Agile Improvements to Critical Path Method

Abstract

Agile project managers have a difficult time communicating schedules in traditional formats. For example, integrated master schedules, work breakdown structures, and so on are expected by project leadership, especially if they are new to agile. Agile does not include detailed level planning, years in advance. Instead, it focuses on small increments and iterates on the scope until the stakeholder need is met. Detailed planning is only done within the confines of an increment. Higher level milestones are captured for future efforts, but the detailed level planning is not done until nearing start of the work. Limitations of traditional project management techniques are nothing new. However, management of such projects still has not changed or significantly improved upon monitoring and controlling methods since their inception. The traditional Critical Path Method (CPM) is an example. CPM has the following known limitations. There is an assumption that durations can be accurately estimated and forecast. Estimates are based on historical data and made by separate planning departments, not the “doers”—the people closest to the work. Interdependencies are not always clear up front—they evolve as more information becomes available and work is further broken down, making it difficult to differentiate between scope creep and scope refinement. This can result in lengthy and costly contractual battles between the contractor and developer. Schedule logic in CPM is largely driven by finish-to-start dependencies, making other types of dependencies difficult to forecast and the critical path difficult to identify without software. Software requires user training/results in a designated “scheduler,” removed from the work. Management assumes projects can add resources to speed up completion, failing to account for learning curves, increased complexity, and additional bottlenecks. By applying production management and agile principles, projects can improve on the critical path method and develop specific agile applications.