Agile Project Management: You Cannot Lower the Quality
“The schedule is primarily managed by manipulating scope.”
This article is one of the “IT Interview” series.
In 2005, after a successful implementation of Agile in my project, the two agile coaches (one business coach and one technical coach; these two were real agile coaches, different from fakes one as we often see nowadays) gave a talk to all IT staff in the division on request. I remembered the business coach started the presentation with this question:
He asked: “If there is pressure on meeting the deadline, which adjustment (turning the knobs) will you make?”
The audience (most are project managers or business analysts) shouted out the answer, from my memory, all said “lowering down the quality”.
The business agile coach paused for a few seconds, making sure no more answers, then said: “No, you shall never lower the quality. If the deadline (date) cannot be moved, you can only reduce the scope, i.e., the feature knob”.
His answer shocked the audience. Remind you, it was in 2005. Frankly, I would be in disbelief if…
