Agile methods have been found to improve the reliability of project delivery in complex environments, by decomposing the scope into small manageable parts, then completing these parts in order of greatest value. Although Agile and Lean methods share many common values and principles, Agile methods have not been properly investigated as a means of reducing the overruns associated with large scale construction projects.

In the presentation below I explore the similarities and differences between Agile, Lean and Construction.

The key artefacts we discussed are linked below:

• Defining Quality Workbook
• Quality Focused BVC
• Agile Test Strategies
• Agile QA Practices

At the recent Agile Australia 2011 conference I discussed the nature of technology Startups and the application of Agile principles, practices and tools. Additionally,I shared some real life experiences in the application of Agile in Ennova through the development of Envision.

In the example discussed below, I was asked to create a process for developing an estimate that satisfied the above requirements. Rather than simply creating process flow and swim-lane diagrams, I tried to consider how the process could be adapted and matured over time as the organisation changed over time. In doing so I found the many agile/lean principles were being subtly introduced.

Strategy

As is common with most things, your first design isn’t going to be perfect and it will require progressive enhancement. With this in mind, my approach was to start simple, develop the most minimal process and then provide support in the form of training, infrastructure (tools, templates etc). Realising that my first iteration of the process would be a tactical solution allowed me to move past trying to make it perfect and enabled me to focus on the bigger picture of how the organisation could adapt and mature the process.

Establishing the Current Issues

To begin with I reviewed the state of the current estimation practices from a number of different perspectives including developers, project managers, business analysts and solution architects. I have included the results together with comments below as the issues are probably common to many larger organisations.

Key Training and Process Concepts

Based on the identified issues, I designed the training materials to focus on a number of key concepts. Additionally, I structured the process documentation inline with the following methodology for process design.

1. Design
   Purpose
   Context
   Documentation
2. Metrics
   Derivation
   Uses
3. Ownership
   Identity
   Activities
   Authority
4. Infrastructure
   Tools
   Templates
5. Roles
   Skills
   Knowledge
   Behaviour

This approach is based on work by Dr. Michael Hammer and is simple, but ensures that the major process areas are considered.

What is an Estimate?

An estimate is an informed assessment of an uncertain event. Informed means that there is an identified basis for the estimate, and uncertain recognizes that multiple outcomes are possible.

Why Estimate?

There are many reasons why estimates are created, but here are three important ones.

• Estimates enable assessment of value. An estimate enables the customer to determine if the cost of the deliverable matches the expected value.
• Estimates enable prioritisation of work. Once the estimated size of a task is known its value can be determined and therefore priority assigned.
• Estimates assist planning. The process of preparing an estimate begins the process of planning a project and identifying task, skills, constraints, etc. This process adds value during project implementation.

Who is Accountable?

It is common for project costs and/or timescales to be exceeded and for the person who developed the estimate being held to blame. To discourage this type of behaviour I tried to create a culture where everyone involved is held responsible for developing an estimate. In the event that the estimate is wrong, the whole business suffers, therefore it is in everyone’s interest to get the estimate as accurate as possible based on the given requirements.

Redesigned Process

1. Design – Overview

As mentioned earlier, I created a minimal and generic process because the majority of estimation tasks are different and this approach would provide the necessary flexibility and business agility. The process encourages collaboration and communication by incorporating 3 separate meetings and a number of progress discussions.

The process starts with a discovery meeting that occurs once a request for estimate is received together with a definition of solution requirements. This meeting is intended to set expectations around project scope, maturity, estimate timing and estimate uncertainty. Coming out the meeting is a decision verifying that the maturity of the solution matches the expectations for an estimate in terms or timing and uncertainty.

Moving forward, an estimate leader is assigned who has the responsibility of coordinating the creation of the estimate by drawing together the relevant technical inputs. As the time taken to gather the necessary data may span weeks (especially if key staff needed to be scheduled), it is suggest that the estimate leader provides progress advice to the customer/project manager to ensure that the process does not become a black-box.

Once the majority of technical tasks are identified and estimated a peer-review meeting is arranged to provide an independent review. Typically, experienced technical staff would review the estimate ensuring that lessons from past projects are incorporated and the estimate can be properly justified – especially when compared to previous similar projects.

The handover meeting is intended to discuss the final estimate with the customer and project manager and review task breakdown, estimate, confidence level and assumptions. Once accepted the estimate is closed and the documentation and register updated.

2. Metrics

Without metrics, a process cannot be properly measured and evaluated. The metrics proposed were intended to encourage practices that would address the identified issues.

3. Ownership

A single person (and their role) was nominated as the process owner. This helps facilitate process change as they are able to approve process improvements.

4. Infrastructure

The infrastructure for this process consisted of templates that assisted the preparation of an estimate. The templates help ensure that the process can be consistently followed. Additionally, a file structure was established to support organisation of the documents supporting estimates as shown below.

5. People

The responsibilities for the roles of Project Manager, Solution Architect, Business Analyst, Application Architect and Estimate Leader were clearly articulated in the training documentation.

Improving Estimates

While there are numerous references in estimation, I tried to extract some key principles that would be easily adopted as part of the process. These included:

• Leveraging past experience on similar projects
• Capturing better quality requirements
• Utilizing multiple estimation methods
• Prioritise requirements to ensure estimation concentrates on high priority
• Scheduling resources rather than relying on just effort estimate

Task Breakdown

I always recommend using as many different methods as possible to arrive at an estimate but starting with an initial task breakdown is a good starting point and helps with planning the project. The following are some guidelines on task breakdown.

Decompose tasks into activities that can be estimated.

• Tasks smaller than ½ day is probably too small
• Tasks larger than 1 week are probably too large

Link technical tasks to functional requirements where possible – or to a general/common group. This helps when a functional requirement is removed the effort to change the estimate is minimised. For every task consider the following:

Everyone has different preferences on which tools are best for task planning but I generally use a spreadsheet as tools vary between organisations and spreadsheets offer good flexibility. In some cases I have setup template spreadsheets but rolling your own is pretty straightforward.

Adding Uncertainty

Typically uncertainty is added as a percentage of the estimated effort for the task. The effect of applying the uncertainty is that upper and lower limits of the estimate are created. These effectively provide a range that the actual effort/costs should fall within.

It is important to remember that the upper limit should be used for reserving budget, while the un-adjusted estimate should be used for scheduling tasks and resources. This is because schedule typically drives cost so planning effort against the unadjusted effort gives the most realistic requirement of resources. Planning against the upper value of effort would tend to keep resources working against a task longer than expected and therefore tend to increase costs.

Adding Contingency

Generally an estimate is based upon the most realistic scenario, and then contingency is included to account for uncertainty (known unknowns NOT unknown unknowns). It is important to be transparent about where contingency is being added so that (a) contingency it is not added in more than one place, and (b) contingency is not assumed to be included when it is has not been included. The need for contingency arises from things like staff skills and experience, project familiarisation, staff availability, task management, meetings, progress reporting, etc.

Summary

Estimation is a deceptively complex activity and I have tried to simplify and incorporate into a process that can be easily adopted by a large organisation. However, it is important to remember that processes have a level of maturity which often includes deficiencies, gaps or missing decision points. Therefore, for a process to be successful, the participating people need to collaborate and use the process as a guideline. Over time a process matures and the tools/artefacts improve and the tacit knowledge penetrates into the business, hence attitude and support is critical to the success.

Normally this is a pretty fail-safe approach (used by consultants globally) but I was a bit disturbed by how little information related to this activity. Apart from one excellent post and subsequent discussion – there was little to go on.

As I got further into the project I found there were some significant challenges in applying Agile methods to a large systems integration project. Below is a summary of the challenges faced for this project in utilising an Agile approach.

Project Background

The project involved a major upgrade to the transportation (rail and ship), materials handling (conveyor, stackers/reclaimers and stockpiles) and logistics planning systems for multiple port facilities. The customer had the opportunity to undertake a upgrade of the existing systems and planned to eliminate some legacy systems and to improve the overall functionality.

Historically, the customer had managed projects using a methodology based around PMBoK but realised that benefits exist in leveraging Agile methods to reduce delivery timescales and risks. Unfortunately, the customer had no experience in executing a project using Agile methods.

Challenges and Strategies

One of the first challenges was to increase the general understanding and awareness of how Agile methods compare with traditional project execution methods like PMBoK, that are much better understood by the customer. I found The Software Project Manager’s Bridge to Agility by Michele Sliger and Stacia Broderick and excellent resource – especially the mapping between Agile methods and the PMBoK processes.

The other challenges are identified in the table below, together with the mitigation strategies.

Potential Benefits

• Reduced project delivery schedule / elapsed time (time to market)
  This is a clear benefit, but may result in higher overall projects costs compared to an equivalent project completed by a co-located team because of the additional communications overhead.
• Access to global resources at lower costs
  This only becomes a valid cost saving in the case where the operating and labour costs are much lower, such as in locations like India or China. In my experience the additional cost of communicating requirements and changes on a daily basis erodes the labour cost savings for all but the simplest business problems. This is probably why call and support centres are able to function (maybe not well, but well enough) using this model.
• Facilitate and enhance international partnerships
  The case for building international partnerships is only valid when there is an appropriate business motivation and therefore not valid in all cases – especially for outsourced projects. A valid example might be the case of a business acquisition and need to harmonise organisational culture and working practices.
• Leverage skills and experience across all sites
  The potential to leverage a broader and/or deeper skill base is a valid benefit and can offer a business unique skills otherwise unavailable and therefore provide an important competitive advantage.
• Frequent peer checking leading to increased quality
  Peer review is a valid benefit and consistent with agile principles, but assumes that the same task is being progressed at each site rather than simply being divided amongst the sites. Peer review can be achieved in many other ways but the turn around time in this model is a real advantage.
• 24hr availability without shift working
  Business functions that require 24hr availability, such as call or support centres, can benefit from this model. However these business functions rarely involve the task being passed from one time-zone or location to another and so the required communication and infrastructure is significantly reduced.
• Reduced software licensing costs
  In certain situations the cost of software tools is a significant proportion of the project costs. This is often true for specialised engineering tools (particularly CAD, FEA and CFD). When software licensing permits, there is a potential opportunity to share the license costs over more than one time zone thereby reducing the total number of licenses required.

Potential Costs

• Reduced customer contact and engagement
  Software development and engineering design typically suffer when customer contact is reduced. However, there are instances when the constraint of limited customer contact has the effect of focusing the communication and ensuring that the limited time is used effectively. Communication can also be enhanced with web-based project management tools such as Basecamp or Unfuddle.
• Increased infrastructure complexity needed to facilitate data sharing
  Information security policies typically restrict the sharing of company data across the open internet. As a result, additional infrastructure is needed to secure access to private networks.
• Higher start-up costs associated with resource allocation
  The additional complexity and communication overhead associated with making the necessary resource available for a project typically increases the start-up costs.

Making an Objective Decision

• Clear business objectives
  It is important to be clear about why a Follow the Sun or Remote working model is being considered. In the present case, when we began to discuss the issue in detail it was unclear if we were; (a) attempting to create a global development team, or (b) trying to maximize the opportunities to share developed software or (c) trying to forge stronger links between the two businesses. As it turned out the business objective was both (b) and (c) and these can be achieved without attempting to use a Follow the Sun working model. In any case, the set up costs are significant and so it pays to be clear about the objective as this will determine what benefits can be realized.
• Challenge the assumption that costs will be reduced
  The advancement in communication technology has somewhat fuelled the hype around global teams and working practices. Despite this enthusiasm, the benefits can only be realised in certain situations and therefore it is important to challenge the benefits to ensure they are achievable.
• Peak Oil and travel costs
  The case for remote working and less onsite travel will strengthen as the cost of travel increases. This will probably result in more emphasis on local resources, however the advances in communication could counter this effect.

Small Regular Deliverables

At the heart of agile is the incremental delivery of projects in small regular intervals, rather than one large delivery at the end. Each of the delivery iterations is a subset of the entire development lifecycle and is demonstrated to the customer. This has the effect of reducing the risks associated with the development progressing in a direction that is not consistent with customer requirements. Applying this principle to engineering design does have some limitations, particularly since the cost and complexity of construction usually prohibits multiple iterations. However, within the design phase of an engineering project, there are good opportunities to use this approach and it is this part of the product life cycle that has been considered.

During the design phase of an engineering project, milestones are often introduced to mark preliminary and critical phases of the design. These milestones do encourage incremental delivery, but they are neither small enough, nor regular enough to be consistent with agile principles. Modern CAD tools enable rapid development of digital mock-ups that can fulfil this objective. The CAD model can contain sufficient design detail to accurately represent the product and surrounding structure. As a result the CAD model can be used as the basis for verifying many different acceptance criteria. Additionally, rapid prototyping systems enable the creation of physical mock-ups that greatly enhance customer engagement and interaction with the design process.

From an agile perspective these deliverables are important for customer engagement and verification of the design direction. However, prototypes that do not add directly to the final product are not valued as highly as actual progress toward the final delivered product. That said, there is still significant opportunity to make incremental deliverables part of the design process and no technical reason why this cannot occur throughout this phase of an engineering project.

Deliverables Measure Progress

Customers often propose an earned value schedule for a project that is based on deliverables and is linked to either financial payments, or the release of additional project funds. These types of earned value measures are compatible with agile principles, particularly if they are granular enough to encourage close customer involvement in the project.

For engineering design projects, the CAD model is increasingly becoming a digital representation of the complete product including geometry, materials, manufacturing details and even the original design intent. Measuring the progress of CAD model maturity and conformance with acceptance criteria will provide the most agile measure of project progress.

Customer Collaboration

Customer satisfaction is considered important in engineering design projects, but the value of customer involvement in the development and review of the design as it progresses, is not widely utilized. Many project resource models fail to consider the benefits that can be achieved through close engagement with the customer, even for tasks that may appear well defined and understood.

Traditionally, the approach has been to develop highly prescriptive specifications and then negotiate changes with the customer using forms and documents such as Engineering Change Notes. In an agile environment, changes are driven by the customer and embraced by the development team. During the design phase of an engineering project there appears no reason why the same approach cannot be used. Additionally, when collaboration occurs between the customer and the engineering design team, the customer will tend to accept a greater level of responsibility for decisions as they can clearly see their impact on scope, schedule and cost.

The Scrum model advocates meetings that occur daily and at the end of each delivery iteration or sprint. The daily meetings involve the customer and all team members and are an opportunity to discuss each team member’s progress, plans and any obstacles. The iteration review and planning meetings also involve the customer and is their opportunity to prioritise the order in which features are implemented. This ensures that the development team are always working on the features that are of the highest value to the customer. These meetings may not always be practical because of team size, geographic locations or prior commitments; however, even at a small scale they have significant value. In large projects where the majority of engineering design work occurs in a separate location, a daily telephone or internet conference call with all team members will achieve a similar result and is a technique that is very valuable.

Simplicity and Design

Starting with the simplest possible solution that satisfies customer requirements and then maturing the solution during course of the project, is a common agile practice. This approach is somewhat at odds with software architecture design principles, which often need to be addressed early in a project. The conflict is typically resolved by developing software in such a way that it can be re-structured as easily as possible.

The main techniques for achieving this include: maintaining loose coupling between components and implementing automated tests. The loose coupling provides the opportunity to easily replace components or restructure the overall design with minimum impact. Automated tests allow architectural or component changes to be verified quickly thus further lowering the cost associated with changing and evolving the solution through the course of the project. This process is often referred to as refactoring.

For engineering design projects, implementing the simplest possible solution is an implicit assumption for most engineers and therefore compatible with agile principles. What is lacking however, is automated testing that verifies design changes. Significant work has already been done to automate structural analysis methods using both computational and classical analysis methods. However, this analysis is generally performed manually as a supplementary activity, rather than a concurrent activity that is automated. Therefore an opportunity exists to implement automatic design verification against customer defined acceptance criteria.

Embracing Changing Requirements

Traditionally, engineering project management practices have emphasized the need to control change. This is partly because project change has been closely associated with project cost, especially within a fixed price environment. Conversely, agile principles are based around an assumption that change will inevitably occur during the course of a project and that it is better to position the solution and working practices so that they can easily adapt. Furthermore, in an agile project it will be necessary to compromise at least one of either project; scope, cost or schedule and customers need to appreciate that they are responsible for guiding this compromise.

The agile practices of refactoring and automated testing help, software projects adapt to change, while the close customer involvement ensures that changes are identified as early as possible. For engineering design projects these principles can be applied as equivalent technical solutions exist, however the costs associated with automated testing can be very high. Consequently, engineers typically question the return on investment associated with automated verification. Additionally, engineers often take a conservative approach to alternate design methods and therefore changes are typically met with strong resistance. That said, there is generally a trend towards engineering automation and this is likely to evolve into automated testing.

Pair Programming/Working

Pair programming has attracted controversy because managers typically assume that having two developers implement the same functionality is only half as efficient as conventional working models. As an agile practice, pair programming has the effect of increasing software quality through peer review. Quality is critical as it ensures that the resultant software is in a state where it can be adapted to meet changing or additional requirements.

In a typical engineering design environment, the practice of pair working is uncommon. This maybe in part because of how tasks are broken down and matched to people with appropriate skills and experience. Another reason maybe the perceived cost ineffectiveness. Either way, the clear benefits that pair working provides should justify its adoption more widely.

With this in mind, there may be better ways to decompose engineering design tasks so as to exploit the skill and experience combinations that pair working offers. An example could be pairing a structural designer and analyst, instead of having the designer initiate structural layouts and the analyst size the structural features. This would encourage a more concurrent approach and result in a higher quality design and less rework.

Summary

Agile methods have become the default approach for software development projects. Many of the agile practices and principles can be more generally applied to other disciplines including engineering design. The opportunity for engineering design organizations is to improve the reliability of project success and the quality of resultant designs.