Slide 1 ©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Project Management as Pharma: Sometimes the opposite of a good strategy is a better strategy Dr. Alistair Cockburn Humans and Technology

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide 2 People... Solving a problem Creating a solution To an interpreter unforgiving of error Making decisions Where every decision has economic consequences and resources are limited. … they don’t understand which keeps changing Communicating Deciding Inventing Expressing ideas in a language … they don’t understand which keeps changing … they don’t understand which keeps changing

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide 3 Craft Professions skills in a medium Cooperative Game communication teamwork strategies Knowledge Acquisition pay-to-learn trim-the-tail Flow Management unvalidated decisions = inventory, lean processes Self-Awareness (Personalities) the people, strategies, techniques actually used origami courtesy of Gery Derbier

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide 4 Infinite Organization Survival Career Management #1: The Cooperative Game idea teaches us about teamwork and strategies in situations that never quite repeat Competitive Cooperative Finite & open-ended Jazz music King-of-the-hill wrestling Finite & goal-directed Tennis Poker Chess Theatre Engineering Rock-Climbing Swamp game Software Development

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide 5 Every game run uses different strategies -- Set up accordingly or suffer Number of people coordinated Comfort Essential moneys Life ,000 C6C20C40C100C200C500C1000 D6D20D40D100D200D500D1000 E6E20E40E100E200E500E1000 L6L20L40L100L200L500L1000 Discretionary moneys “Criticality” X X X X X

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide 6 Critical Project Factors Community communication, amicability Focus known priorities, focus time Incremental development & Reflection Nourishment from Executive Sponsors decisions, money People skills, motivation

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide 7 Role of the Manager: Strengthen the team Pull in support Identify strategies Visibility Decisions $ Interruptions X PM Sponsor(s) developers Communication Amicability Priorities Focus time Skills development Motivation Reflection Osmotic Communication Expert in Earshot Cone of Silence Early Victory Early and Regular Delivery Walking Skeleton Incremental Rearchitecture Sacrifice One Person QA-Rotation SWAT-fix team Cross-specialized Team Function / Component Owners

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide 8 Learn to avoid (get out of) messes. Osmotic Communication Expert in Earshot Cone of Silence Early Victory Early and Regular Delivery Walking Skeleton Incremental Rearchitecture Sacrifice One Person QA-Rotation SWAT-fix team Cross-specialized Team Function / Component Owners Pause, Reflect, Change Timeout/Regroup Part-Timers as Advisors Process Miniature Progress & Training Teams Rejoining Streams Short-horizon planning Spare Leader Capacity Spike Gold Rush Project 360° Safe Solutioning Session

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide 9 Strategy: Early Victory Action: Ensure the team delivers something as early as possible, even if only a Walking Skeleton. Benefits: Team learns each other, process Sponsor sees team working together Side effect: Manage expectations for early delivery Overdose: Too simple = Not enough process exercised, not real confidence built Examples:Walking Skeleton

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide 10 Strategy: Walking Skeleton Action: Connect the architecture with a very simple function as 1st running code. (Grow infrastructure & function in parallel). Benefits: Early Victory, Architecture runs, Parallel development possible Side effect: Manage rework of infrastructure during function development Overdose: If too simple, rework delays project Examples: NBO project

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide 11 Strategies can be collected and labeled in various ways

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide labeled and sorted early & regular delivery early victory walking skeleton osmotic communication exploratory 360 At SETUP gold rush visual progress spare leader capacity easy access to expert users incremental rearchitecture spike investigation AVOID TROUBLE sacrifice one person focus time single assignment cone of silence serialized tasks REPAIR TROUBLE demo chain DIG OUT (nutrition) (antivenom) Box Shading:

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide combined early & regular delivery gold rush sacrifice one person recovery chain early victory incremental rearchitecture focus time walking skeleton visual progress single assignment osmotic communication spare leader capacity cone of silence exploratory 360 easy access to expert users incremental rearchitecture spike investigation serialized tasks At SETUPAVOID TROUBLEREPAIR TROUBLEDIG OUT

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide 14 7 “Cone of Silence” Anti-venom / Repair Counterexample to Osmotic Communiction! Related to Focus Time Symptoms: Constant interruptions, can’t manage Focus Time. Isolate key person/team so no one communicates with them for stretches of time. Individual version: Move team lead upstairs (for hours each day). Team version: Move team offsite (e.g. IBM PC development, 1980) ct+management+strategies

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide 15 Opposite strategies may show up as optimal Project B: Programmers are bottleneck BAs have extra capacity Strategy: BAs write requirements thoroughly to save the programmers time. Completeness, Stability Business analyst Designer/Programmer DBA Designer/ Programmer Business analyst Completeness, Stability Business analyst Designer/Programmer DBA maximal Gold Rush Designers do extra rework. minimal Gold Rush Project A DBA is bottleneck Programmers have time Strategy: BAs write few requirements Programmers guess/ run ahead; rework; get design solid before giving to DBAs

©Alistair Cockburn 2009 Slide 16 Read more on all these topics at