PMcrunch

[tag]Agile[/tag] Development, or [tag]Scrum[/tag], is a very popular topic these days.  I contend that it is really nothing new.  Smaller teams have ‘huddled’ together to produce results for a long time! 

The approach is something that is used in large part in many industries.  Let me provide a few examples:

1. [tag]Environmental Services[/tag] Industry - A while back, I was branch manager at an environmental company.  We would have 30 minute meetings in the morning many days to go over the days work, the plans, issues, etc.  We would talk about what happened yesterday - what went right, what went wrong, what we could do to improve.  We also went over specific assignments for the various teams.  We had a total of 15-25 people, and several were focused on customer interfacing and project management, a few on administrations, and the rest on doing the work, as directed by a team lead.

2. In my first job out of college, I workedin [tag]manufacturing[/tag] as a [tag]Project Engineer[/tag] at United States Gypsum Company.  As part of that experience, I had the opportunity to substitute over extended periods of time for the Maintenance Superintendent in the wallboard plant.  I met each morning with my crew of 8 mechanics and 3 electricians to go over the day’s work.  I “partnered with an older, experienced production superintendent, which represented the “customer interface”.  We developed lists of repairs and improvements that would make a difference and reduce downtime.  I allocated my crew, as possible, to these projects as well as the maintenance projects, which sometimes took 100% of our capacity for emergencies.  We delivered on our projects in very tight timeframes - from a day to a week or so.  We got nearly immediate “customer feedback” from our work as downtime decreased and the operation became easier to run.

3. I did some work in the laser optics industry, providing analysis of capital projects as well as building frameworks for sales forecasting and production planning.  These involved a great deal of interfacing with the client as well as doing the analysis work.  I involved “teaming” with certain key individuals within the company who were stakeholders and influencers.  In the end, there was buy in on plans for moving ahead in these areas.

Yes, these are not exactly scrum.  But they have great similarities.  They involve smaller groups of people.  Speed of execution was key.  Close interfaces with key stakeholders was always an important factor.  And the results and feedback were available within weeks at the most.  Scrum, or agile, is like an extension of these common management experiences into a formal methodology specifically tailored to developing software applications.
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John Reiling, PMP
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