How is agile planning different from traditional methods?
Answers
1. Directing vs. Allowing the team to find its own way
❤️ In traditional leadership, it's considered a great strength to direct a team to achieve a specific outcome. It is analogous to a shepherd herding his sheep through a treacherous terrain to a safe haven. The basic assumption is that that the leader (e.g., the project manager) knows the best way to allocate resources, manage risks, and even react to inevitable change. The team is expected to follow the plan that was set in motion, and any change or deviation must be routed back to the leader, who makes the necessary corrections after consulting with other stakeholders.
❤️ The agile approach allows the team to find their own way towards achieving specific goals. Senior management must invest more time and energy upfront to help the team understand the big picture and the organizational strategy. From there on, leadership trusts the team to make adjustments and tradeoffs to turn the vision into a reality. All impediments or changes in direction are openly and directly discussed with the stakeholders, and the plan dynamically changes to accommodate new learnings.
2. Expecting to never fail vs. Expecting to fail fast and fail forward
❤️ In traditional project planning, risk management carries enormous weight, and the leader continuously assesses the risks involved. The project manager works diligently to overcome or mitigate risks and ensure the team achieves objectives at predetermined deadlines. Failing is not seen as an option, hence there is no easy way to deal with it when it occurs. A lot of energy goes into determining why the failure occurred and who was responsible. Typically, the whole team—including the project manager—is blamed and everyone ends up dejected with decreased team morale.
❤️ In contrast, an agile mindset understands failing sometimes is natural, and early failure is in our best interest because it teaches us what does and doesn't work as soon as possible. It also recognizes there is no clear path to innovation and execution, and the team has to find its way through constant experimentation and subsequent learning. The default way is to try new things, even if the risk of failing is high in the initial stages. The collaborative leadership style encourages the team to fail fast and fail forward to learn and lay out a dynamic path to reach its key objectives and goals.
3. Limiting scope changes vs. Having a flexible scope
❤️ Change is often seen as a negative force in traditional planning because it disrupts the team from its original path, which had been laid out in exhaustive planning sessions spanning several months. Change request boards, which weigh the proposed change against the original scope rather than trying to understand why the change was requested, are set up to limit scope changes. If it's determined a change will extend deadlines or cause rework, it's usually rejected outright or pushed to the next phase of the project.
❤️ Agile thinking acknowledges that change is a constant force, and the best way to handle it is to remain flexible. This approach recognizes that it's better to deliver a project based on the most current information rather than sticking with old intel that may no longer be accurate. Even if it means scrapping or refactoring months of work, change will be entertained, be it a major course correction or a completely new goal post, if new information or feedback indicates it will produce a better result.
4. Investing in specific outcomes vs. Investing in the team's overall wellbeing and growth
❤️ The focus of traditional project planning is to deliver a project based on scope, quality, and schedule. That is a specific, narrow, and likely achievable outcome, and yet the project may be a failure if it doesn't account for other outcomes, such as products or skill sets that are no longer relevant in the market. Individual team members' growth and wellbeing is not directly relevant to traditional project managers; this responsibility is traditionally allocated to others in the organization.
❤️ In agile planning, the team's wellbeing and growth are considered an integral part of project delivery. At frequent intervals, team members are urged to reflect on how the team is feeling, their overall morale, and their ability to deliver projects. If team morale is low, the reasons are investigated and addressed by the team or management. A happy team is also an energetic and enthusiastic one that can deliver more than just a set of expectations and can lead a culture of innovation.
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I hope it helps..... ❤️..
Explanation:
Agile follows an iterative process where projects are divided into sprints of the shorter span. Unlike the traditional approach, less time is spent on upfront planning and prioritization as agile is more flexible in terms of changes and developments in the specification.