system (whether that is to track delivery, track against corporate targets or for forward planning).
	Analysis of reports by dedicated staff.
Formalized, regular system of senior management review to give assurance of delivery	Clear information requirement, format, and purpose for regular reviews.
	Feedback mechanism.
Independent, non-advocate reviews	A clear purpose for independent input (advice for project staff or assurance for senior managers, or both).
	Avoidance of duplication and over-burdening project staff.
	Benefits are clear - not viewed as a hurdle to overcome.
Ongoing measurement of supplier performance to learn lessons	Collection of data and maintenance of the historical database.
	Senior-level contact with contractors.
	Analysis of trends and issues.
	Contractors are clear as to confidentiality and the use of data on their performance.