Why DSDM Atern?
I have been deep in the methodology evaluation business as of late. Our current methodology is our own SLR methodology. It is intended to be used to assess the client’s business processes, specify changes that are needed and map the client’s IT architecture to their revised business processes. Even though it is partly based on the RUP methodology the iterative nature of RUP was replaced with the notion of layers, i.e., first get the most out of what the client already has, then, if needed, shop for commercial software to fill in the holes and finally to develop custom code to fill in any needs that cannot be addressed by the first two “layers”. We also look at outsourcing as an alternate approach. Therefore, SLR will generate some number of software related projects that have to be managed together.
Until recently, the preferred approach for project management of those resulting smaller projects has been a traditional “waterfall” approach as described here. That approach is fairly rigid and top-heavy but does work well for non-IT centric projects. However, since we intend to deliver work in a lean and fast manner, we needed to pick an additional project management approach that is more aligned with the rest of our business. That led to a shopping trip.
There are many available techniques. We needed to stick to options which have broad acceptance. That narrows down the list to Prince2 (UK) and PMBOK (US) for “waterfall” approaches. Scrum (US) and DSDM (UK) for leaner “agile” project management. The newest version of the DSDM methodology is called Atern. All of these options have proven track records and would be safe approaches. However, we already have a waterfall approach so our focus was just on the lean approaches. It’s important to remember the environment in which we will be working. We will be using this approach with teams made up of the client’s resources, our resources, possibly vendor and/or client business partner resources. The projects will probably have a strong software focus but some may not. We have to handle both. Most projects will probably not be developing custom software but some will. We have to handle both of these types as well.
While both Scrum and DSDM Atern will handle our software development needs, Atern will handle the non-software development projects much more easily and be more at home in more “corporate” environments. When I say corporate environments I mean any client environment where the delegation of significant business decisions to empowered teams is a challenge for the client’s leadership. That’s especially true if the team contains significant external resources, like consultants. Atern is a little more prescriptive in nature. There is a little more structure and definition than Scrum. It’s a little easier to formalize change control with Atern. These things are important if the methodology is to be acceptable to client leadership whose neck is on the line for the project’s success. I know how that feels first hand and it’s a big part of our decision process.
Both Scrum and Atern can be compared to more traditional techniques by the diagram below. Essentially what that diagram is saying is with traditional techniques, if you get into a bind with the schedule you can add resources or give the project more time. In the lean approaches, if you get into a bind with the schedule you decide which deliverables, i.e., features or capabilities, that 
can be delayed to a future release or version of the project’s products. That works in a software centric project but not so much if you’re building a bridge or building.
Scrum is best suited for software companies which have their own dedicated teams of experienced developers that just do software development for a living. It is very focused on that development environment and is much harder to tweak to fit our needs. However, one dilemma is that Scrum knowledgeable resources and training are much easier to find in the US. DSDM Atern is established in the UK and many other countries but it’s almost unknown here. Fortunately, with the pervasive nature of the Internet that’s not the problem it used to be. It’s still a risk but a small, acceptable one.
Atern will be fully embedded in our SLR approach shortly. We believe this addition will add value to our client’s and their projects. Atern is designed to work with the waterfall methodologies so we will continue to use the more traditional approaches where they make sense. If anyone has contacts at the DSDM Consortium, let them know that they need to establish more of a North American presence. They just need to follow the path that ITIL (also from the UK) has taken.
Thanks for stopping by. I hope this post was valuable for you. See you next time…
A Cloudy Day at TechExecs
I moderated a panel at an event here in Houston today. The event was our local TechExecs CIO Panel Forum and covered Cloud 2.0 topics. I have been writing about similar topics in recent posts on this blog. See a security focused example here. Prior to our panel segment, we heard from several vendors mostly talking about cloud technology. There was quite a bit of good information presented and I learned that several vendors have been making more progress in the maturity of their products and services than I had given them credit for.
For example, one of the vendors was layeredtech. An intriguing notion in their presentation was the idea of a Virtual Private Data Center, or VPDC. While this acronym seems to be a natural extension of virtualization and cloud technologies that have been around for a while now the acronym is actually fairly new. My simple metric for that assessment is that there is no listing in Wikipedia for VPDC or Virtual Private Data Center (heads up layeredtech, you should fix that). The attraction of a VPDC is the notion of a holistic, virtualized data center that can dramatically simplify corporate IT life and lower costs for large, mid-size and small companies is compelling. The ability to quickly adapt a data center to align a company’s data center to better align with business process changes is music to my ears.
Another example was from iland. The presentation today discussed cloud-based disaster recovery. While that idea has been around a while and there are multiple vendors offering similar services, I found it interesting how well thought out their presentation was. It was just another indication to me of growing maturity. If you haven’t considered this scenario for disaster recovery yet, I suggest it’s time to do so.
Our panelists represented primarily larger and mid-sized companies. My overall impression from their comments was that they had well thought out opinions on each topic that not long ago were considered quite controversial. Remember, the Gartner Hype Cycle chart referenced in my security focused post mentioned above is new information. It still shows cloud computing at the peak of inflated expectations with some amount of negative hype still ahead. Our panelists were all highly competent professionals. There comments reflected well considered opinions about cloud security and value to their businesses. My overall conclusion from today’s event is that cloud computing has matured to the point of acceptable risks for people whose necks are on the line for such decisions. That’s a big deal.
I suggest that you catch a TechExecs event in a city near you. They don’t require much travel and only last half a day. Yet they are still able to provide useful information and a good networking opportunity. And as we all know, the moderators are really the big draw. It’s their witty way of reading printed questions, shutting up and listening for someone else to deliver the wisdom. I do the shut up part really well.
Thanks for stopping by. Until next time…
Project in a box
This post will be short and revolve around a handy new piece of software I’ve come across. I will not try to do a detailed software review. I will focus on the basics and identify my interests. I believe that my interests should be similar to many of my readers. So let’s start with my needs and drivers. While that means talking about StrAIT Advisors offerings, I will make very limited reference to them. A blog post should not be a sales pitch.
My needs focus on project management and a project management office. Our SLR methodology is about using various tools to identify business process and technology improvements for our clients which improve the business IT alignment. The result of that work produces one or more projects. Those projects will have a major software component. That component will consist of making better use of existing client software, purchasing new software and/or some custom software development. There may also be a related project addressing computer or network hardware. The result being multiple technology projects being managed concurrently.
Today we use Microsoft Project for schedule management and we manually manage project documentation. It’s that manual management of documentation for several concurrent projects that is the issue. That approach works fine for a limited number of smaller projects but obviously doesn’t scale well. That brings up the concept of a PMO, or project management office. A PMO is what you need to effectively manage multiple projects. To do that successfully you need a tool to manage all that documentation with an audit trail. Such tools can be large and complex content management systems. StrAIT Advisors doesn’t need that. We need something lighter than a big system but still able to handle a substantial number of documents.
While shopping for such a tool I can across Project in a box from Prosis Solutions, Ltd located northwest of London. There is a free community version for single users. There are also affordable, server-based versions. I tried the community version but quickly bought a server-based version. The free version can use the provided methodologies but cannot create any. I need to be able to build my own and work with others. The screen shot below can represent any version of the product.
This example uses the provided DSDM Atern methodology, which is actually of the most interest to me. I like the ability to include an image with click-able areas, as shown on the left of the screen. Clicking on the image loads the appropriate collection of documents, as show on the right.
The package comes with Prince2, DSDM Atern and some related methodologies. Since Prosis is a UK based company, their primary focus is on Prince2 and DSDM Atern. I’m in the process of adding a PMBOK methodology (from the PMI). Based on my needs, I think that the Atern methodology may be the best suited for StrAIT Advisors. It’s an alternative to Scrum, which gets more press in the US.
I like the version control and audit trail. It seems to be a very adaptable tool. For more detailed information I suggest that you check out their site.
With the links provided in this post you can keep yourself busy and immersed in project management reading for days. Proceed cautiously. However, if you have a need for a very useful and adaptable tool, I suggest that you check out what you can do with Project in a box. I will let you know it goes for me in future posts.
If any Prosis people read this post, please comment on my ramblings and add your thoughts. I’m just starting out with this product and would love to hear more. Your company has been very helpful so far.
Thanks for stopping by. See you next time…
Flat World, Flat Clouds
I was thinking on some of the issues raised in Thomas Friedman’s book “The World is Flat” and what it means to the consulting world and the midsize business world. If you haven’t read this book a link to a summary is provided here. His book is actually divided into two general parts. The first part contains his observations on a globalized economy, social factors, technology and the development of several third world countries. The second part contains his social/political recommendations for the future. I think the first part is very useful. The second part, not so much (big government and big taxes aren’t my cup of tea). This post is directed at U.S. located companies. For those of you not located in the U.S., the logic is much the same.
My concern is the management of intellectual property and projects amid the proliferation of sources of skilled service labor, such as consultants, managers, engineers and software developers. For example, your company may need to develop a new product. If your company is a midsize manufacturing company, it may not have sufficient resources to execute all aspects of converting a good business idea into a mature, profitable production facility. Your company will probably look outside to various sources, both familiar and new, for help and advice. If you apply the observations from “The World is Flat” to all the companies involved with your project, the result can be a complex, interdependent web of knowledge and judgment sources.
Certainly companies deal with that situation today. However, the complexity of such arrangements will grow in the future. Now is the time to plan for how to handle that dilemma. I don’t presume to offer a solution in this short blog post. I can only try to frame the questions and offer some ideas. At least, I hope to get you thinking about this topic.
I need to define the types of service labor and regions that will be relevant to this discussion. First, I categorize service labor into three basic groups, shown in the table below. The table also includes some of the major attributes of each category. The key differentiation between each 
category is the tightness of the bond between the company and each group. That is determined by the level of involvement in core business processes. The “coreness” of a business process is defined by how integral it is to the value proposition of the company. “Direct” labor will always be direct employees of the company. “Close” labor may not be employees of the company but they will probably seem to be employees to an outside observer. “Packaged” employees will obviously not be employees of the company although their contributions will be considered very valuable. Other categories could also be defined for various levels of closeness to the company but these three will be sufficient to make my point.
There is also a need to define the notion of proximity. Direct labor will mainly be located at one of the company’s locations or a location sanctioned by the company, such as an employee’s home office. Close service labor may be located at the same locations as Direct labor or their employer’s locations. Packaged labor will typically be remote to the company’s locations but available when needed. This type of labor can be located anywhere in the world. Typically they will be located in one of the areas on the global map above colored in red (Note that the color red does not have a political significance, only an ease of visibility significance).
There are also some other terms of significance. You will also need definitions for “outsourcing“, “insourcing“, “offshoring” and “onshoring“. To save time and words, those definitions are provided by their corresponding links. All of these terms apply to the location and accessibility of service labor resources. For example, it is entirely reasonable to talk about outsourcing a business process to a domestic (onshoring) contractor. That service may require “Packaged” service labor requiring a well defined scope of work and contract.
Projects, such as the types discussed above, can require a traditionally managed approach or use a lean, timeboxed approach. For example, if using the lean approach, a timeboxed part of a larger project could be outsourced to an offshore provider of Packaged engineering resources. The customer must then provide a home for all of the intellectual property being generated as the deliverables. A well defined policy and content management system are essential requirements. Fortunately, various tools are already available to fill these needs and more are on the way.
In summary, every company needs to be developing policies and tools for managing the intellectual property produced from multiple, smaller and networked service providers. These providers of skilled service labor can be located almost anywhere in the world. They may be close at hand or at arm’s length. I want to strongly encourage readers from midsized companies to not view this as a problem only for large, multinational corporations. If not now, it will also be your problem in the near future. In future posts, I’ll drill down into these broad ideas and suggest some specific actions. Hopefully, I’ve raised the awareness of those of you who haven’t been thinking about these ideas before now.
Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned for more…
Herding Consultants 2.0
What kind of title is “Herding Consultants 2.0″? I suppose for search engine optimization reasons I should have used “aligning” instead of “herding” but at some point the whole alignment theme can get boring. I’ll stick with “herding” this time. Having been on both sides of the consulting table leads to some firm convictions about what that means in an era of highly available sources of judgment and advice. In the “old” days (before the late 1990’s) consultants found consultants based on their business offerings, sales campaigns and contacts. A relationship was built based on repeated personal contact. The competitive differentiator was the consultant’s previous work and their skills inventory. That ultimately led to a “resume bake off” when consultants competed for your business. That model is still viable to a large extent.
A new model has appeared over the last few years based on Internet based tools and virtual presence. Blogs have grown rapidly and any consultant worth his salt has one (me included). We use some tool to subscribe to the blogs that interest us, such as our email clients, browsers or any number of other tools. My preference is a tool called BlogBridge. That keeps the blog posts out of my inbox which reduces clutter and makes them easy to scan. The end result is that I now have subscribed to many blogs. I did that because there are many topics about which I want to stay current or have an interest. That creates a need to assign levels of credibility to each blog. BlogBridge makes the assignment of a ranking very easy. It’s the deciding on a rank that’s hard.
My current technique is to look over my “herd” of consultant blogs to spot trends. Once I do that I decide if I’m in agreement with the consensus. If not, I research the topic more to validate my opinions. I’m not trying to be a technical expert but I am trying to understand the topic well enough that I can offer my own options and judgment in a way that adds value for my target clients (C-level executives in mid-market manufacturing or manufacturing related service businesses who are trying to make decisions on the use and deployment of technology tools). I will then vet my opinions with a few people whose opinion I trust and who have differing backgrounds.
This just reinforces the point I have made before. It’s the personal relationships that matter most. It also reinforces the idea that there is just a huge amount of opinions and “experts” out there. Another way of “herding” all of the consultants you rely on for advice is to let the large consulting companies do it for you. For example, both Gartner and Forrester have become active bloggers. You can also just sign up with either of them and get even more information. Essentially, by relying on their blogs you are letting them do the vetting for you. There are other, smaller consulting groups like ebizQ and TechRepublic, which offer similar capabilities. I watch some consultants from each of these.
In summary, my point is that we need techniques to vet the web-based consultants we have all come to rely on. We each need to decide how much effort to apply to that vetting exercise and how to leverage our own personal networks. I have my approach and I recommend that you develop one that works for you.
Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned for more…