Extreme Project Management

Prerequisite: Software Project Management

Nowadays, projects have become complex and volatile with most of the software and new technology development projects. As these are futuristic solutions, software development projects encounter vast changes very frequently during the courses of development only to keep the products relevant when they are ready or maybe the never-ending demand from customers. These changes lead to an unsettled and chaotic environment. Here the role of Agile Methods of Development comes into play i.e., Extreme Project Management is one of the methods in managing projects that are filled with this uncertainty.

What is Extreme Project Management?

Extreme Project Management may be defined as an approach that estimates, evaluates the project, and reacts to the situation to deliver the scope and targets of the project. This process requires a much shorter time and reduced deadlines when compared with traditional methods.

Steps of Extreme Programming Management:

Extreme Project Management is initiated by gathering and combining a team/group of people around us who are willing and ready to take this method. After assembling the team, we should go after the following steps :

1. First, we should develop a project plan with the concept of extreme project management in mind i.e., expecting change, keeping in mind that the timeline may change, and leaving room for error.
2. Has need? Who requires it and why? What will it take to do it? Can we get the desired result? Is it worth it?
3. The work needs to be scheduled in short cycles, a maximum of a few weeks.
4. Make project visibility a priority starting from Day 1. Communicate and try to answer every question. Aware of everyone and get people excited to get to work on a few projects by organizing a project kick-off meeting.
5. Frequently interact with the clients, listen to what they require, and pass the information to your team.
6. Proceed with work cycles with check-ins, review sessions, and restart meetings if possible when the project seems to be getting off-track.
7. When a project or cycle is finished, celebrate it. So that team members become excited about an upcoming project. List all the accomplishments since the last meeting that your team should be proud of.

Each project may require different steps and templates which we can achieve by customizing each project as per our needs. We should not take more processes than needed and cut the extra steps whenever possible if the team reports that some processes are making the project complicated.

Extreme vs. Traditional Project Management:

Traditional Project Management is a solution made for construction and engineering projects as they have specific goals and well-defined paths. But today, most have no specific paths, and requirements are frequently changing.

Unlike traditional management, where the process is highly predictable, in extreme project management we can grow and develop in a chaotic environment where the level of certainty is low. Generally traditional approach is more streamlined and the extreme one is more flexible.

Now, some differences between the two approaches are :

EXTREME PROJECT MANAGEMENT	TRADITIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
XPM is future-oriented.	TPM is past-oriented.
It is more about leading.	It is more about managing.
It is about changing yourself & your approach to the world	It tries to change the world.
It makes the process a servant of people.	It makes people the servants of the process.
It is about distributing control.	It is about centralizing the control.

Is Extreme Programming is Right for Use?

There are some common characteristics of extreme projects, if you can handle this, or it sounds like it under your work, then you can easily adopt the approach. These are :

• Self-healing process when things do not go in the planned way.
• Regular changes to the project requirements.
• A move away from hierarchy while decision-making.
• Involves projects with highly complex processes and outcomes
• Use of trial-and-error approach to whether it works.

Once the extreme project management decides to be chosen, then teamwork members should comprise energetic people who can adapt to changes. Then the project manager requests the members of the group to communicate and build a plan. It is not easy moving from the traditional approach to XPM since XPM processes can’t be defined with conventional methods as they are meant to be built from scratch. However, the flexibility in XPM enables the development of the best plans that aim to achieve project goals, unlike what can be restrictive in the case of the traditional approach.

Advantages of Extreme project management:

• Flexible and Adaptable
• Involvement of Customer
• Having Continuous Delivery
• Effective Communication
• Quality Analysis check

Disadvantages of Extreme project management

• Intensive Resource Required
• Dependent on Skills
• Suitable only for a Few Projects
• Dependent on Customer Availability
• Documentation challenge

Conclusion :

Switching from Mac to Windows is like a Traditional Project Management To Extreme Project Management may be challenging But Changes in functionality are necessary. However, from a future perspective, adopting Extreme Project Management seems essential to ensure complete software development.