Discussion Questions

1. Your Agile project has been progressing smoothly and until now, there have been few surprises. Without any warning, the client manager (your co-project manager) suddenly leaves the company and is replaced by a subordinate. The new manager isn't willing to have his people participate at the level of the prior manager, and you feel that this will seriously impact the project. What actions would you take and why? If you had identified losing the client manager in your risk management plan, what would your mitigation strategy have been?
2. All of the ideas that are suggested come from the development team and not from the client team. You have correctly concluded that the final product will not be as good as it could have been if the client had been more involved. How would you address this situation and why? If you had identified poor client involvement in your risk management plan, what would your mitigation strategy have been?

5. What sort of approach would you use for an Agile project if your client wasn't willing or able to participate? What are the strengths and/or weaknesses of your choice?

6. What sort of approach would you use if your client was getting so involved with the project that it was adversely affecting the team's productivity? What are the strengths and/or weaknesses of your choice?

7. You are considering volunteering to manage a critical but very challenging project that has all the makings of an Adaptive project. You've been reading this book and have learned a great deal about Adaptive projects, and this one is fully that. Above all else, you want it to be successful, but your organization doesn't support Adaptive projects. What are you going to do? You've always risen to challenges and walking away from this one isn't an alternative.

8. Clients are always reluctant to get too involved in planning. What might you do to sell them on the idea that their full involvement in APF is needed for this effort to succeed?

9. Clearly, the Monitoring and Controlling Phase is very dependent upon the people on your team. APF gives team members great discretion in completing their work. If you were managing an APF project, how would you balance your need to know against the need to empower team members to do their work? Be specific.

10. Compare what happens with a TPM project and an APF project when a team member is taken off the team and no longer available. What are the impacts on each approach? Which approach is least affected by such a change? To do this comparison, you will be considering a full TPM plan versus an APF cycle plan.

11. A member of your team is a systems analyst from the old school and just cannot adjust to APF. Her problem is that the client has decision-making authority over the direction that your software development project is taking and that the client is, shall we say, technically challenged. How would you handle this dilemma?

12. You are the project manager over one of your company's first APF projects. You are having trouble getting the client's involvement. What would you do?

13. You have completed your first APF project. Compare and contrast the TPM and APF approaches when both of them reach this same point.

14. Suppose a project should have used a TPM approach, but you used APF. Comment on what might be different. Would the traditional approach have given you a better outcome? Why or why not? Be specific.

15. Under your leadership, your organization has spent considerable effort to adopt a traditional approach to project management. It has reached Maturity Level 3 — that is, there are fully documented project management processes and templates, and everyone is following them. PMBOK is the recognized standard. You have earned a good reputation among your management colleagues. You have noticed a number of projects where the client has requested and gotten approval for several changes throughout the project. These have cost significant money and time, the loss of e-business market share, and the subsequent loss of revenues. As Director of the Project Support Office, you have come to realize that APF is the approach that should have been taken on this project. You are convinced that by using APF these types of projects could have been completed earlier, at less cost, and with a much better end results. What strategy would you suggest to introduce and institutionalize APF in your company? What obstacles do you foresee?

16. You are a senior project manager in your company. You have 15 years' experience with them and a solid reputation for delivering successful projects. What might you, acting on your own, do to get your organization to appreciate the value of APF? What obstacles might prevent you from going forward with your plan? How do you feel about stepping outside the box?