Introduction

The purpose of this entry is not to define Agile development methods (there’s more than enough of that out there already), but rather to identify the characteristics of a company that is properly implementing and seeing positive results from Agile Project Management.

When an SaaS project is initiated, those who are responsible for building the invention are among the most important people to the business during that time. They must be treated with the kind of dignity and respect that demonstrate the impact they have on the success of an SaaS initiative.

Traditional Project Management

Analyzing the problem-solving characteristics of a company’s Executive Officers will tell you a lot. More specifically, what you are looking for is the level by which they do or do not value and honor traditional means of solving problems.

The second major characteristic to look for is the existence of a process or strategy that religiously used as an approach for resolving every problem that comes up. Chances are, with this kind of leadership at the very top, you will usually find what – at first glance – appears to be an orderly, hierarchical structure to the way that tasks are delegated. You will usually also notice a disconnect between the lower-level management such as having a clear understanding for design requirements, for example. In other words, a developer might get a different answer depending on which manager they pose the question to.

It is also common to find a lot of finger-pointing and missed deadlines in this type of environment. This is an example of the type of atmosphere that does not work for successful SaaS. In fact, this kind of atmosphere can be such a detriment to productivity that these projects are usually shelved before they ever even make it to the “75% complete” mark. Then new management is brought on, yet the core problem still exists – the Executive Leadership is accidentally injecting a structured and “top-down” type of software development methodology that was used mostly in the 80’s and early 90’s, known as “Waterfall”.

Outside consultants usually look far too low in the organizational chart – at the Project Managers and Lead Architects – when they are brought in by the Executives or Board of Directors to solve HR problems. Most consultants never even think to start by questioning the very people that hired them to fix the problem.

Agile Management

In contrast, Executive Leaders who handle every problem with a different approach inherit the side-effect of facilitating an environment that is conducive to change. When presented with what may seem to be a severely threatening problem, these leaders will often facilitate a creative “brainstorming” session between their best problem solvers (who are usually specially selected advisors, not always a Board of Directors), and the atmosphere consistently holds a positive aura no matter how serious or stressing the problem may be.

The result is an environment where Project Managers and Lead Architects are not afraid to make important decisions about changing things that are not working. Additionally, these “managers” are often leaders in the sense that they do not require a title. In fact, they usually prefer to have the same title as everyone else. Yet, the team always knows who to go to for support. This breaks down the “Waterfall” methodology that has consistently failed. Instead, a naturally “Agile” type of methodology is inherited, which has proven to be far more effective for successful SaaS.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Open source clientside RIA frameworks for SaaS
• Data-centric Adobe Flash Builder development with the Zend Framework
• New Papervision3D Portfolio
• Tour de Flex Component Explorer
• New Toolkit for Eclipse Released by Amazon Web Services

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Posted by Dan Orlando on July 18th, 2009 :: Filed under Tools & Innovation
Tags :: Agile, management, project, SaaS
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