Business Finance Homework Help

There are two discussion board post. I have to reply each of those based on their post on that topic. Minimum words requirements is 450-500 words each.

Discussion 15 – Project Management and Agility the Future

Project Management and Agility the Future DB

Person 1 post: By heath

Reflecting on Schwartz

Schwartz provides excellent background and context about how a Project Manager can earn a ‘seat at the table’ throughout each chapter. He discusses the common obstacles that CIO’s have had, where they come from, the perception that the business side often has of IT, and best practices for IT leaders moving forward. His take was realistic one where he gave personal opinions, facts referenced, and comparisons that were easy to understand.

Moving to agile is not an easy shift for an organization. There are several areas that can cause it to fail but it comes down to the proper planning, communication, organization, and frameworks. There’s also the aspect of going full agile or hybrid approaches. Either way, IT plays a large role in this process since they’re essentially working the systems on the back end. Most people (Schwartz agreed) look at IT as a customer service function instead of the innovative department that has the ability to transform an organization. Schwartz primary purpose was to take a holistic look at the role of the CIO and how they deliver and define business value because historically Agile approaches have seemed to remove IT/CIO from the value delivery process, and this isn’t necessarily the right approach. He’s goes into several topics in how the CIO can earn their seat with the executives through their actions, mindset, leadership, and accountability. He aimed to answer these three questions: How does an IT department fit into its broader enterprise? What is the relationship between IT and the business? And how does the relationship change as we introduce Agile and Lean approaches (Schwartz, 2017). He wants to change the mindset of IT leadership by using the best practices of the agile principles so that IT becomes a value-creation engine where agile, lean, and DevOps approaches are radical game charges. He says that what we really need to do is experiment and learn about how an Agile approach to IT works within the broader business context that is the enterprise (Schwartz, 2017).

Role of Agile Project Manager in the Future

I think the role of the agile project manager will continue to evolve in the future. More and more organizations are moving to Agile approaches and reaping the benefits. Not only do they have to in a lot of cases to remain competitive in the global market but there’s a new, hungry, and talented group of individuals hitting the job race that are eager to try new strategies and take organizations to the next level. This means we need even more strong leadership that is well verses in agile methods and a strong sense of community, communication, collaboration, and encouragement. We will likely need more project managers to take on the scope of projects with the growing changes in technology.

Review

A Seat at the Table by Schwartz is a well-written discussion on the various impacts the CIO has within IT and the organization. If you’re familiar with IT leadership, Agile, and the business-value that each provides, you’ll appreciate his humor and mindset in describing the many obstacles that occur.

His ability to describe common occurrences related to how a CIO or IT leader can hang with the big boys is strategic incorporating Waterfall methods used in the past and how Agile should be a benefit, not a hinderance as it commonly is based on perception of IT to the business side of things. He’s specific that clear communication and collaboration must be done amongst these ‘units’ and that IT is not a customer service function of a company. They should inspire, take charge, create/deliver innovative changes, and make themselves value-added in actions not in words.

Reference

Schwartz, M. (2017). A seat at the Table: IT Leadership in the Age of Agility. IT Revolution Press.

Discussion 16 – Agile Contracts & Procurement

Week 9: Discussion Forum –

Person 2 post: Sam

Agile Contracts and Procurement

The contract concept in Agile project management has changed how the contracts are negotiated, drafted, and managed. Contracts are often considered fixed mechanisms that recognize the contractually written obligations as rigid, with the rules for performance clearly stated and requiring near-perfect obedience. Contracts negotiate, draft, and manage clear mandates, and parties that cannot comply according to the agreed terms face the consequences. There are clearly defined prices, scope, and duration of the contract for the contracting parties. Agile project management has changes how parties in contracts focus on collaboration and result-oriented actions rather than spending an enormous amount of time on negotiation and dispute resolution. It is crucial to understand that contracts in Agile project management prioritize flexibility and outcomes over strict adherence to doing things in a certain way and demanding complete obedience.

Some of the benefits of Agile contracts are as follows:

1. Flexibility: Agile project management is all about delivering value. It helps the project team deliver products that are easier to adapt to changes and ultimately sustain for a more extended period. Similarly, contacts in Agile project management also focuses on flexibility (Naughter, 2017). As the organization goes through changes according to the need and change in the business world, the contracting process should also be flexible so that Agile teams will be better equipped to adapt to inevitable changes (Naughter, 2017). All contracting parties should instill flexibility in the Agile project management, and they should work together to decrease the likelihood and impact of any unexpected events and avoid unnecessarily contentious resolution processes by mitigating risks (Naughter, 2017).
2. Shorter, easier to handle pieces of a project: Agile project management’s incremental approach helps develop the products that meet the current requirements and provide an opportunity to adapt to future needs. Similarly, Agile project management provides an opportunity to break down the long-term contracts into shorter ones and the contract management process will only focus on each cycle as it comes, and there is more flexibility for all parties to manage contracts (Naughter, 2017).
3. Frequent collaboration: Agile project management focuses on frequent communication and collaboration to develop quality and better products that satisfy the customers’ needs (Naughter, 2017). The Agile contract similarly encourages frequent collaboration and effective communication among contracting parties and critical members to address doubts and concerns. All contracting parties would know where the project activities stand, and eventually, a partnership is created and improved (Naughter, 2017).
4. Mutual benefits of contracting parties: Agile project management plays a crucial role in maximizing the deal’s value for all the parties involved in the contract (Naughter, 2017). Rather than one party gaining the better end of the bargain, Agile contracts provide a positive outcome for everyone involved (Naughter, 2017).

The Agile project management approach motivates the team to develop and deliver innovative products and deliver high business value to customers throughout the project. However, constraints like time and cost need to be considered, but Agile project management promotes the value over other constraints. There are several ways Agile project management helps to understand and measure the business value, for example, increase in volume, reduction of cost, and the addition and retention of customers. The most critical business value that Agile focuses on is meeting or exceeding customer satisfaction. Hence, the project team focuses on developing quality products to satisfy the needs of the customers. Since customers and other stakeholders are heavily involved in the project throughout its lifecycle, they can communicate and provide feedback to improve the quality of products. Agile project management describes the procurement relationships through the Agile manifesto that value customer collaboration over contract negotiation (Layton, 2017). Agile teams value customer collaboration to create sustainable products. Also, Agile contracts should be flexible to create a better relationship between the customer and the project teams to create products with business value (Layton, 2017). Teams should collaborate rather than quibbling over ill-informed details and checking off-contract items that may or may not ultimately be valuable to customers (Layton, 2017). Agile contracts should be flexible and adjusted based on the evaluation of the working functionality at the end of each sprint, and the team should have a cooperative relationship between buyers and sellers throughout the procurement process to benefit all parties equally (Layton, 2017).

References:

• Layton, M. C. (2017, October 31). What’s Different About Agile Procurement? Retrieved August 11, 2021, from https://www.dummies.com/careers/project-management…
• Naughter, T. (2017, January 26). Benefits of agile contract management. Retrieved August 11, 2021, from https://www.contractworks.com/blog/benefits-of-agi…