Month: October 2006

Agile Project Management, Leadership, Planning

Agile Leadership Patterns: The Merlin Exercise

According to legend, Merlin the magician was a great help to King Arthur because he knew what was going to happen since we has living his life backwards. This allowed Arthur of avoid obstacles and thwart enemy plots before they happened or were even schemed of.  Project Managers can benefit from engaging the team in backwards planning from the desired end goal, through the required deliverables, to where we are today.  On Agile projects the exact end point may not be known as some functionality will evolve as new details emerge. However the Merlin exercise can be used for single iterations or sub-systems where the end goal can be easily described. To use this process start by describing the completed […]

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Agile Project Management, Estimating, Metrics, Planning

Using Earned Value on Agile Projects

Q: Does Earned Value work for software projects? A: Absolutely, Earned Value Analysis (EVA) is a statically valid reporting approach that can be applied to any endeavour. It compares actual progress and spend against projected progress and spend. Q: Can you use Earned Value on Agile projects?A: You can, but I would not recommend it. There are fundamental problems using EVA on agile projects relating to baseline plan quality. Also there are better alternatives available for agile projects. Earned Value analysis and reporting measures conformance and performance to a baselined plan. So, given that on agile projects we know that our initial plans are likely to change, why track progress against a weak plan?

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