Secondly, Scrum-based implementations are subject to the same risks already highlighted above. Each iceberg becomes its own little world, drifting away and subject to tactical adjustments.

These tactical adjustments are often the result of environmental shifts like a shift in management, a key decision maker becoming aware of some new buzzword or concept, or economic and political changes. More often than not, these adjustments dilute the strategic impact that the original, overarching project was supposed to deliver.

Two decades of successful project management in IT, capital construction, engineering and aerospace have revealed three keys to getting projects under control: plug leaks, have an idea and go granular.

Plug leaks

Projects are leaky creations. They leak time, money and specifications threatening deliverables. Those leaks have turned project management into a precious commodity. However, in reality, projects are frequently budgeted and tracked at a summary level that allows some significant leakage, both horizontally and vertically.

Horizontal leakage occurs when parallel tasks, similar to or related to their current activities, derail individuals. For example, someone working on authentication gets pulled into a series of meetings that are outside the project scope because he is an expert on enterprise security. Or a developer helps resolve an issue with the platform on which the code he is developing will run. Although these both yield a real value to the enterprise, their projects have experienced a horizontal leak.

Vertical leakage occurs when past or future projects divert resources from their funded project. An example of a forward vertical leak is project personnel taking time to prepare for the next round of funding and budgets, neglecting their currently funded activities.

Backward vertical leaks occur when current project resources are diverted to address leftover issues from previous projects. For example, an integrator diverts his attention to help track down and solve an issue with a package that will affect the reliability of his deliverable. He discovers that problems slipped in because there was no test or QA specified in the previous project plan and he takes the time to work on the remedy.

Both of these vertical leaks are the result of a poor project management methodology. A proper methodology includes pre-project planning and a rigorous test and QA suite before deployment into production. The second example also indicates either a nonexistent or an ineffective "lesson learned" process.

The key to plugging leaks is to clearly define and enforce acceptable ranges of diversion with a simple parameter like, "We believe in teamwork, so you may invest up to 15 minutes outside the scope of your deliverable; any more than that and you will need to refer them somewhere for funding." That will protect the project from leakage and help the organization recognize and track it.

Plugging leaks is the first key to getting your projects under control. We will explore the other keys, "Have an Idea" and "Go Granular," in the next two articles in the series.

John Troyer has more than 20 years of successful experience leading teams as a project, programme, implementation, deployment and department manager in a wide variety of disciplines and environments including the US Department of Defence, aerospace engineering, IT, capital construction, finance, procurement and cost reduction.