Concerns of “The MANAGEMENT” while introducing the Agile/Scrum
Reluctance of “The Management” is one of the common challenges faced while trying to drive your organization in Scrum/Agile way. This challenge is quite unique in terms of explaining or justifying the Pros of Scrum vs. Traditional Project Management.
The Concerns can be described in 4 different categories:
How do we promise newer features to clients
How would it impact on other groups
How to define the Definite time Limit of the project
Most of the managers are more comfortable with the feeling of progress and control that a Gantt charts or any other plan-driven tools gives them. Generally, they are more comforted with the development team’s promise to deliver the product on the specified date, even if it’s clear that given time line is not sufficient.
In companies with the history of incorrect project estimates, it is not very difficult to justify trying out agile methodology.
However, if the team is continuously delivering on time, you need to convince management that project would have completed sooner or on time while using agile process.
A cost, date, and feature triangle can persuade them to think that agile is the better way. You can show that in previous projects all the estimations were padded.
One of the biggest fears is losing control over the progress of the project.
To show the project tracking capability of an agile process, we can create some model status reports entirely based on fictional data. The reports can show a fictional project cycle of two to four weeks.
Status report can include lists of – important dates, brief on project’s state, burndown chart explaining the progress of planned work, some key metrics like defect inflow, percentages of tests passed, etc.)
There are theories that have expressed concern that Agile is only good for development team.
This is not correct. Though the agile is most suited for development, but now companies are implementing it in other departments of the work.
When introducing agile, the management should understand how it will impact groups other than Development.
Another very untrue notion is the fear of having very loose project plan and project completion date.
They think that with less control over the project, they would be able to monitor the progress and project will go on forever.
If you convince the management about these 4 points, they are most likely to agree or at least try out the Agile/Scrum.
