Working in program and project management, I am often the recipient of projects or programs that have been approved through the annual business planning cycle. Of course, the desire of the organization’s leadership is that the project be executed quickly, achieving a significant ROI. Most of the time, these projects have been ideated, board-approved, and funded not in accordance with Agile principles, but discreetly, in functional silos, according to what that a specific department, business unit, or stakeholder wants to accomplish in a given fiscal year.

Many companies believe that taking an “agile” approach to a project, while maintaining a very “waterfall” approach to annual planning, ROI, and funding, will still provide quick financial results. Instead, what I see on the front lines is:

1.     Disjointed prioritization not tied to a Value Stream leading to:

• Unmanageable dependencies across projects and programs
• A lack of understanding of the end goals and objectives

2.     Annual budget cycles not tied to Epic-based delivery causing:

• Scope creep and change requests
• Pressure to deliver, even if delivery on a current project is no longer warranted

3.     A lack of simple, process-based metrics highlighting

• Divergence between project goals and organizational goals
• An inability to adequately measure the impact of a project or program

If the organization truly wants to move to an iterative approach, this must be done holistically, starting with the needs and wants of the customers, a deep understanding of business process, and the ability to measure outputs easily and consistently.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll be publishing a series of posts that discuss the issues above and thoughts on how to move annual planning to a more iterative approach in order to better meet an organization's objectives.