Im klassischen Project Management wird über Monate oder gar Jahre in die Zukunft geplant – und auf Basis dieses starren Gerüsts regelmäßig der Fortschritt des Projekts überprüft. Wie gelingt das im agilen Projektmanagement? The scalable agile framework FAST vereint die Planbarkeit des klassischen Projektmanagements mit der Flexibilität agiler Methoden, messbar koordiniert durch einen festen, verlässlichen rhythm.
How do you measure progress in agile projects?
The strength of agile project management with FAST lies precisely in the fact that milestones can be continuously adapted to changing conditions and customer requirements. So how do you consistently measure the progress of a project to ensure that the big transformation goal is achieved?
"Even in agile projects, the customer wants to know exactly where the project stands. Proven methods such as earned value analysis are essential for managing schedule and cost risks in complex, large-scale projects."
Jürgen Richter, Senior Consultant and FAST Product Owner at Xtentio GmbH
In the classic waterfall model, the strategy is easy to follow: A long-term and detailed corset of operations and planned figures serves as a fixed benchmark for goal achievement, budget consumption, and adherence to deadlines. Steering committees meet on a regular basis, such as monthly, to evaluate the progress of the project and whether the plan is being followed. If the deviations become too large, it is necessary to react and re-plan.
Große Digitalisierungs- und Transformationsprojekte sind jedoch hoch komplex. Man kann sie nicht nach Schema F planen und durchführen. Best Practices, die bei dem einen Unternehmen gut funktioniert haben, können bei einem anderen Unternehmen scheitern und müssen angepasst werden. Mit großen Transformationsprojekten begibt man sich daher immer auf neues Terrain. Damit einher gehen eine Vielzahl von Abhängigkeiten, Unschärfen, Risiken und Unwägbarkeiten, die erst im Projektverlauf sichtbar werden und dann gelöst werden müssen. Eine starre und langfristige Planung kann dieser Art von Projekten nicht gerecht werden und ist eine kaum zu bewältigende Herausforderung für das Projekt- und Programmmanagement.
Agile Vorgehensweisen bergen auf der anderen Seite die Gefahr, die übergeordnete Meilenstein-, Budget- und Rollout-Planung aus den Augen zu verlieren. Im Kleinen kommt man scheinbar schnell voran, aber am Ende verfehlt man die geforderten Ziele. Die agile Projektmethode FAST löst dieses Dilemma mit ihren verschiedenen Planungsebenen:
- the two- or three-week sprint (the smallest level of planning and work)
- the Season (the quarter with clear targets, planned with the help of Season Planning)
- the whole year (the annual planning with the budget plans and annual goals)
This timeboxes time boxesare fixed and are filled with goals and tasks at the beginning. The different planning levels not only make it clear what needs to be done in the next sprint, but also define the quarterly goals. The annual plan again contains a clear specification of the milestones to be achieved and the available budget.
The different goals at the different planning levels - Sprint, Season, and Year - provide the ideal framework for measuring project progress at different levels of detail.
How does reporting and controlling work in agile project management?
Multi-year digitization programs and transformation projects are turning entire organizations upside down. Digitizing business-critical process chains requires hundreds of employees to change the way they work, departments to reorganize, and global rollouts to organize.
Delays, quality defects and budget overruns can have enormous consequences and must be detected and prevented by a reliable early warning system. This early warning system includes above all
- the detailed progress measurementbased on easy-to-measure KPIs,
- A multidimensional budget controllingthat covers all suppliers and cost types,
- regular risk management to identify and eliminate risks,
- transparent dependency managementto identify and resolve dependencies and critical paths, and last but not least
- a simple and clear project reportingin order to be able to make decisions quickly.
For large projects and programs, the FAST project management method provides the necessary measurement tool to steer these "super tankers" safely through the shoals of everyday project life. Tools and methods from the agile world are on board as well as proven standards from classic project management. Each tool is used in a way that creates the greatest possible transparency at the appropriate planning level, e.g:
- Sprint Burndown: This graphical representation shows for each sprint what portion of the work should be done and what portion has actually been accomplished. It provides an overview and insight into the current performance of each team.
- Season Objectives and Key Results (OKR): In Season Planning, the objectives and acceptance criteria of all Value Streams are bindingly defined for the quarter. In this way, goal achievement can be identified and measured on a regular basis.
- Earned value analysis: The earned value indicates what proportion of the specified budget has already been "earned" - in other words, which delivery items have already been completed. It is calculated from the percentage of completion, planned costs, and actual costs, and is very useful for detecting creeping budget and schedule variances early on. The graphical representation makes it easy to see at a glance whether the goals can be achieved with the available resources in the specified time.
Professional controlling and reporting through BI tools
Use BI tools, such as Microsoft's Power BI, to evaluate your key performance indicators, making it easier to create and update up-to-date KPIs across dimensions.
The overarching rhythm of the FAST method provides a common beat like a heartbeat. The same goes for controlling. In this way, management can check and measure the achievement of goals every two weeks (sprint), every month, every half and full quarter (season), or even every year (annual planning), and intervene if necessary in case of deviations from the plan.
Quality, willingness to implement and more: These are the values FAST promotes
Control is good, trust is better: working with FAST establishes agile core values and beliefs from the start that serve excellence:
- Alignment: Elements such as rhythm and season planning create consistency at all project levels. Fixed timeboxes create clear handover deadlines so dependencies are no longer an issue. In this way, each activity becomes much more than an end in itself - it contributes significantly to the common goal.
- Striving for quality: Far too often, tasks are simply processed because they are on the to-do list - no wonder motivation suffers as a result. Clear and complete focus on the task at hand creates commitment and a sense of purpose. This makes quality a matter of course rather than an add-on.
- Transparency: Goals, resources and the current status of the project are comprehensible for all participants. This way, everyone has a clear view of completed, ongoing, and planned tasks.
- Will to implement: This is the basis for motivation and determination, which contribute to greater business value and increase customer benefits.
Agile Projects - 100% reliable?
With our agile project framework FAST, we make agile digitization projects and transformation programs plannable and manageable.