Deadlines vs. Agility: Can They Coexist?
Deadlines vs. Agility: Can They Coexist?
Exploring Both and Finding the Right Balance for Your Project
In project management, there are three main factors that affect a project: scope, cost, and time. When one factor is changed, the other two must also change. Time is one of these factors and when it is fixed is also known as a deadline. This post's image was inspired by marathon runners trying to cross the finish line before the cut-off deadline. I remember watching many Comrades Marathons in South Africa years ago.
The Iron Triangle in project management is a fixed scope, fixed cost, and fixed time that can make it difficult to make necessary adjustments in response to changing circumstances or unforeseen challenges. This can result in lower quality, higher costs, missed opportunities, or other negative outcomes that can damage the project's success.
Most people who have worked in product development have experienced the effects of the Iron Triangle. They are horrible regardless of the methodology used. The reason is failure is inevitable and then it is normally followed by blame and/or walk-the-plank management practices.
It Is Business
Deadlines (fixed time) are an essential aspect of any business operation, representing the time-sensitive nature of delivering products or services to clients, customers, or stakeholders. Whether it is a fixed deadline set by a client or a self-imposed target date, deadlines are an essential business reality that requires careful planning and execution. Here are examples of real-world business deadlines:
Completing the implementation of a new regulatory compliance system before the deadline set by the government agency. Often penalties are imposed if not met.
Launching a new product in time for a major industry trade show, such as the Consumer Electronics Show or the National Retail Federation trade show.
Completing before the end of the fiscal year.
Implementing a new customer relationship management (CRM) system before the start of the busy holiday season, product launch, or the start of a new year.
Completing migration before the end of the lease on a data center expires.
Launching a new product before the start of the company's annual sales conference.
Contractual obligations
Finishing the development of a new mobile app before the start of a major sports event, such as the Super Bowl or the World Cup.
Coordinating a release of a massive product to market with advertising campaigns, media awareness, new call centres, staffing for new product, logistics, operations coordination, sales coordination. Programs of work are real, and aligning multiple projects to a common deadline is common.
Releasing before your competitors
Launching before capital runs out, especially startup businesses
Timing releases to the market for the best possible returns
… and tons more
Meeting deadlines is critical to a company's success as it can impact customer satisfaction, revenue, and overall business performance. For example, a missed deadline could result in a loss of trust and future business from the client or a negative impact on the company's reputation.
Deadlines in agile
It is a concerning trend within the agile community to dismiss deadlines as being inherently bad without recognizing the legitimate business need for them. Scrum masters and agile coaches who hold this view risk prioritizing agility and flexibility over the core business acumen required for successful project management.
Some agile practitioners criticize deadlines as they are not "responding to change over following a plan." Quite the opposite actually, one is responding to the deadline and changing scope, focus, approach, and what can be delivered without compromising quality before the deadline.
The criticism by agile practitioners that fixed deadlines go against the principles of flexibility and adaptability may not be entirely accurate. By adjusting the scope, approach, team structure, and focus, and improving the flow of work, agile teams can still deliver high-quality products or services within a fixed timeframe while also responding to changes in the market or customer needs. Therefore, it is essential to recognize that fixed deadlines can still be compatible with agile methodologies as long as they are approached in a collaborative and adaptable way.
A good Product Manager will strike a balance between the key factors (scope, cost, time) while prioritizing quality and delivering value to stakeholders. If you look at Scrum, for example, the Product Owner’s primary accountability is to maximise value. This means they are always juggling scope to get the best Return on Investment (ROI). Having a critical deadline is a constraint and simply means they need really focus on the value and reducing risk. Order of work is essential, with high value first and nice-to-have at the end. Thus if the date is an issue, the nice-to-haves can be dropped.
The underlying problem
What is often overlooked by people is the opportunity to continuously improve their approach to deadlines by embracing the agile principle of "uncovering better ways" through retrospectives, understanding and learning. Organisations and teams should be constantly exploring how to handle deadlines better.
Let's not lose track of this core intention of agile and not use "deadlines" as an excuse. Embrace learning to work with deadlines. Remember that the purpose of agile is to
We are uncovering better ways of developing software products
by doing it and helping others do it.
References:
Beck, K., Beedle, M., van Bennekum, A., Cockburn, A., Cunningham, W., Fowler, M., ... & Thomas, D. (2001). Manifesto for agile software development. Agile Alliance.
Highsmith, J. (2004). Agile project management: creating innovative products. Pearson Education.
Kirsanov, D., Smirnov, S., & Zaytsev, V. (2019). Challenges of agile project management in distributed teams. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 1017, 286-295.
Leffingwell, D. (2016). Agile software requirements: Lean requirements practices for teams, programs, and the enterprise. Addison-Wesley Professional.
Schwaber, K., & Sutherland, J. (2017). The Scrum guide: The definitive guide to Scrum: The rules of the game. Scrum. org.
Schwaber, K. (2004). Agile project management with Scrum. Microsoft Press.