Tag: waterfall

OM in the News: John Deere’s Approach to an ERP Upgrade

In Chapter 3, Project Management, we discuss the difference between the waterfall approach to controlling projects versus the agile style of management.  With the first, waterfall, well-defined projects have changes small enough to be managed without substantially revising plans. The projects progress smoothly in a step-by-step manner through each phase. But many projects, like software development, are ill-defined and need an agile approach with constant feedback and adjustments. Such projects are tackled incrementally and small chunks meet limited objectives.

John Deere had invested heavily in a traditional ERP upgrade in Australia, with poor results. Dealers complained that the new system was too hard to use and unintuitive. For example, one process that had been 5 steps turned into 27. Data was inconsistent and often inaccurate, and the system crashed often. After numerous expensive attempts with ‘off the shelf’ ERP software developed by the waterfall approach, John Deere decided to take an agile approach as it upgrades its U.S. Enterprise Resource Planning System (the topic of Chapter 14), says Industry Week (Aug. 11, 2022). 

The old non-customized “off the shelf” ERP systems were just not able to keep up with John Deere’s innovations. For instance, Deere sales teams will be using tablets with video demos and financial data in the field to present new products to customers. Similarly, management wanted current data with product availability and payment data immediately available via a tablet.

Management also recognized the advantages of agile project management. These include faster delivery of new functionality, better alignment between users and developers, and giving users more ownership of new processes. Deere found that another distinct advantage of the agile approach is that as incremental improvements are made in the system both user and customer satisfaction improved. And improved morale supports even more changes. This closer connection between users and developers is expected to bode well for enhanced responsiveness to future changes in Deere’s business processes.

Classroom discussion questions:

1. The use of an in-house agile approach to ERP development will require changes in the John Deere organization. What are some of these changes?
2. The growing digitalization of business suggests what other changes may be coming Deere’s way?

OM in the News: Keeping Up With the Agile Craze

When you are covering Chapter 3 (Project Management, p.67) you will find The Wall Street Journal article (Aug. 13, 2019), “Keeping Up With the Agile Craze,” a great article to share with your students. Agile denotes a set of tools long used in Silicon Valley to keep complex software projects from falling behind schedule and becoming obsolete before they are done. Now, says WSJ, it’s spreading to other products and services buffeted by rapid change.

Agile practices include: (1) breaking big projects down into a series of smaller tasks: (2) meeting daily to report progress and eliminate obstacles: and (3) completing tasks in time periods called sprints. When applied wisely, agile principles save time and speed teamwork on projects that are complex or have an uncertain outcome. The approach requires big changes in the way people work, however. That means learning to work on self-governing teams and take criticism before a group without turning defensive. At worst, agile devolves into a swamp of annoying jargon and tedious rituals.

Some 75% of North American employers are using agile practices according to a survey of project managers by the Project Management Institute. Agile techniques can speed productivity by 20% to 50% and improve the quality of products and services. But the principles need to be tailored to fit particular teams, their mix of work and the company culture.

A GUIDE TO AGILE JARGON

Scrum: A popular framework for putting agile methods into practice.
Kanban or scrum board: A display showing one sticky note for each task in progress, aligned in separate columns based on their status—to-do, doing or done.
Waterfall method: A traditional method of organizing projects, moving an entire body of work in steps from planning to designing, testing and launching.

Backlog: A prioritized list of everything that needs to be done to complete a project.
Sprint: A work period of a fixed length, usually 1-4 weeks, that ends in a demonstration of work accomplished.
Stand-up: A meeting held at the same time every day when team members report on work completed, tasks planned for that day and obstacles in the way.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What is the difference between agile and waterfall projects?
  2. What are the advantages of the agile approach?