Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
Background
Achieving greater ‘agility’ is now a common ambition for many large scale software development organisations. Capgemini UK already had an excellent reputation for software delivery, but were typically regulated by clients using a linear lifecycle and constrained by overly bureaucratic quality gateways. Within this governance framework Capgemini’s customers were also uncovering changing business needs, causing change management issues that could not easily, or cost effectively, be resolved.
Solution
Capgemini UK felt they could improve this situation by combining their already established collaborative culture and disciplined delivery approach, with emerging Agile practices, for which they were also seeing a growing market demand. To help them achieve their goal, the organisation hired Julian Holmes, co-founder at UPMentors, to ensure their software development projects combined their existing Rational Unified Process (RUP) principles with Agile practices, enabling them to deliver more effectively to meet customers’ changing needs. This solution became known as Agile RUP.
Encouraging the Agile RUP approach
Experienced practitioners rarely like to be told how to perform their role. Therefore, Julian worked with a small group, who already successfully practiced and supported Agile methods, encouraging them to share their experiences and practices via wiki-pages and internal ‘social media’ tools. As the knowledge was circulated throughout the organisation, more practitioners were drawn to their success, adopting similar ways of working and sharing their own experiences.
Education is also key to transforming skills and behaviour, so Julian constantly introduced literature, developed and delivered webcasts, virtual and classroom learning on Agile RUP throughout the organisation.
Seeing the benefits
The organisation is now seeing increased customer demand and more contracts being won due to the proposal of an Agile RUP approach. Capgemini has a competitive advantage in being able to react rapidly to customers’ changing business needs, and for their clients. the closer engagement with the project allows them to continuously re-prioritise how their project budget is spent.
Demand for Agile RUP training sessions is increasing and the approach has attracted interest from other global business units, who are adopting it as their method of choice. Guidance continually evolves and becomes richer on the wiki, with the community continuing to grow to over 1,000 active members. Most importantly, the investment continues to be successful, mainly because it is completely visible and inclusive, the approach is being chosen rather than ‘applied’ to anyone and everyone has the opportunity to get involved, to learn and make a contribution.
Posted in Press Material | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011
BE HONEST, HOW MUCH DO YOU TRUST YOUR IT SUPPLIER?
Julian Holmes, co-founder UPMentors
How often do finance directors invest in a software development project only to be disappointed with the end result? You only have to see how HMRC reached a £71.25million settlement with EDS over problems with tax credit systems, to realise the damaging affect of ploughing money into an IT project which fails to deliver business value.
Of course, most software projects don’t result in expensive lawsuits like this, but many end up causing headaches for IT managers and finance directors which could be prevented through greater levels of collaboration, reacting quickly to business change and showing continual demonstrations of “real” progress. Building this trust between the business and their supplier is vital for the success of any software development project. FDs aren’t expected to have experience in delivering IT projects, and rely on their IT department to manage the supplier relationship. However, suppliers are often forced into a fixed-price contract for a project that promises to deliver more than the business needs.
Suppliers know they have one shot at obtaining a contract to deliver, so they help the business define everything the system might ever need to do, providing a fixed-price quotation, resulting in a large budget allocation, and a contract being secured with the cheapest bidder, to deliver a system at some point in the distant future. Unfortunately this approach typically results in dissatisfaction for the business, a breakdown of trust with the supplier, and a solution that doesn’t reflect the business’s future needs, or worse still, no solution at all.
This failure stems from a lack of trust, a flawed governance model, a false measure of progress, and a misunderstanding of risk. With such a lack of trust the business adopts a governance approach to oversee the project and keep the supplier honest, introducing “gateways” that want to see a measure of progress against governance objectives. Whilst sound in principle, these gateways are often misinterpreted and misused by those performing the governance, leading to measures that inadvertently encourage poor supplier behaviour, such as a focus on endless documentation, as opposed to demonstrating working solutions.
Whilst a one-shot procurement model with a defined budget need and no expected increases is an attractive option for the FD, little consideration is made for how the project will manage the change of business priorities that the organisation will have during the lifetime of the project.
Plus, by using a fixed price and scope delivery approach, it is difficult for an FD to determine an accurate return on investment. FDs are often led to think that the project is progressing well from measures of effort against plan. This lack of real progress would become apparent by asking just one question – what return would I get on a project if I had to stop it half-way through?
FDs can stop this vicious circle of project failure by encouraging a more progressive funding relationship with their IT suppliers. Before the project is contractually agreed, FDs should demand an agreement from suppliers where they regularly demonstrate a return on investment. This puts FDs back in control of the budget and relieves pressure on cash flow. Taking an agile and incremental approach to their software projects will help them maintain control on their budgets and validate the delivery of business objectives right from the start.
Posted in Press Material | No Comments »
