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Agile Redux: How Planview and Our Customers Have Benefited from Agile

Last week I generally discussed how agile planning techniques were being driven by the new normal. This week, we thought you might enjoy getting an inside view of the difference it makes. Rob Reesor, our Vice President of Product Development, shares his thoughts about how we made the shift to adopting Agile development here at Planview and what it has meant for us and our customers.

Guest blog entry by Rob Reesor, Vice President of Product Development

In conversations with Planview customers exploring Agile, most have been interested in hearing case studies, experiences and best practices from their peers. In that spirit, I would like to share a very high level view of Planview's journey to Agile, as well the benefits we've seen.

To provide some context, I have a fairly long history with Agile; in fact, my grad school classmate, Kent Beck, has written several books on eXtreme Programming (XP), one of the most widely practiced agile development methodologies. I had the unique experience of working with Kent in introducing XP to one of my former companies. From my roots at the University of Oregon to Silicon Valley and now Austin, I have spent my career implementing Agile development practices in high tech organizations. My story with Planview began in October 2007, when I joined the company as VP of Product Development, where I was tasked with accelerating product development cycles to be as responsive as possible to customer-driven enhancements and new capabilities. The Planview product development team was just beginning to explore Agile, and I knew from experience this would be an important shift to help meet the goals laid out for my team.

Agile does not happen overnight, and it requires a significant shift in culture and processes backed by commitment from leadership, product management, and development teams. Moving in the direction of Agile, the biggest cultural change was the close working relationship between our developers and product managers on a daily basis. Rather than deliver an extensive requirements document, product managers now put together short user stories for the development team to tackle. In turn, developers are able to deliver working code much faster, quickly change course, and increase speed to market.

Over the last two years, Planview has steadily moved in the direction of Agile, implementing organizational, structural, and process changes to realize the vision. We point to the February 2009 release of Planview Enterprise 10 as a key milestone, because the product was built using Agile processes and the release was managed with Planview Enterprise PPM. The team was able to cover significant ground with major product enhancements, making it one of the most successful product deliveries in Planview history. The iterative approach to product management and Agile application development has yielded Planview and its customers several benefits:

• Better meet customer requirements -- The product development team is empowered to represent the voice of the customer by delivering working code earlier, which means they can react to customer feedback at all stages of the process. Planview's deep customer partnerships have always been a differentiator for the company through programs like the customer Inner Circle, but now we can truly say the product is customer-driven.
• Deliver the right product at the right time -- Adopting Agile has increased the productivity, speed, and agility of our product management process. Planview has been able to lead the market with new functionality and offerings, which is why Planview Enterprise 10 was named by Forrester as the No. 1 current offering for business-driven portfolios in its December 2009 Wave report.
• Drive the portfolio management market -- As an independent vendor with a single market focus, Planview is uniquely positioned to drive the portfolio management market by staying focused, nimble, and innovative. The Agile approach improves our ability to stay on the cutting edge through its value propositions of customer involvement, speed, and productivity.
• Deliver a higher quality product -- The ability to test the product from day one and throughout all stages of development improves quality engineering and assurance, because any minor issues can be proactively identified, isolated and resolved.

Resistance is Futile: Agile is Going Viral

I have never written a line of code in my life and have no intention of starting now -- but I have a lot of room for agile planning techniques. You should too if you don't already because agile is going to quickly reach epidemic proportions well beyond the borders of IT. We should name this the C1B1 virus, because soon enough, transmission will be by mere line-of-sight.

If you think agile planning is just about software, then you're not paying enough attention. Sure, "Agile with a capital A" has structured the concept into various methodologies specific to software development. But, I can safely say that adopting "agile with a small a" is becoming equally inescapable in other disciplines.

Once you cut through the lexicon of sprints, velocity, burn down and scrum masters, the basis for agile is rooted in what many of us have been getting in trouble for doing for years, regardless of the type of project: banding together and collaborating to iteratively arrive at incremental solutions -- despite what the waterfall or contract said. "Hey, you can't work on that activity yet, the predecessor isn't finished!"

Yeah, right.

Perhaps such indiscretions were driven by the realization that the CPM schedule just couldn't keep up. Maybe you went rogue every once in a while in the interest of just cutting through the bureaucracy. Now it's time for you rebels to come out into the light. It has a name. It's mainstream. No longer must you suffer the hot sting of shame and guilt for being practical.

But why?

If you came here via our website then you may have noticed our updated theme of "The New Normal." It is about recognizing, accepting and even embracing the uncertain and volatile operating environment that we now face. Life was fast in 2008 -- then we added record uncertainty. Now we find ourselves at a point where, although hopeful, few are willing to plan or forecast anything with much range or conviction.

The new normal demands that we incorporate an unprecedented degree of flexibility into every level of the planning process, from operational strategy to individual assignments. Do we still make assumptions, set goals and define objectives? Sure. Should we still frame out a project plan? We'd be crazy not to. Nor are accountability or performance measures going away. But the new normal suggests that you need not feel compelled to fall on the sword of the rev. 0 schedule. The race now goes to the nimble -- those who can adjust and adapt for the sake of adding value.

No matter your level in the organization or what you are managing, build in flexibility, expect the unexpected; work fast and lean. Be agile -- it's the new normal and it changes everything.

Controlling Operational Trajectory: Management Beyond Financials

This post reminds me of my childhood years as an overly-inquisitive and under-supervised twelve-year old with a proclivity for blowing things up. Now I know what you're thinking… "Every 12 year old boy has an appetite for that." Perhaps so, but I also had access. In retrospect, how enough little boys ever survive their own idiocy to propagate the human race is one of those amazing feats of nature; much like the way a few turtle hatchlings escape frigate birds as they scramble for the sea. By all rights, I should be minus at least one eye and some fingers.

Moving on…

This week we announced some powerful new features that are part of our new 10.1 release of Planview Enterprise. I will leave it to more appropriate vehicles to detail all of the new capabilities in this version, but there is one particularly significant element that bears further discussion, regardless of the tools you are using.

Although controlling money is arguably the most important management lever that you have, it is far from being the only one. In Taming Change, we define operational planning as the process of assessing performance, setting strategy, and managing human and financial resources. The interaction and information needed to analyze market and economic influences, determine product direction, shape new ideas into tangible opportunities and distribute enabling organizational capacities goes far beyond the ubiquitous annual budgeting exercise.

Operational planning does nothing less than set the future trajectory of your organization. Money is like organizational rocket fuel; you certainly want to use it efficiently and monitor its consumption, but it is just a means to a greater end. Somewhere, someone needs to be prepping the payload, setting a destination and controlling the flight. Otherwise you will simply waste fuel, accomplish nothing of value and end up somewhere other than where you intended.

In much the same way that early rockets were simply loaded with fuel and pointed in a general direction, some organizations still primarily manage their future by manipulating the budget. In both instances, the result is most often a lot of smoke, heat, noise and motion, but probably not expected results. Today, we plan the initiative and use sophisticated telemetry and guidance systems to ensure that we reach our intended target and achieve a specific goal. Fuel is only one consideration of the overall mission.

Effective, operational planning incorporates all of the information necessary to make wholly informed decisions by considering a number of different organizational perspectives. So, as you support how your organization sets its own trajectory, be careful that you don't lose an eye in the process -- you might end up taking a myopic approach that misses the target.

Be sure to check out how we are enabling organizations to do operational planning; I can safely say that it is unlike anything else on the market right now and a significant improvement over drowning in spreadsheets.