Agile Infrastructure As a Means to Reduce Administrative Headaches


A final benefit of a well-designed operational infrastructure is that it can greatly facilitate the administrative parts of managing a project. This benefit is largely related to efficiency, but can also be somewhat of a motivator for the project manager. Much of successful project management is about paying close attention to detail around administrative tasks, such as documentation, status reporting, action item follow-up, activity synchronization, issue management, and project timeline updating. Project managers sometimes employ as many as three to four separate software packages to handle administrative functions. The challenge is to keep all of the information integrated and up-to-date. While they are not impossible tasks, these cumbersome administrative duties are relatively distasteful to most professionals, who would rather focus on higher-level contributions.

Furthermore, these administrative tasks tend to be proportional to the level of uncertainty, making them increasingly more time-consuming in the agile project. Issues may arise, the project may fall behind schedule, action items are assigned, or something outside the project may occur that will affect the team. Very soon the administrative effort to keep all of these events organized and prioritized becomes daunting. This is especially true if you are using multiple software tools that are only integrated through your own transcription or by using copy and-paste techniques. In this scenario, it is not unrealistic for the project manager to get sucked further into a black hole of administrative activities, which in turn can be quite demotivating.

However, both the administrative and motivational issues can be addressed by a robust operational infrastructure. For example, let's say that on route to a major milestone, the team encounters a technical obstacle. To overcome this challenge, resources are pulled from other current activities, effectively stopping them, and multiple subteams are formed to attack the problem. These subteams start work immediately on brainstorming an approach to the problem, but not necessarily a detailed schedule. Nonetheless, many action items get assigned and the team members disperse to start work. This should be an exciting time for the project manager, during which she adds significant value to the project. However, all too often the project manager spends her time running around documenting and following up on these action items and creating timelines and status reports, all the while hoping that there is some coordination of the major efforts. With an operational infrastructure in place, these administrative tasks would be handled much more efficiently, thus freeing up the project manager to get out in front of the team to direct traffic, which is where she prefers to be in the first place.




Agile Project Management(c) How to Succeed in the Face of Changing Project Requirements
Agile Project Management: How to Succeed in the Face of Changing Project Requirements
ISBN: 0814471765
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 96
Authors: Gary Chin

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