Table Of ContentProject success within agile project management
environment:
Discovering it’s potential in infrastructure projects.
Sebastian Solis Vuurmans
Construction Management and Engineering
MSc Thesis
Delft University of Technology
___________________________________________________________________________
© Copyright 2015 by S. Solis Vuurmans, TU Delft and Grontmij Nederland B.V.
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COLOPHON
Research Title Project success within agile project management environment: Discovering
it’s potential in infrastructure projects.
Document Type Graduation Thesis
Date November 2015
Author Sebastian Solís Vuurmans
Hopakker 35
3514 BT Utrecht
(+31) (0) 6 37 42 19 17
[email protected]
Student number 4243455
University Delft University of Technology
Faculty Civil Engineering and Geosciences
Master Track Construction Management and Engineering
Graduation Committee
Prof.dr.ir. M.J.C.M. Hertogh CEG, TU Delft
Ir. Y. J. Cuperus BK, TU Delft
Ir. A. Jalali Sohi CEG, TU Delft
Ing. M.B.J. de Kroon Grontmij, Nederland
Ir. S. Laaper Grontmij, Nederland
Grontmij Nederland B.V.
De Holle Bilt 22
3732 HM, De Bilt
Delft University of Technology
Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences
Stevinweg 1
2628, CN, Delft
To my parents and brother.
For their unconditional support and love.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
With this thesis I conclude my time in Delft/Utrecht and finish my master program Construction
Management and Engineering. It all started almost one year ago when I was introduced to Afshin
Jalali Sohi and we talked about his PhD research. So began the journey into the field of project
management success, success factors and agile. It was a bumpy ride to get a hard-headed man as
myself to view this project through an academic perspective, but I assure you that scrum will be used
in my future endeavours.
I would like to thank my graduation committee. Marcel Hertogh, always bringing focus at key
moments of my research. Ype Cuperus, for helping get into the mantra of ‘maximizing value and
banishing waste’. Stephan Laaper, for always reminding me that mistakes are part of the experience.
Maurice de Kroon, for helping me through the process and always finding the positive side in it all.
And especially Afshin, I might not be the best student, but I’m thankful for all the time you have
invested in me for discussions and feedback, and most of all, thanks for your patience, I wish you lots
of luck with finishing your own research.
Lastly I would like to thank the people of Grontmij that helped me throughout the whole research
period. They gave me time of their day for the many interviews and always assured me that I had the
door open if I needed any extra help. It was a great experience of meeting all types of people, with
different roles and projects. I guess it is always a good icebreaker to say you are a Costa Rican that
speaks a little bit of Dutch.
Personally it was a great challenge; moving to a new city, experiencing cultural differences and
going through major decisions in my life. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to work with an
amazing group of people that made it all easier; we had our laughs, our work discussions, and
multiple coffee breaks for which I will be eternally grateful. Thank you team ‘Projects’ for helping me
in every step of the way, you are awesome.
Sebastian Solis Vuurmans
Utrecht, 2015
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SUMMARY
Infrastructure projects have been experiencing cost overruns and delays, these are not new, for
infrastructure projects are these days more of a rule than exception (Bent Flyvbjerg, Holm, & Buhl,
2002). This has incentivized the construction activity towards a more organized way of handling their
projects (Björnfot & Stehn, 2004), there have been improvements in very different areas like design,
production and management (Koskela, 2003). The existence of this cost overruns and late deliveries is
also experienced in Dutch infrastructure projects (Cantarelli, 2009), and a study by Flyvbjerg et al.
(2003) indicates that in 86% of the projects under consideration there are cost overruns, have an
average overrun of 28%. Since success has been continuously linked to criteria like time, cost and
scope (Toor & Ogunlana, 2010) there is a relation between the way a project is managed during the
process and the final outcome (Li, Akintoye, Edwards, & Hardcastle, 2005).
There has been research done on why infrastructure projects are continuously failing. Authors as
Munns and Bjeirmi (1996) make a connection between the project success and the management
methodology used. Several different project management methodologies exist now days, most
commonly known are PMBOK and PRINCE2. But in the ICT industry a new way of managing arise
called Agile Project Management (APM).
There is plenty research done on Critical Success Factors (CSF) of infrastructure projects (Belassi
& Tukel, 1996; Chin, Chan, & Lam, 2008; Cooke-Davies, 2002; de Wit, 1988; Munns & Bjeirmi,
1996; Pinto & Covin, 1989; Pinto & Slevin, 1988; Toor & Ogunlana, 2008; Turner, 2014). And the
past years, since the implementation of agile in the ICT industry there has been some research done
on success in this industry (Chow & Cao, 2008; de Souza Bermejo et al., 2014; Misra, Kumar, &
Kumar, 2009; Stankovic, Nikolic, Djordjevic, & Cao, 2013). But there is no existing research done on
the success of agile infrastructure projects by Critical Success Factors (CSF).
Therefore this thesis was aimed at determining which success factors were most critical to the
perceived success of projects managed in an agile environment. To gain knowledge about the way
these factors were secured, to be able to exploit these success factors in future projects by using the
following research question:
• How is the engineering company able to assess success of infrastructure projects in
agile managed environment?
To be able to generate the required data to answer the research question, Q-methodology research
was performed on 31 persons with three distinguishable background groups: (i) people from ICT with
scrum experience, (ii) people from infrastructure with scum experience and (iii) people from
infrastructure with traditional experience. Based
To come to a clear answer to this research question four sub-questions were composed:
SQ1: How to define success in Agile Project Management (APM) environment?
SQ2: What is the best framework to assess success of projects handled in APM?
SQ3: What are the most influential factors for success?
SQ4: How can this information be useful within the company?
Theoretical background
In the theoretical framework an answer to sub-questions on the subject of process success,
performance measurements (Critical Success Factors) and Agile Project Management was done.
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Definition of success
Since our goal is to identify opportunities to improve the process success, and we believe a good way
to define it is by the word ‘happiness’ by the three major parties involved: the client, the company and
the engineers involved. The study of success was done only on the point of view of the project
personnel.
Proposed success framework based on CSF
In order to determine our framework of success specialized on APM projects a list of 16 different
articles were reviewed, that included articles focused on the construction sector as well as the ICT
industry. More than 300 CSF were combined and reduced to clear 38 different CSF grouped on eight
major clusters: related to (a.) Project manager. (b.) Team members, (c.) Project characteristics, (d.)
Organization, (e.) Client, (f.) Resources, (g.) Tools of APM and (h.) External factors.
Defined perspectives
The factor analysis resulted in identifying a total
of four main perspectives. Each perspective
represents a point of view on the CSF in order to
reach for success by a group of respondents. To
each of the four perspectives is assigned a name.
Below these names can be found alongside the
amount of respondents who are associated with
this perspective.
1. Perspective one: “Collaboration with client to
maximize value”
2. Perspective two: “Strong leader”
3. Perspective three: “Team empowerment”
4. Perspective four: “Capacity to respond to
change”
Implementation of agile mentality
It was considered very useful by the Grontmij Company to analyse their actual implementation
processes of infrastructure projects and to compare their experiences with the findings from literature
review about APM. As an important product of the interviews a list of positive factors and challenges
of the implementation of scrum were identified. A list of seven main actions is proposed with the
objective to maximize the effect of the positive CSF identified in the research.
Based on the research a three step process was recommended: (i) Identification of 38 CSF, (ii)
Incentivize CSF based on agile perspectives and (iii) Recommended actions.
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ABBREVIATIONS
APM Agile Project Management
CM Contract Manager
CME Construction Management and Engineering
CPM Critical Path Method
CSF Critical Success Factors
DoD Definition of Done
DSU Daily Stand Ups
GIS Geographic Information System
ICT Information and Communication Technology
IPM Integral Project Management
KPI Key Performance Indicators
LPS Last Planner System
OM ‘Omgevings Manager’ - Environment Manager
PCA Principal Component Analysis
PES Performance Enhancement Strategy
PL Project Leader
PM Project Manager
PMBOK Project Management Body of Knowledge
PMI Project Management Institute
PO Product Owner
PPP Public and Private Partnerships
PQMethod Analysis software specifically for Q Methodology
PRINCE2 Projects in Controlled Environments
PSIs Potentially Shippable Increments
RWS ‘Rijkswaterstaat’ – Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment
SC Success Criteria
TM Team Member
TM* Technical Manager
WBS Work Breakdown Structure
WBS Work Breakdown Structure
WIP Work In Progress
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GLOSSARY
Agile Project APM is an iterative and incremental project management methodology, Page 18
Management originally used in software development. It is based on empowerment of the
development team and includes continuous deliverables and feedback from
client.
Burn down chart The burn down chart is the way for the team to track progress and provide Page 26
visibility. The scrum master updates it at the end of each sprint. The
horizontal axis of the release burn down chart shows the sprints; the vertical
axis shows the amount of work remaining at the start of each sprint. You can
see what the team has completed as well as how scope changed.
Critical Path CMP is a project-management technique related to the waterfall model. It Page 28
Method lays out all the activities needed to complete a task, the time it will take to
complete each activity and the relationships between the activities. The
sequence of activities that have no buffer in order to finish the project on
time, are called the critical path.
Critical success These are the outcomes of a project or achievements of an organization that Page 18
criteria are needed to consider the project a success or to esteem the organization
successful (outcome oriented). Success criteria are defined with the
objectives and may be quantified by Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Critical success A set of conditions, characteristics or variables that must go well in order to Page 14
factors ensure success for a project or organization and that must be given special
and continual attention to bring about high performance (process oriented).
Daily Stand Ups DSU is a tool of the ‘scrum’ methodology and consists of daily meetings of Page 25
the team of about 15 minutes where the team discusses three points per team
member: What was done yesterday? What will be done today? And
problems encountered.
Definition of done DoD is crucial to a highly functioning Scrum team and is an agreed list of Page 22
criteria that should be met for each Product Backlog Item.
Development team A cross-functional group of people responsible for delivering potentially Page 23
shippable increments of product at the end of every sprint.
Factor or The result given by the Q methodology states different ‘factors’ or Page 59
perspective ‘perspectives’ depending on the level of importance of the various
statements (in this research was used Critical Success Factors).
Failure costs All additional and avoidable costs incurred by unnecessarily or inefficient Page 19
procedures, as well as additional costs when the final product does not meet
the agreed quality, is inadequate or defective and need to be repaired or
replaced.
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ICT Scrum A specific named group of respondents for this research. They consist in Page 54
engineers with experience in ICT projects with a vast use of scrum.
Infra Scrum A specific named group of respondents for this research. They consist in Page 54
engineers with experience in infrastructure projects in a traditional manner
as well as infrastructure projects managed with scrum.
A specific named group of respondents for this research. They consist in
Infra Trad Page 54
engineers with experience in infrastructure projects in a traditional manner.
Don’t have any scrum experience.
Key Performance Indicators that evaluate the achievement or success of an organization or of a Page 16
Indicators particular activity in which it engages. Often success is the repeated,
periodic achievement of some levels of the operational goal, and generally
success is defined in terms of making progress toward strategic goals that are
fixed at the start of the project.
Planning poker Planning poker is a consensus-based, technique for estimating, mostly used Page 27
to estimate effort or relative size of tasks
PQMethod Software used to analyse data specifically for Q-methodology Page 33
Product Backlog The product backlog in scrum comprises an ordered and prioritized feature Page 25
list, of all things that needs to be done within the project.
Product owner The responsible in scrum project management methodology that represents Page 23
the client’s requests for developing for each sprint.
Project leader In traditional project management, a project leader is the person in charge of Page 23
directing the course of the project. He works together with a team and is
responsible for cost and time management.
Q-methodology Q Methodology is a research method aimed to systematically study the Page 33
participant’s viewpoints. This methodology is used to investigate the
perspectives of the participants by asking them to rank and sort a series of
statements related to a specific issue.
Scrum A tool of Agile Project Management (APM), being an iterative and Page 33
incremental process for managing product development.
Scrum master Is the facilitator for a product development team that uses scrum, and allows Page 23
a team to self-organize and make changes quickly. The scrum master does
anything possible to help the team perform at their highest level, which
involves removing any impediments to progress and facilitating meetings to
make sure the product backlog is in good shape and ready for the next sprint.
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