finally, a picture...

While not quite a paper plane, still something, and something I think many will find interesting. First, a disclaimer, this wasn't the BEST in the group, in fact, many were quite nice, and did what they were supposed to do. The problem here, wasn't process, but I am going to talk about process, and what I think caused this outcome.
Ok, ready for the picture?

Before you laugh too hard, let me explain. This was the result of an "Agile simulation" we had today, as we look to move from waterfall to agile (I think scrum, but that hasn't been completely ironed out yet).
The plan was simple. Build a robot that follows a black line around a piece of paper, and goes as fast as possible. Well, that's what the end requirement was as of Iteration 1. Oh yeah, in Iteration 1, "Hardware" (the people building the robot) and "Software" (The people programming the robot) couldn't talk to each other. Iteration two, added two things. First the two groups could talk, and second, we had to have a little guy on the robot, you can see him hanging on for dear life, on the right side of the picture (robot's left).
Iteration three was it had to say "Good Morning" and all the barriers between groups was gone (hardware could help software, and software could help hardware).
Sounds good, right?
Well, here's the thing. The ONLY deliverable, was after the entire project was completed. Sound familiar? It sounds kinda like waterfall, with extra requirements thrown in during the process to me. Anyway, that aside, We had other issues as well. First, while we did communicate well, we had nobody with any real hardware (lego) experience, and our only design was the picture on the box, which, turns out, we didn't have to follow. So, with this, and the fact that we had no real lego experts, we ended up building something we thought would work, but in the end, last minute of the exercise, had to try to rebuild because of design flaws.
What does this have to do with projects and project plans?
EVERYTHING! ;)
First, in order for a project to succeed, you need to have the right people in the right position. Having a team of software people works great, if all you need is software. Likewise, having a team of hardware people is great, if all you need is hardware. You may be able to get by with just one or the other, many do, but you have a much higher chance of success, if you have the right skills performing the jobs.
Second, a project without a solid plan, is much more likely to run over budget and exceed time constraints. Could we have built a robot that fit the requirements in the time we had? Sure. 5 of 8 teams did. Could we have done it without a plan, Again, 5 of 8 teams did. Now, if we'd had a plan, perhaps a blueprint of sorts, I think the number would have been much closer to 8 of 8 succeeding.
I'll probably be coming back to this in later posts, but until then....