XP vs Traditional good project management [closed]

Question

I have been in the IT industry for 10 years now but have worked in "traditionally" managed project teams (both well managed and badly managed ones).

I have heard of the "new" scrum or XP type of project management and yearned to be part of one (as s/w folks we always like anything new I guess) but have not got an opportunity.

My question is this - what are your experiences in moving to the "new" way - was it significantly better or worse or not any different? Has there been any project success rate improvement when using XP way of development or it is same as any well managed traditional projects?

This should not be a political question but just your experiences as you have moved to the new world or experienced at least once and back.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Before I ever heard of XP, I had a really good manager (Mike) at an early job I had. He was used to managing engineers and transitioned to managing software. After a few bad working experiences I looked back at his style versus typical project management I had before and after working with him.

• Met with everyone at least once a day but gave us space to work
• Used a whiteboard with two columns, people working and what they are working on anyone could look at that board and see if something had been done or was being done
• Had everyone cross-train. I learned rcs and then cvs there and how to use make files
• Ran productive "post mortum" when a task was completed. He would ask question like "would it have helped if X?" or "next time, can we try to..."
• Kept everyone working on short tasks and managed our time so we always working on something but never had a ton of stuff piled up

Mike did everything on paper. He would keep notebooks and index cards with him. He insisted that anything asked of him by management be converted into manageable tasks, often written on note cards. He refused to have anyone work on anything that couldn't be clearly explained or had a clear objective. He would ask the VPs "what do you mean by faster?" "What kinds of metrics are the reports meant to show?" "Why should this be a priority?" He seemed to have near infinite patience in writing out what needed to be done and what was meant by "done"

When I first read the XP book, I was amazed by how much was familiar as "the way Mike worked"

It seems that Agile is just about implementing a set of best practices and evaluating how they work in your environment. When they don't work, change them. When they do work, stick to them.

I think the real problem with traditional project management is that more often than not, it doesn't really exist. I'm amazed by how many shops claim to use RUP or Code Complete or even Agile and don't actually have anything recognizable as project management. Sure, there are meetings. And people called project managers. But ask a simple question like "what has been done on project X" or "what is left to do on project Y" and no one has an answer. They have to dig though emails or point to a comically inaccurate MS project file.

If a person claimed to be on a diet and couldn't answer questions on what they were eating or how they were exercising; would you accept that they were really on a diet?

Answer 2

You take your old baggage with you when you go. Meaning that any project management bad practices you had before will still linger.

However, I will say that things improved greatly when we began to close the loop between us and the customer. Greater and more frequent feedback and prototyping with the customer means far fewer moments of the customer saying, "This is not what I wanted."