Using Prince2 and Agile simultaneously: symbiotic or chaotic?

Have these two approaches been causing your company friction? We've been concerned that they can seem to pull in different directions from a management point of view; but the business situation in iMedia - flexibility, fast-changing scope, and clients who want to see faster results - all play towards Agile.

It can come across as an us versus them situation between programmers and the rest of the team and management. Yes, you guessed it, it all comes down to control!

First let's clear up the Agile/DSDM approach conundrum. Agile techniques can fit under a Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM). DSDM has guiding principles that back iterative and incremental development: Agile seems to fit perfectly here. But DSDM goes further as it enshrines higher level management aspects like focusing on the business need, communication and quality: aspects of a project that fit with Prince2 methods. The linking mechanism may well lie in understanding DSDM.

However, DSDM, like Agile, is seen as an IT project methodology, whereas Prince 2 fits an international general project management image. There's the positioning of the relative approaches in a nutshell. If you work with clients who have a general business background they are more likely to relate to Prince2 principles which make overall communication easier in theory. If your clients are used to working with IT, they may well be au fait with Agile and/or DSDM approaches so communication at the product development stage might not be as big an issue as it can be. Doesn't it all relate to the project context?

If there is friction between your inter-team approaches involving Prince2 and Agile, there are pros and cons on both sides and both parties need to understand the core criticisms that can be valid. So, Agile methodology can be seen as: lacking discipline, lacking rigour, over-emphasis on product development, needing strong collaboration from clients, client-driven, putting over-reliance on visual documentation, nibbling away at the true project.

Prince2 can be seen as: over-bureaucratic, using linear development (a waterfall approach in IT terms), light on product development, a straight-jacket,over- business-driven, prefers non-visual documentation, takes too long to start, over-zealous about specification.

These can all be true depending on the context of the project, and projects differ as we know. Perhaps emphasis on one approach may be needed for one project and the other for another. What is clear is that unless your team are all pulling in the same direction, your project will suffer. The answer might lie in combining the best of both approaches because then they might demonstrate that ‘flexibility and dynamism can exist from within a structure of stability and control’. See page 8 of Agile project management: Integrating DSDM into an existing PRINCE2® environment, Best Management Practice White Paper.

This white paper is worth a look if your company is having bother with these aspects. Another perspective that reinforces the two working together can be viewed at Indigo Blue Consulting.

What exactly are interactive media projects?

The range of iMedia projects just seems to expand constantly and it makes it hard to define exactly what a project type is. No one has to face this dilemma as much as those running iMedia awards. Every year they scratch their heads to come up with categories that match what companies are producing. Similarly iMedia companies scratch their heads to understand which category to put which project in as they usually just define the project by client name.

November is historically the month when many iMedia awards take place in our industry so it’s a good time to review this question. It is fascinating to see how diverse the projects are no matter what the award categories are called. There still seems to be a dilemma about denoting projects according to

1. the business sector of the client
2. the technical/media use of the application, or
3. the creativity of the media use.

That’s the old commerce versus techie versus creative bias that's been there from the beginning. Which set of skills dominates? Luckily there is a better blending and recognition of each other’s expertise now than previously. There is more of a team spirit than conflict of mindsets.

If we analyse the award categories across four of the main players we get a good grasp of the diversity of iMedia project types. Of course, we do need to concede that the organisers have to also pay attention to how to attract the most entries by the choice of category. Here goes then!

BIMA (British Interactive Media Association) is a generalist organisation representing the iMedia industry in the UK. It has 24 awards and splits the categories into Sectors, Disciplines and Premium. The Sectors are clearly business-focused – Branding, Business-to-business (b2b), Corporate, Entertainment, Leisure and Culture, Public Life. The disciplines are less focused and cover business thrust (commerce), platforms (techie), and creative use of the platforms. It’s here in the ‘disciplines’ that the traditional multi-disciplined factions of iMedia appear. Their Disciplines are: Advertising, Community Building, Direct and Targeted Marketing, Educational and Outreach, Engagement, Games, Integrated Campaign, Mash-ups and Data Visualisation, Mobile, Multi-platform, Self Promotion, Social Media/PR, Student and Viral. Their Premium Awards are strongly iMedia creative but also nominate a creative business for recognition of its contribution. For the awards see: www.bimaawards.com.

IMRG (Interactive Media and Retail Group) awards naturally have to focus on its membership of retailers, and the categories reflect this. But retailing is a strong, general iMedia sector so they are also represented in other awards groups without being so identifiable. These 15 awards are split across size of retailer probably in recognition that the size affects the budget, use of media and type of solution that the iMedia project can offer, types of platform used and creative use of media positively affecting the bottom business line. See their web site for specifics: www.imrg.org.

The Chief Marketer offered 27 PRO awards and their bias is marketing iMedia. They have a predominance of ‘promotion’ projects for awards since that business marketing need is being met across various uses of iMedia. They also specify some awards by platform (cross-platform, web, social, mobile, games, video etc.) and yet others by successful ‘event’ staged, and creative or innovative ideas. Check their awards out at chiefmarketer.com.

Then we have the Europrix awards that keep an eye on youth and innovation. Their finalists need to be from the 40 countries of Europe and aged under 30. This year the judging will be in Austria later this month and there are six categories divided by ethical subject matter.

1. Fight Poverty, Hunger and Disease
2. Education for all!
3. Power 2 women!
4. Create your Culture
5. Go Green!
6. Pursue Truth!

This clearly suits educational institutions and student projects but it’s good that someone looks strongly to the next generation of iMediaites.

Perhaps then there isn’t one answer to the question posed in the title and may never be. It’s an evolving industry so we can only take snap-shots at particular times for now.

Types of Interactive Media Projects

With the increase in platform availability from web, mobile, and iTV, and the widening of use from business to social media, the range and type of interactive media projects has increased dramatically over the last few years.

This places an added burden on developers since the type of project together with its intended audience shapes the relevant content and interactivity (interface). The platforms dictate their own interface limitations on top of the concept of relevance as well. So, the mix of decisions has escalated, the work with the client to define the scope of the project has splintered, the need for a strong project management hand in the developers has increased.

We had problems enough to define the type of interactive projects in a business context a few years ago. In the end we took a project management stance looking at the context in which they succeeded and what clients had found going wrong. This included things such as the objectives of the business changing from the agreed objectives during the lifetime of the project so that although the project was completed according to the original scope, time and budget, it didn't then meet with the changed business/market direction. We highlighted other dilemmas where the developers knew more about the interactive market needs than the clients, but the clients didn't listen and then the ultimate project was found by them not to work in the market as they wanted. Finally, we admitted that sometimes projects don't succeed because the users find them too problematic to use. This might occur because the clients dictated the interactive interface without understanding or trialling use, or that the developers didn't stress this as an absolute so that their design didn't function as it should.

We went on to define the type of project an interactive company does according to where their time was spent. This fell under the categories: client, bread and butter, investment projects, Maintenance projects, quick fix, R and D, Good will, Pitches/tenders. (See Chapter 1 of Managing Interactive Media: Project management for Web and Digital Media.)

How one categorises the type of project depends on many factors. Although our concept remains good in principle, it needs expanding perhaps. But where you spend your time and effort might still work for you as a company.

The only other place we can hope to see a definition of project types might lie in the categories of awards put forward by the interactive associations. Take a quick look at these because each awards group defines them very differently and/or concentrate on particular aspects of development. It's fascinating – well we think so. Maybe it'll encourage you to enter some of your projects for awards. Many categories are still open for 2011. Good luck.

• BIMA (British Interactive Media Association)
• IMA (Interactive Media Awards)
• IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group)
• Europrix

The expanding concept of an interactive project

In our book, we begin by defining the types of iMedia project that you can come across. This drilled down to projects within projects, and invited you to do an analysis of your organisations' projects over the past year by type and revenue.
The interactive landscape has changed allowing a proliferation of types of project. They can all be subject to the general principles of project management, but it is good to stand back now and then to read the changing landscape. How do we do this?

Well, there are several indicators. Job roles expand to define the diverse skills that are needed for the growing number of projects. There's a snapshot at www.peopleperhour.com which is a site that aims to find you a freelancer based on skills that you need. It's a shame that web design and all related web-type roles fall under other, but on the other hand, the sheer number and categories should stimulate some serious thinking.

It's good to get hold of some statistics about the industry to look at some forecasts. This has always proved problematic because the UK doesn't really support good stats about it - iMedia isn't seen as a cohesive industry yet. However, there is a prediction from the US about interactive graphic designers and the projected increase in numbers of them needed by 2018 – an increase of 13% from 2008! See www.ehow.co.uk

At least this article by Meagan Van Beest (now there’s a name) categorises iMedia designers as Flash Designers, Game Designers, Information Systems Designers, Interactive TV Designers or Web Designers.

Finally, to wake you up with lateral thinking, those off-the-wall projects happening now may well shape whole sections of the interactive market in the not too distant future. There's a great toe-dipping experience at Goldsmith's College London explained at Creative Choices UK about the use of smart interactive technologies affecting theatre, medicine, and textile sectors.
See www.creative-choices.co.uk