Getting a project from the concept stage into production is no small task. Bringing that product to market offers an extra level of difficulty. The art of project management is to move a project from concept to market.

The project manager can be vital in the process. It’s their job to bring in the project both on time and on budget. They can also help keep the team motivated and can assist in mediating on issues that can occur.

Project managers are also a great benefit to their organizations. They can help with improvements to how organizations implement projects in the most effective and efficient way. Reducing risk is a second function. And for issues beyond the project manager’s control? When needed they highlight issues to the right people. They also make sure their team has the resources they need at the right time.

It’s important to choose a project management method that gets you going in the easiest way. Businesses can choose from as many as twenty popular forms of project management. With so many different approaches, how can you decide which methodology is best? This post will focus on two Agile methodologies best suited to infrastructure projects. That’s Kanban and scrum.

What is Agile?

The Agile framework is most often associated with software development. It values collaboration and communication over procedures and processes. Agile works well for projects with changeable requirements.

Project Management Institute research shows that Agile organizations meet their project deadlines 65% of the time, versus 40% for non-Agile companies. They also completed 75% of their goals, versus 56% for non-Agile. The same research shows that Agile organizations grow revenue 37% faster than non-Agile companies.

The Agile team begins with the project’s initial requirements. Then they come up with a design for the first iteration. The design undergoes testing and review. The team takes lessons learned forward into the second iteration. They test and review, with lessons learned feeding into the third iteration. And so on.

The lack of a rigid structure creates space for flexibility. Meanwhile, huge projects become more manageable by turning them into iterations.

That flexibility is what makes Agile a great fit for a project manager. The team’s fast response means new timelines or priorities don’t stop the process. Working to a delivery deadline while minimising budgets is central to Agile. Especially when you’re also meeting changing customer requirements.

The Agile process relies on projects changing over time. Without a project manager to oversee changes, Agile projects might spiral into chaos. But a project manager keeps the team focused on the central task of each iteration.

There is an extra form of Agile, known as the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). This framework evolved from a need to scale practices to more teams. Like Agile, SAFe prioritises collaboration. SAFe also adds alignment between teams as a core value.

Agile’s flexible approach offers the potential to deliver products quickly. The need for less documentation makes this more possible. Project managers can navigate changing environments with fewer bottlenecks.

But everyone needs to focus on each iteration. Agile needs more discipline than other frameworks because of that adaptability. Its focus on less documentation makes it a faster process. But that means team members need better communication to keep it moving.

What makes Scrum unique?

Scrum is probably the most well-known Agile methodology and is a lightweight framework designed to help small, close-knit teams develop complex products. The Scrum approach uses ‘sprints’. These sprints are planned in advance, executed, and then reviewed at the end of the sprint period. During sprint planning, the team creates a sprint backlog.

Scrum was the brainchild of a group of software engineers working together in the late 20th century. It gained the most traction in the technology sector, but the tools and practices can be adapted to suit the needs of a project, no matter the industry.

The basic idea is to have a working shippable product ready for release at the end of each sprint. Scrum came from the software development world. But it also works for teams that need to turn projects around fast. If they need to be able to alter project scope as they go, Scrum offers the option to do that.

The process begins with a review of the stakeholder requirements. This leads to an update of the product backlog. A planning session then follows to determine the content of the next sprint. Daily sprint meetings and regular review sessions keep the team on track. A positive project manager, here called a Scrum master, is vital to make the most of each sprint.

After the release, the team reviews the sprint before beginning the process again. With each iteration, the product is improved and refined through the addition of greater detail. It is also reviewed and tested by the Product Owner, who ensures that all expected criteria have been met.

Pros and Cons

Scrum offers a high degree of flexibility within project management. The daily meetings use ‘stand ups’ to track how each sprint is progressing. Teams introduce changes based on these meetings.

Its downside is its heavy reliance on the Scrum master. The team needs to be proactive. But the Scrum master must make sure that happens.

What makes Kanban unique?

Like Scrum, Kanban is an Agile methodology built around continual delivery but it uses a productive line approach to project management, which was developed at Toyota. It also provides a visual aid to ‘track’ process by using task cards. The team defines the categories (such as ‘Priority’, ‘Pending’, ‘Done’). These become vertical columns on the Kanban board.

At a basic level, the Kanban board has three columns: waiting, in progress, and complete. You can add extra columns after ‘complete’, like ‘in revision’, depending on the project.

Each task needed for the project becomes a separate card, placed on the board in the right column. As each task it picked up or completed, the card moves along the board. Virtual Kanban boards are also possible, using software like Trello.

How you use your team’s Kanban board is up to you. This gives the method flexibility across industries. The method aims to limit the number of tasks still in progress so that the project remains realistic and achievable. Moving tasks across the board gives a clear view of the status of the project and the project manager can assign new tasks for a steady workflow.

The role of the project manager differs from those working with Agile or Scrum. With Kanban, they can take a more holistic view of the project. They are not focussing on one iteration or a sprint at a time. Kanban project managers get to see how a team’s work fits into the bigger picture.

Pros and Cons

If you want your team to have greater transparency, then Kanban is your method of choice. For each task, you can define the requirements, specify who is responsible, and include any other relevant information.

Everyone can access the board and see how the tasks are progressing.

Its emphasis on resource allocation also works well within infrastructure. The visualisation of the workflow also helps to get buy-in from other teams. This highly visual workflow method gives management the visibility they need to better manage work and people. They identify ‘waste’, like team members or processes blocking the workflow. They can address problems before they become a bigger issue.

Because Kanban is an iterative task delivery process, it doesn’t try to forecast the traditional scope, schedule, and budget plans. There might be some high-level definition of scope, but the finer details will evolve over time. By focusing on a smooth workflow, it tends to avoid including a specific timeline. The method helps avoid bottle-necks but the lack of timelines makes planning difficult.

Which framework is best for infrastructure?

Leadership expert Steve Denning first noticed the Agile framework in 2008. Only software developers used it at the time. They’d worked out how to combine “continuous innovation” with “disciplined execution”. Before, managers thought you could do one or the other – but not both at once.

Denning believed that Agile should work beyond software development. It would create “highly productive organisations that were also continuously innovative and human-centered”. And in 2016, Professor Julian Birkinshaw described three types of organisations. They were “bureaucracies, meritocracies, and adhocracies”. Because of Agile’s flexibility, adhocracies found new solutions, and make decisions fast.

This makes Scrum appear to be the best choice for project management. The problem in Scrum is its focus on the shippable product following each sprint. That works well for software. But within infrastructure it doesn’t work for projects like Disaster Recovery.

Instead, we should use Kanban for better project management in infrastructure. The splitting of work into tasks and tracking of progress suits these projects.

The images are reproduced curtesy of Unsplash.

What do you think? Which project management method is best for infrastructure projects?