Effective Software Project Management

The Planning Phase of an Extreme SDPM Strategy

Simply put, you are in a project situation where you don’t know where you are going but somehow you have to figure out how to get there as you simultaneously define where it is that you are going. The situation is not unlike the one depicted in Figure 33-1.

Figure 33-1. The life cycle of an Extreme project

You start out on Path 1 toward a desired goal (the solution). Along the way you adjust the path as you gain some information that suggests the goal is not where you thought it was. Continuing in this fashion you either kill the project or eventually arrive at an acceptable goal—a goal that may be very different than the one that launched the project. This is the typical Extreme project.

Now, how do you plan such a project? Most would say that it is impossible. If you don’t really know where you are going, how could you possibly know when you get there? That is a good question and the Extreme project manager has an answer. As long as the customer is happy with the interim results and is willing to continue supporting the project, you continue. At some point, the customer either cancels the project (because of unacceptable progress or lack of convergence on an acceptable solution) or congratulations, you are done. The current solution is acceptable. Whatever goal is attached to that end state, it is the true goal. And as the diagram ...