Agile and Lean Project Management Principles

Question:

Discuss about the Agile Integration of Project Management.

Arabtec Construction LLC is a construction firm based in UAE. They are willing to enhance the business activities of their construction company. They have decided to follow the agile project methodologies.

The report will focus on the operational improvement direction of Arabtec by taking up the agile project management. The capabilities and the benefits that agile project management can offer will be explained in the report. The problems that Arabtec can offer will be highlighted as well. The procedures applying which the current operations management can be embellished will be explained along with the suggested changes. The operational improvement direction (lean vs agile) of Arabtec Construction LLC in terms of business goals that are sought to be achieved

Lean and Agile project management can enhance the business activities of Arabtec Construction LLC (Arabtec). Both the lean and agile methodologies have certain similarities and the differences (Dyba, Dingsoyr and Moe 2014). There are about five lean principles associated which can assist Arabtec to conduct the business operations and those principles are a specific value, perfection, pull, identification of the value stream and the flow. The value is identified based on the customers’ wish or demand. Afterwards, once the value gets detected, the value stream is defined by the non-value added actions, as well as the value-added actions and the value stream, can be calculated by the product manufactured from the scratch and reaching out to the hands of the customers. The value flow can help to discriminate the value-adding activities, non-value adding activities and the enablers (White and Fellow 2014). The non-value adding activities are eliminated and after those value-adding activities getting eliminated the wastes get eliminated. Later when the customer needs it, the value is handed over to the customer. There are several types of lean wastes which must be removed for efficiently conducting the business activities within Arabtec.

In the construction industry when excess production occurs, the excess materials get accumulated, this excess production must be mitigated if possible, the removal of this excess production can effectively reduce the cost of the production (Larson and Gray 2013). The lean project methodology is responsible for eliminating the wastage of time, eliminates the waste time due to the various kinds of approvals. Generally, lots of time gets wasted due to the transport of the construction materials and parts of Arabtec. Thus the transportation facilities must be eased and the transportation must be on the basis of JIT principle (Conforto et al. 2014). The inventory wastes must be properly maintained that means the finished products and the products that are under construction and the raw materials involved must be taken into consideration as that can save dollars for the company. The defective products or the defective materials that fail to meet the expectations of the customers’ demands and thus it is considered as waste, thus the adoption of lean project management can help Arabtec for good and removing the waste the business operations of Arabtec can be embellished.

Benefits of Adopting Agile Project Management at Arabtec Construction LLC

The agile project management can act as an effective tool for the improvement of the business operations. There are various agile services and agile values associated with the Agile Software Development -the individuals, the working software, the user’s collaborative approach, response (Schwalbe 2015). The construction industry is evolving every day adopting new technologies and the new tools. By adopting these new technologies, the stakeholders and the team members can get their job done. The workings must be done in accordance with the documents made and according to the customers’ demands and the customers’ requests (Serrador and Pinto 2015). The contract is made between the customer and the builder of the construction industry. To make the communications smooth with the customers, the builders must learn the LP system and should make necessary changes in the project as per proposed by the customer. After the discussion is made, the project must be completed as per the customers’ demands and modifications should be made as per customers’ wishes. After getting approval from the customers the builders must carry on their workings and finish the project. After finishing the entire project, the project should be handed over to the customers (Hoda and Murugesan 2016). In case of LP systems, weekly plans are made and based on the plan, the employees must communicate with the customers regularly to successfully accomplish the project goals.

The current operations management system and analysis of the operational capabilities of Arabtec Construction LLC

Arabtec by adopting the agile project management can get improved results, the business activities and the construction activities of the organization can be embellished. The project methodology can bring good in the civil construction, concrete products, the contracting segments and the pre-casting buildings. All these can provide them with the edge so that the Arabtec can get a strong position in the construction market of Dubai (Lin et al. 2014). The adoption of agile project management can cater them the value-added service like the design services to the customers. The management of the company has also decided to share the wealth of Arabtec with the shareholders of the company by giving away fifty percent of the paid-up capital share to the public subscription. The company has also declared thirty percent stock dividend (Kerzner 2013). They have planned to approve the dividend policy which depends on the capital expenditure prerequisites, the bank financing, and working capital. Arabtec can have the construction procedures, the construction planning and the construction schedule. Generally, due to the delays the construction cost increases, the labour costs increase too. The project methodology can mitigate all these risks (Spundak 2014). The agile project management can help Arabtec in furnishing the business activities thus Arabtec can have the idea to complete the project at the right location at the right time within the deadline and with right guidelines. The overruns and all the delays can affect the project’s performance and that is why it can be concluded that the legal issues can be solved due to the adoption of the project management and the construction project eventually become successful (Conforto and Amaral 2016).

Obstacles and Challenges of Adopting Agile Project Management at Arabtec Construction LLC

The true agile is practised on rare occasions: The Agile has the best tools and the procedures incorporated and by following those principles any enterprise can get immense benefits. The Agile project methodology is iterative, the project methodology is very easy to adapt (Leach 2014). Thus Arabtec will have to adapt the agile project methodology and will have to adapt to the methodologies to the fullest otherwise the business operations of the enterprise can get disrupted. The employees of Arabtec will have to follow the guidelines strictly.

Customer interaction is mandatory: The construction industry like Arabtec needs to interact and communicate with the customers daily to detect whether all the activities are getting performed according to their wish or demands. The customer interaction is an absolute necessity for the agile methodology to implement. The customer may be some higher officials may be CEO of any other company who is always busy, but communication is mandatory, the customer or the clients must monitor the activities closely and should approve everything is going right, only after the approval Arabtec must continue with the work (Gonzalez 2014). The interaction with the busy customers become hectic as well as getting approvals from the customers from time to time can be hectic. However, they still have to cooperate otherwise the entire project can become dispute and can fail completely leading to huge loss of the company.

The Agile project methodology goes well with the teams co-located teams: The project management in the construction industry works well within office premises, the team members conducting the in-house activities can get immense benefits from the agile methodology. However, in case of the construction industry, it is not possible to carry out the business operations in same locations, that is why the Arabtec employees can face challenges adapting the agile methodology (Drury-Grogan 2014). Arabtec can face difficulties while carrying out the business activities at the national level or the international level. As a result of that, sometimes the business operations can become quite costly.

The agile methodology is difficult to adapt for the large projects: The project methodology works well for the small projects, it goes well with the small organization as well, however, Arabtec being a giant company can face problems as different teams are working in different areas, even in different locations. A team is working on a particular data, and the data has been generated by some other team located in geographically dispersed location. That is why the team must communicate among themselves (Laitinen 2016). Along with that, the agile project methodology works well within a small location, within the office premises, Arabtec can face difficulties due to the construction works at the dispersed locations. Thus it can affect the overall productivity of the company, the scalability of the business operations can get affected a lot due to this agile methodology and thus Arabtec should look upon this factor.

Improving Operations Management at Arabtec Construction LLC

Agile weakness on the architectural planning: In the construction industry the architectural planning involves the entire structure of the building, the materials used for constructing the building. Also, the software which must be utilized for conducting the construction procedure must be well analysed and must be worked upon. All the enterprises have to predict and then consider all the aspects associated with the construction industry and Arabtec is no exception (Hornstein 2015). Arabtec will have to analyse the building materials, the structure of the building and the analyse the software used in Arabtec, this takes a whole lot of time. They need to properly manage those factors too. Therefore, delays occur but they need to consider the issues otherwise that can cause serious disruption.

The project methodology having limited project planning, project tracking and the project estimation: The agile project methodology generally reduces the planning for a particular project by utilizing certain backlogs (Chagas et al. 2014). It also caters priority to the list of software product land it focuses more on a fixture of the project deadlines. Also for each and every sprint, the level-of-effort gets estimated and the estimation is generally rough in nature. This kind of approach is acceptable in case of small projects, but it delivers to deliver the same amount of efficiency to the large projects and to the large organisations. The third party clients of Arabtec sometimes ask for the scope which the project management fails to deliver, also the senior manager of the client company of Arabtec sometimes ask for the details of the specimens used for the construction industry (Kautz, Johansen and Uldahl 2014). The aforesaid project management fails due to lightweight planning fails to deliver the details of the project.

vii. The agile project methodology needs more and more rework: The project methodology that Arabtec has planned to adopt requires lots of lots of clarification and lots and lots of reworks, this procedure is basically known as the refactoring, the refactoring takes a huge loads of money and Arabtec will have to pay heavy (Lehnen, Schmidt and Herstatt 2016). Thus for the project management and the rework, Arabtec needs to spend heavily.

viii. The challenges occur due to the contractual commitments: The agile project methodology is very difficult to detail the fixed-bid contracts (Nicholls, Lewis and Eschenbach 2015). The senior officials often get dissatisfied due to not getting the details of the projects like the project scope, the project deadline and the estimated costs for the project.

Customer Interaction and Co-Located Teams

Light documentation: The agile project methodology prefers verbal communication to written documentation that is misconception occurs in between the clients Arabtec can face the same difficulty, can face the same issue while constructing any product (Pope-Ruark 2015). Due to the lack of proper documentation, it is really difficult for them to maintain and enhance the quality of the construction project.

Discussion of how the operations management system can be reoriented to be able to achieve the business goals for the Arabtec Construction LLC

1. Getting conversant with the agile methodologies: The leaders or the senior managers of Arabtec must be responsible, they must be knowledgeable of all the project methodologies. The seniors must discuss with his subordinates and must educate them with the agile methodologies that can bring good to Arabtec.
2. Concentrate more on people over the processes: The deserved members of the team must be given the responsibility to carry out the business activity. Arabtec must divide the tasks to the employees according to their proficiency as that can enhance the productivity of the enterprise and Arabtec can earn huge loads of money because of that. Arabtec should hire employees who are motivated and are willing to work hard and have sound communication skills (Nicholas and Steyn 2017). The employees must be creative and should think something out of the box.

Establishment of self-organising groups: Arabtec should construct self-organization groups for carrying out all the construction activities within the enterprise. That can help them to carry out the business activities of the team members or other team located at geographically dispersed location (Kerzner 2017). The concept of self-organising can be truly beneficial as it will help the team members to complete a particular task, and based on the task the other team members can continue their work automatically, a better interaction can be established as a result of this approach.

1. Redefining success for the projects: After the development of the project the testing team must check and verify the construction materials and the construction parts manufactured at Arabtec, if the parts pass the tests they are shipped to the customers or the clients.
2. Encouraging the team members to speak well: The team members should be encouraged regularly by the team leaders and the team seniors to follow the project methodologies and should maintain a healthy relationship with the team members. The seniors must communicate and interact regularly and should help them at need.
3. Empowering the product owners: The business leaders must appoint the appropriate the proper POs and the POs must be knowledgeable about all the facets of the agile project methodologies and they should be able to take the critical decisions for the company (Stare 2013). The key decisions and the critical decisions are capable to provide Arabtec the substantial benefits to gain profits and money.

vii. Fund for experimenting: The experiments require lots of funding. Arabtec must adopt the project methodologies and along with that Arabtec must save money and spend for the experiments wisely. The experiments need to be conducted as that can provide them the competitive edge and can give them opportunities to stay ahead of the other competitors.

viii. The monthly reviews: The monthly reviews can give them the progress of the current construction project (Kerzner 2017). Thus the employees, the leaders and the clients can have a clear view of all the business activities and thus the ongoing project’s progress can be kept tracked of.

1. A governance body must be implemented: Arabtec must establish a governance body that is capable to mitigate the risks, the threats and the problems and all the obstacles within the company. The problem resolution can be achieved by means of open communication among the clients, the customers and the stakeholders and the leaders (Gonzalez 2014). Arabtec must implement a governance structure that is both lean and tight. A communication structure must be implemented to facilitate the employees of the employees, the stakeholders and the sponsors of the construction company.
2. The appropriate definition of the sprint: Arabtec must be aware of the goal or the objectives in mind when adopting the agile-lean project methodology and the carrying out the business activities. A particular task requires a lot of time to get completed. The task must be dispersed into multiple tasks and each task must be completed within the stipulated time that is must be completed within the stipulated deadline (Drury-Grogan 2014). This can approach can give them to make the incremental progress, this approach has the capability to maximize the efforts of the team to manage the construction project and this can help them in the long run.

iii. Conduct daily meetings: Arabtec must conduct a fifteen minutes meeting every day. The seniors along with his subordinates must discuss the project requirements and the project’s progress that can give them the overview of all the aspects of the projects. The seniors and the clients can be assured that the project is progressing well (Laitinen 2016). This approach can help them to know every possible risks, threats and vulnerability associated with the project and the company.

1. After the ending of the sprint retrospective: A project task is divided into multiple subtasks, it is viable to complete one task and then move subsequently to the next task. Arabtec must not rush. After successful completion of one task, they must analyse the task, the clients’ feedback and the senior members’ feedback are important and must be taken into consideration (Lin et al. 2014). The feedback must be documented as well. The documentation can help them to conduct the business operations in the agile and effective way in future.
2. Communication: The communication must be established among the stakeholders, the sponsors, the clients, the leaders and the employees of Arabtec (Kerzner 2013). The communication can pave way for various solutions that can assist to carry out the business activities smoothly and efficiently.

Conclusion

It can be concluded from the above discourse that the project management can enhance the business operations of the construction industry. The productivity can be increased, along with that they can get monetary gain as well. The benefits that Arabtec can achieve have been well described in the report. The operation management model of Arabtec needs to be reoriented, in this way the business operations of Arabtec can get enhanced. The seniors as well the subordinates of Arabtec must follow the project methodologies, the teams working in dispersed location must cooperate and follow the project methodologies to successfully accomplish the project and carrying out the business operations of Arabtec.

Scaling Agile Project Management for Large Projects

References

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