![\"High](\"https:\/\/www.users.miamioh.edu\/covertka\/Agile\/Agile1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLately, there’s been a lot of talk about Agile within IT Services. \u00a0Many universities and companies are successfully using Agile to manage their IT projects. \u00a0Agile promises a number of benefits that are very appealing to IT Services. \u00a0In this post, I want to point out one of those benefits that have been mentioned in Agile seminars I’ve attended recently. \u00a0I encourage others to post additional information about Agile as well.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, organizations (including Miami) have assigned multiple projects to individuals or groups concurrently. \u00a0In fact, we list the ability to work on multiple projects concurrently as a preferred qualification in our job descriptions. \u00a0This is measured as a metric known as the “Work In progress” or WIP. \u00a0Currently, IT Service’s WIP is around 80.<\/p>\n
The diagram below shows a very simplified visualization of this scenario with 6 different projects for 6 different clients. \u00a0(Of course, not all projects are the same size, start at the same time, end at the same time, etc. but I’ve created a simplified example for demonstration purposes.)<\/p>\n
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In this simplified example, the WIP would be 6 as there are 6 concurrent projects for this person\/group. \u00a0Notice in this scenario, we’ve stretched all projects across our available resources – everyone gets a little piece of the available resources. \u00a0Each project gets 1\/6th of the available resources. \u00a0Also note that all clients\u00a0have to wait until the end to get benefit from any of the projects.<\/p>\n
Agile promotes a reduction in the Work in Progress. \u00a0For any particular person or team, Agile recommends reducing WIP to one or as close as possible to one.<\/p>\n
Below is the same simplified scenario but with a WIP of one.<\/p>\n
![\"WIP](\"http:\/\/www.users.miamioh.edu\/covertka\/Agile\/Agile2.jpg\")
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In this scenario, we put 100% of our resources on a single project at a time. \u00a0This allows projects to complete much quicker (every month in this simplified case).<\/p>\n
To the client waiting on Project 6, nothing is different – they still get use of their application on July 1. However, the clients waiting on the other 5 projects get benefit much sooner than they would have in the original scenario (as represented by the blue arrows). \u00a0In corporations, this could amount to millions of dollars in additional benefit.<\/p>\n
In addition, studies have shown that people think they multi-task well, but in reality, they don’t. \u00a0Just like computers, there’s a significant loss for context switching<\/a> between tasks. \u00a0Reducing the WIP to as close to one as possible reduces the number of context switches taking place with developers.<\/p>\n