Put yourself in the role of a project manager collaborating with MTD, an events company.
Considering the difficulties and problems that MTD encounters in their projects, what insights have you gained this week that could offer assistance?
If an iterative approach were employed in organizing an event as a project, what would be the consequences? Similarly, what are the implications of adopting an agile approach? If the company sought your advice, what would you recommend?
Contribute your thoughts and ideas to the discussion.
Introducing and embracing iteractive approach will help foster and collaborate with the VUCA laden and makes project management simple and well done
MTD is obviously working in a VUCA laden environment because events are constantly facing unexpected situations that need to be addressed to ensure it’s overall success. Though there is need for a linear approach as regards how events flow, there is need for the iterative approach when last minute challenges or activities are introduced hence altering the scope of work.
Consequences of this approach would result in faster responses to unexpected issues, release of short terms solutions to address immediate challenges while still working on the larger issues, flexibility to adapt to any increase in the scope of work.
The above suggestions will also be my advice to the company to adapt more agile approach.
Implications of an Iterative Approach: Embracing an iterative approach to organizing an event as a project involves incremental planning and execution, with each phase being revisited and refined as necessary. Key implications include:
Flexibility: Iterative methods enable adjustments based on feedback and changing requirements, allowing for the accommodation of unforeseen challenges or opportunities.
Enhanced Adaptability: The team can adapt to evolving circumstances by progressively refining elements of the event rather than rigidly adhering to a predefined plan.
Feedback Integration: Regular reviews facilitate the incorporation of stakeholder feedback, ensuring that the event closely aligns with expectations.
Implications of an Agile Approach:
An Agile approach, commonly associated with software development but adaptable to various projects, prioritizes collaboration, adaptability, and customer satisfaction. When applied to event setup:
Continuous Collaboration: Agile principles promote ongoing communication and collaboration among team members, creating a dynamic and responsive work environment.
For event management, a hybrid approach incorporating elements of both iterative and Agile methodologies could be advantageous:
a. Hybrid Approach: Blend an iterative model for detailed planning phases with Agile principles during execution, allowing for thorough groundwork while maintaining adaptability.
b. Frequent Stakeholder Involvement: Engage stakeholders regularly to gather feedback and insights, ensuring that the event aligns with their expectations and can be adjusted as needed.
c. Continuous Improvement: Embrace a mindset of continuous improvement, focusing not only on post-event evaluations of successes and failures but also on refining planning and execution processes for future events.
I think both iterative and agile approach is good. Both respond to the VUCA environment and provide possible solutions on how to respond to them. So for an event company, I say the environment matters as interactions are needed. And studying environment to bring out the best they can from a project to satisfy customer need, work within schedule and maximize available resources is necessary.
Iterative approach is more realistic to unstable environments. It doesn’t detailed information and is more concerned with speed of delivery and not the product completeness. It’s kind of innovative that the team will have to adapt and learn new skills just to keep up with the changes.
Using Agile approach will ensure response to uncertainty through continuous and dynamic planning, and provides better ways of managing projects costs, schedules to satisfy users’ needs.
I would advise the company to use both agile and iterative approaches
Considering the challenges faced by MTD, Both iterative and agile approaches will be advisable. The interactive approach will help to provide solution to the uncertainties with room for progress visibility while the agile approach will help with flexibility, customer satisfaction through feedbacks, improved quality and better risk management.
Adeyemi Adedokun
CH14 Team1
As a project manager collaborating/working with MTD and by looking at the challenges they faced during the course of their project, the best advice I can them was to work with iterative/agile approach.
As this will give the impression of working in sprints and getting the result and the review in every two to four weeks to know what next to do.
And the implication of this is that, the scope of this project is likely to change. Hence, we are having a scope creep as a result of expanding the project scope.
Though, the two methods are likely to be used depending on the complexity of the project work, meaning that we are working on Hybrid approach.
Oluwagbemi Elasoru
As a project manager collaborating with MTD, an event company. Adopting the iterative approach will mean that the event is likely to change and I will need to get feedback to validate the event ideas and take an informed decision and planning. As a PM, I can make use of the two to four weeks sprint for a mini review of the project. As a result of iterative approach, my teams are able to see the impact our work is having on customers as customers are expecting feedback. Also customer get good attention from my team.
The implications of adopting an agile approach is to perceive the change early and act at least as fast as the rate of change in the environment. As a PM, I am able to reprioritise task based on there value (to the customer and to MTD event company) and change direction quickly to enhance productivity.
I would recommend they adopt both iterative and agile approach as both approach are similar and the completed work is more important to sponsors and organizations.
I would recommend the use of both linear and iterative/agile approaches for organizing MTD’s events as it would work best.
As a PM working with MTD, using the iterative approach would allow for flexibility and adaptation to changing circumstances, requirements, and stakeholder feedback.
Both iterative and agile approaches offer benefits in terms of adaptability, stakeholder engagement, risk mitigation, and quality assurance. However, the decision should be based on factors such as the complexity of the event, the level of uncertainty, the availability of resources, and the organizational readiness for agile practices.