10.3 Directing a Project and Its Agile Workshops
Key Takeaways
- Directing a project enables the project board to be accountable for success by providing overall control while delegating day-to-day management to the project manager.
- Its five activities are authorize initiation, authorize the project, authorize a stage or exception plan, give ad hoc direction, and authorize project closure.
- The board directs by exception: it acts at decision points and when tolerances are forecast to be breached, not continuously.
- Agile makes the board's job easier because decisions are made against working product rather than progress reports.
- The board must be educated in agile working, since a board that demands fixed scope and a fixed date simultaneously will get a quality failure.
10.3 Directing a Project and Its Agile Workshops
Quick summary: DP enables the project board to be accountable for the project's success by providing overall control while delegating day-to-day management to the project manager. It runs from the end of SU to project closure, and the board acts by exception rather than continuously.
Purpose
The purpose of directing a project is to enable the project board to be accountable for the project's success by making the key decisions and exercising overall control, while delegating day-to-day management to the project manager.
That last clause identifies DP in a purpose question, and the delegation itself happens in this process — not in initiating a project and not in controlling a stage.
The five activities
| Activity | When | The decision |
|---|---|---|
| Authorize initiation | After SU | Is it worth investing in laying the foundations? |
| Authorize the project | After IP | Is the project justified? Commit to delivery |
| Authorize a stage or exception plan | At each stage boundary, or on exception | Continue, change direction, or stop |
| Give ad hoc direction | Any time | Respond to escalations, requests and external change |
| Authorize project closure | At the end | Confirm objectives achieved and release resources |
Directing by exception
The board does not manage the project. It:
- Sets tolerances for the project and for each stage
- Makes decisions at defined control points — initiation, project authorization, each stage boundary, closure
- Responds when the project manager raises an exception because a tolerance is forecast to be breached
- Provides ad hoc direction when asked
Between those points it receives highlight reports and leaves the project manager to manage. A board that intervenes continuously has broken manage by exception and, with it, the delegation that makes agile delivery possible.
What changes when delivery is agile
Decisions are made against working product
The single biggest improvement. At a stage boundary in a plan-driven project, the board reviews documents and a percentage-complete figure. In an agile project it reviews increments that exist and work. The question are we getting what we expected? has an answer that can be inspected.
Continued justification is tested against evidence
Because releases begin realizing benefits, the board can compare forecast benefit with measured benefit rather than re-reading its own projection.
The board sees a live dashboard rather than waiting for a report
The project dashboard shows progress against the release map, tolerance consumption, top risks and the benefit forecast, continuously. Highlight reports become summaries and interpretations of information the board already has.
The board must understand what it is governing
This is the most common real-world failure at the directing level, and the Agilometer surfaces it as acceptance of agile. A board that has not internalised the fix-and-flex logic will ask for a fixed date, a fixed budget and fixed scope, and will treat dropped Could-have items as under-delivery rather than as the mechanism working correctly.
Specifically, the board needs to accept that:
- Scope is the variable that flexes, and that dropping low-priority items to protect the date is success, not failure
- Quality does not flex — the Definition of Done is the guarantee underlying that trade
- Change is expected and is absorbed within tolerance rather than escalated item by item
- A stage is not a sprint — board decisions happen at stage boundaries, not every iteration
Educating the board is legitimate project work. Where the Agilometer shows low acceptance of agile, investing in board education before delivery starts is a risk response.
Ad hoc direction gets faster
Agile delivery raises questions more frequently and expects answers sooner. Boards governing agile projects typically agree a faster route for ad hoc direction — a named contact, an agreed response time, and a delegated change authority with a change budget so that routine decisions do not queue for a board meeting.
Workshops supporting directing a project
The board participates in the collaborative events rather than only receiving their outputs. In particular the board is represented at the progress review workshop, where progress is inspected against the release map and next steps agreed with everyone in the room, and it takes part in the project closure workshop at the end of the project. Governance conducted in a workshop, looking at real product, is a great deal more informative than governance conducted through circulated documents.
Which of these is an activity of the 'directing a project' process?
A project board insists on a fixed delivery date, a fixed budget and delivery of all specified scope. What is the most likely consequence?
How often should a project board expect to take formal authorization decisions on an agile project running two-week iterations?