|
|
|
|
|
Program Management
Your projects are about delivering software on time, on budget, and on target. Even your
larger, multiple-project programs will be approached with these critical goals in mind.
Planning a Business Intelligence initiative?
Considering a full transformation of your business to be more Agile?
Migrating a series of legacy mainframe systems to newer technologies?
Whatever your goals, Capstone can tackle the management of your critical initiative,
ensuring that these benefits apply.
On Time Programs
The number one challenge many businesses face is delivering solutions to complex software programs on
time. Poorly understood requirements, changing scope, competing priorities, corporate politics, and
the general complexity of large-scale, multi-project initiatives are all common — and very serious —
challenges. Each of these stresses contend for the attention of limited IT and business resources
and exert significant pressure on an already-complex program schedule. Capstone's
iterative, incremental, phased approach (read more about these core concepts) creates an environment
that reacts well to change, allows for straight-forward and frequent course correction, and supports
effective scope management.
On Budget Programs
Project schedule overruns almost always translate to cost overruns. And when individual projects
begin to creep out of hand, the effect multiples. In fact, so goes the critical path project, so goes
the whole initiative. Capstone's proven methodological approach to software development and program
management creates repeatability not only in delivering on time, but delivering vital and valuable
scope within the budget constraints allotted.
Gantt Chart depicting an example of a Multi-project,
Multi-year Iterative Program Plan
On Target Programs
Even if your schedule is dead on in terms of time and money, the results are what counts. The best
data warehousing initiative or mainframe system migration, even if delivered on time and on budget,
won't do you any good if it doesn't fulfill the vision, purpose and goals for which is was created.
The end user is the customer, and ultimately has the final say as to whether or not it was worth the
time and cash to build ... whatever it is. Capstone's program management processes are proven to
drive out the right requirements in the right timeframe, mitigate risk, and navigate complex dependancies,
enabling the many project teams working on your initiative to deliver real value to the business, both
early and often.
Capstone's approach to both program management and software development is an iterative, incremental one.
Whether leading small or large projects
or a large-scale enterprise initiative, Capstone leverages important principles from key software development
lifecycle (SDLC) methodologies and various management schools of thought to provide our customers with proven,
repeatable processes for successfully implementing new initiatives or helping recover struggling programs
critical to the business.
Here are a few of the key contributors to Capstone's philosophy in managing enterprise programs:
The Enterprise Unified Process
The Enterprise Unified Process
(or "EUP") is an Agile enterprise extension to the Rational Unified Process (or "RUP"), created by Scott Ambler
of IBM. RUP is an excellent framework for managing software development projects. Like many methodological
approaches, RUP is best viewed as a template to be customized to fit the unique needs of the business. As
its popularity and usage have grown, Ambler's team at IBM has done exceptional work extending and expanding
the framework to encompass new software development lifecycle phases ("production" and "retirement"), as well
as observing and recommending seven enterprise disciplines:
- Enterprise Business Modeling
- Portfolio Management
- Enterprise Architecture
- Strategic Reuse
- People Management
- Enterprise Administration
- Software Process Improvement
Capstone embraces these disciplines as best practice, and takes away from both EUP and RUP the additional
key discipline of a phased lifecycle. The clear and insightful definitions of the six phases of EUP are
extremely valuable in charting the course to successful project delivery, as well as the effective overall
program management. The success of these principles, however, depend on their implementation iteratively
and incrementally, as discussed below.
For more information about the Enterprise Unified Process, visit
www.enterpriseunifiedprocess.com.
Agile
Agile
is a set of common principles designed to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of a small set of
software development commandos. However, these principles may also be applied to the development of
solutions to any complex problem. Principles such as "individuals and interactions over processes
and tools" and "customer collaboration over contract negotiations" emphasizes the skill and agility of
the teams working in concert to affect critical changes to the enterprise over the long haul. These
principles are elevated over the exhaustiveness or rigor of any methodology and set of artifacts.
Other Agile practices, such as test-driven and behavior-driven development, as well as "continuous
integration" are also driving forces in Capstone's program and project management methodologies.
Driving software development from pre-built test cases translates to establishing success criteria
for software components, governance model changes, process re-engineering, or any other complex many-step
solution. A behavior-driven approach adds necessary focus on user stories and on continual interaction
between technical development teams and business owners throughout the lifecycle of each iteration,
the project, and the entire initiative. Continual integration is a similar concept, ensuring that changes
to existing systems (whether software or people) are made incrementally, grafting new features and
functionality onto the existing core, rather than "bouncing around" building silos of software
functionality, corporate policy, business process, information workflow, etc.
Capstone feels so strongly about these Agile principles that we have made it a core offering to provide
our customers Agile
training and strategic mentoring.
There are a lot of buzzwords in the IT world, many promising an effective, repeatable
approach to delivering everything from business performance management to change management to large
software initatives. But the processes actually in use at many companies, though heavy on buzzwords,
frequently lack the capacity to truly deliver the value the business needs when they need it —
early and often.
Capstone's proven approach to program management is not about buzzwords. We encourage customers to
question the buzz and deeply understand terms like "iterative" and "incremental", and to compare
Capstone's approach against industry best practices. Our extensive experience and long-term success
have made us confident in our methodology, as well as the ability to repeatedly deliver significant
value to our customers.
Let's go beyond the buzz on a few of these critical concepts in successfully managing complex initiatives.
How do I make program management "iterative"?
The "iterative" term has its root in the software development lifecycle (or SDLC). Learn more about
how Capstone iteratively manages software development projects
as a baseline for understanding the enterprise extension of this concept.
Managing the development of a single software product iteratively means delivering usable software
to the business owners / end users early and often. This is true of large-scale programs as well.
Working to put a new change management process in place or establish a new data governance model or
migrate a reporting infrastructure to J2EE from the mainframe ... None of these should be delivered
with a "big bang approach". Whether it's creating new features for a software product or any of these
other complex multi-project initiatives, delivery teams, no matter how skilled, should not be locked
in a room for months or even years until the they have created a complete solution. Rather, delivery
teams should be releasing valuable additions or enhancements to programs, processes, or software every
few days or weeks, not months or years. And these are not temporary band-aids, adhoc processes, or
throwaway demonstrations. These are valuable innovations for the business, assembled incrementally
from industry best practices and the experience and expertise of the team.
When is program management "incremental"?
And that brings us to the definition of "incremental" program management. Once the management of large-scale
initiatives is truly iterative, it's easy to make it incremental. Developing a solution incrementally means
adding a little more to the usable end-product during each iteration. It's about starting with a basic root
of functionality, and grafting on a little more each iteration until the end-product is as robust as is needed by
the business. Notice that this is exactly the opposite of the big bang approach, which envisions every
conceivable concept from which the business might benefit (in the eyes of the program sponsor, business analysts,
and others "inside the initiative"), and attempts to build it all in one shot.
For the reader who feels like this description of "incremental" management sounds very software-centric... In part,
you're correct. Incremental management techniques have their origin in managing the software development
lifecycle. However, this principle, like many others we've discussed, extends beyond the single project to
program management as well. Enhancing an issue management business process or rolling out a balanced
scorecard initiative is best approached incrementally and iteratively as well. These concepts
are not just for a software project manager.
When put that way, we believe it becomes clear why waterfall approaches (conceive it all, then document it
all, then build it all, then deploy it all, etc) to both software development or program management are failing,
and why an iterative, incremental approach is necessary to ensure success. And the more complicated the initiative,
the more true this principle is.
Capstone can help you deliver both your critical projects and large-scale initiatives according to these
principles. Let us show you how.
Contact Capstone Consulting
Visit Capstone's Resource Library
Subscribe to Capstone's Quarterly Newsletter
Learn more about events coming to your area
|