ThoughtWorks

[ChrisFromGreece]

How does budget work with Agile?

With waterfall, you have a PID that includes a budget ask and a cost benefits case that needs to be signed off before you get very far.

This inception phase is the same with Agile when it comes to requesting budget.

It's just the budget can also be signed-off (or pulled) every two weeks (or the length of the Sprint) when you demo what was produced over the Sprint.

[MrMarkyMark]

How does budget work with Agile?

With waterfall, you have a PID that includes a budget ask and a cost benefits case that needs to be signed off before you get very far.

Exactly and even when budget is agreed, in a PID, it can later be pulled.

Happened to me, was building the whole enterprise reporting caboodle for a very large American Bank, everything from the servers to reports and everything else in between.
I was being paid for by the Fed in the US, everyone was extremely happy with the way things were going, 6 months in.

Financial crisis hit, project halted, by Fed, in month 6, was supposed to run for 12.

All part of the game

[m0n1k3r]

To have credibility, a scientist should have a PhD, no question about it.

The problem with agile is that 90% of the projects that I've seen claim to be Agile aren't run as Agile. There's either a failure to convince senior management to arrange their budget differently (this guys have delivered successfully under waterfall/v/JFDI for many years so have a different mindset) or nobody with the stones to attempt to convince them that an agile methodology is totally different to waterfall and explain with simple pictures how it works, including roles.

"Delivered successfully under waterfall" is such an oxymoron.

[MrMarkyMark]

"Delivered successfully under waterfall" is such an oxymoron.

If you build a team who is capable of major delivery, it will be done regardless, or should I say in spite of, of the supposed methodology involved.

[m0n1k3r]

The way I see it is that although agile is the buzzword-du-jour and that's fine and dandy, how can any board sign-off on something that they don't know how much it'll cost and when it'll be delivered.

In waterfall they know how much "it" will cost and when "it" will be delivered, but they don't know what quality or how useful for what reality will be then, thus the ROI is questionable.

In agile they know how much "it" will cost and when "it" will be delivered, and they can be quite certain that "it" will be of good quality and be far better aligned with what reality will look like by the delivery date. The one thing they can't be certain about is what "it" will be, but whatever it is, it will provide far better ROI.

Agile software development methodology is fine but how can you report on progress to shareholders?

ROI is one good metric. EVM is another one. Both works very well with agile and especially EVM can be embedded in burn-up charts.

At one time I dared ask the PMO what the RAG status colours actually meant. Nobody knew. The status was pretty much assigned by gut feel rather than by any empirical or scientific method.

At the end of the day stakeholders tend to care about risk, and agile is an excellent way of managing risk.

[m0n1k3r]

How does budget work with Agile?

With waterfall, you have a PID that includes a budget ask and a cost benefits case that needs to be signed off before you get very far.

You can have the same with an agile project, if absolutely necessary. It is usually a waste, and agile environments tend to work hard on minimising waste. There is usually some sort of budget, as in an allocation of a finite amount of money, regardless of the delivery method. Then later more pots might be allocated depending on progress and value generated.

The difference is that in an agile environment, that budget can be utilised far better to deliver the most value to the organisation.

[oliverson]

If you build a team who is capable of major delivery, it will be done regardless, or should I say in spite of, of the supposed methodology involved.

Couldn't agree more.

[m0n1k3r]

If you build a team who is capable of major delivery, it will be done regardless, or should I say in spite of, of the supposed methodology involved.

Indeed. Trouble is, most customers won't pay for such a good team. I've been in this business internationally since 1994 (before then I was a permie) and customers always have great cost pressures and want to build teams with one or two great, senior people, a few intermediary ones and a large number of juniors and recent graduates. While those may be technically good, they lack the experience of dealing with the inevitable politics & bullying and expectations on self-management, and consume most of the resources of the more senior people. It ends up costing more that way, and there are few customers who would just allow a supplier team to 'get on with it' and deliver great results in the end. Customers are often their own worst enemy because of their own perceived need to 'be in control', 'take charge' and 'manage and supervise' the skilled, educated, experienced knowledge workers they were looking for.

[rocktronAMP]

I have worked with https://www.thoughtworks.com/profiles/martin-fowler before.

Best not to say where or when.

I could tell a few stories - but not publicly.

BrilloPad would love to hear them.

Thanks for revealing the stupidity of their uppity we-know-best culture. I once went over there to Holborn on a permanent job interview 8 years ago. I put me through a full morning of programming tests whilst I tried to impress and get the gist of the developer role. I couldn't stand it, and they never gave me any feedback on the test. I asked twice, but HR was so slow I gave up. I was glad I missed it.

They can stick their quarterly Tech Radar to the tulip too. It is just like a the Gartner Hype Cycle for IT directors. Get real, you ain't doing Microservices when you are trying to put lip stick on a Mainframe based banking architecture.

[LondonManc]

"Delivered successfully under waterfall" is such an oxymoron.

That says more about the teams you've worked with under waterfall than anything else.

I've managed and worked in projects that have delivered very successfully under waterfall.