Agile Project Management in Non-Software Sectors During Turbulent Times

International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications (IJSEA), Vol.10, No.1, January 2019 DOI: 10.5121/ijsea.2019.10104 51 AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN NON-SOFTWARE SECTORS DURING TURBULENT TIMES Nabeel T. Alsohybe1 and Nashwan Sabrah2 1Department of Information Technology, Sana’a University, Sana’a, Yemen 2 The School of Business, Lebanese International University, Sana’a, Yemen ABSTRACT Scholars have viewed Agile Project Management APM as a prominent solution for software and nonsoftware innovative institutions to cope with its unstable environment. APM has been tested in the software field and proven to be successful. Since 2015, there is ongoing war in Yemen that negatively affects most sectors including the business and microfinance sectors. Social Fund for Development SFD, the microfinance industry leader in Yemen, sought solutions for enhancing the Microfinance Institutions MFIs capabilities during the current environment turbulence. This research investigates any possible advantages in adopting APM in the microfinance sector, out of software domain. A qualitative method was used to conduct the research. three microfinance pioneers were selected and 11 professionals from all management levels were interviewed. In addition, three workshop discussions with 22 members of product development teams were held. The study found that adopting APM would help these MFIs to enhance their resilience by bridging the identified gaps and challenges. KEYWORDS Agile Project Management, Traditional Project Management, Product development, Social Fund for Development, New Product Development. 1. INTRODUCTION Since the 60s, many firms in different business domains use New Product Development method NPD for their products innovation [1]. The objectives of NPD process are to help in 1) identifying business opportunities through envisioning, 2) developing new products, and 3) to deliver products to the market [2], [3]. Furthermore, turbulent business environment or market dynamism increases the business uncertainty which challenges organization resilience to sustain its original level of performance or achieve new stable one [4]. Also, a Project Management Institute PMI study showed that the lack of organizational capabilities to respond effectively to its environment changeslack of agility, is the common characteristics of the low performer organizations which causes a high rate of projects failure and money losses [5]. Therefore, firms call for new development model [6], [7]. Recently, there has been growing interest in APM as a lightweight and flexible way of managing the software development projects through short iterative cycles [8]. Moreover, literature views APM as a prominent solution for the agility challenges that face the traditional NPD firms in software and non-software domains [9]– [11]. Since the beginning of 2015, Yemen entered a political conflict that became a major regional war crisis. As a result, this war made the Yemeni business environment unstable and more challenging, negatively affecting MFIs operation performance [12] Causing them to encounter high financial losses [13] which added to their challenges in responding to their customer's demand [14]– [17]. International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications (IJSEA), Vol.10, No.1, January 2019 52 Although MFIs are important tools for combating poverty and improving the well-being of many poor people, literature indicates that Yemeni MFIs face challenges in responding to their customer's demand [15], [17]. 22% of MFIs’ potential customers, Small and Medium Enterprises sizes SMEs did not find loans that were appropriate to their needs. In addition to that, 38% of borrowers claimed that loans size was not enough [17]. Moreover, Alshebami and Kandare [15] listed the lack of innovations, and customer-driven products as the main MFIs challenges [15]. Jakobi et al. [18] in their study of “Understanding National Culture’s Influence on Product Innovation Approaches” calls researchers for more investigation in the field of project management agility within microfinance context which had less attention from the academic studies [18]. Furthermore, only a few academic studies have been done in the area of Agile project management within the NPD context outside the software development industry [19]. This paper is based on a case study of three Yemeni MFIs constricted as a response on a call from the microfinance industry leader in Yemen SFD, who sought solutions for enhancing the MFIs capabilities to cope with current environment turbulence. All selected institutions are supported by SFD, involving in developing new microfinance products. The Paper sough answer to the main question: How could APM help MFIs during current turbulent time? To answer this question, this paper presents a set of advantages identified through interviews and workshops from three MFIs. The paper focuses on challenges experienced in relation to several management levels and the possible APM interventions to overcome these challenges. The actual implementation of APM are not included in this paper. 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND This section covers the concepts of New Product Development, Agile Method, and Resilience. 2.1. Innovation ProcessNew Product Development NPD The product development process is seen from its top level as a set of activities applied by people who are involved in the product development function to 1) envision, 2) develop, and 3) deliver a product to the market [2], [3]. In microfinance industry, M. Brand [20] suggested a fourstage process of product development: 1) evaluation and preparation, 2) prototype design and development, 3) pilot testing, and 4) product launch. In addition, CGAP [21] training manual and Wright et al [22] article, described a Five-Stages process model: First, Evaluation and Preparation. Second, Market Research. Third, Concept/Prototype Design. Fourth, Pilot Testing. Fifth, Product Launch and Rollout. Moreover, scholars recognized project management as a process within the product development to organize work and optimize high levels of innovation [3], [23] where the NPD methods represent the macro-process and the project management approach is the micro-process within the product development process [24]. Furthermore, two main types of project management have been recognized by literature that have been adopted by firms’ management within its NPD Model for several business reasons: 1) Traditional Project Management TPM and 2) Agile Project Management APM [23], [24]. According to Sutherland and Ahmad [25], the traditional project is typically organized as several steps of grouped activities where the work is moving sequentially through each step, and when changes are needed in a previous step, then that step and all following steps are sequentially re- International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications (IJSEA), Vol.10, No.1, January 2019 53 executed. TPM starts with heavy planning activities to come up with a project’s detailed plan by predicting all individuals’ tasks required to complete the project. The downwards sequence of work movement known as the waterfall approach [25]. Furthermore, NPD projects that adapted TPM are seen by scholars as plan-driven method start with heavy planning efforts then strict to the plan during the whole project. This method is working well under the condition of predictable and stable environments, where this condition is not available for many firms due to the unstable environments. As a result, many firms involved in developing products in a dynamic market are faced with several challenges in their projects which can be summarized as lack of 1) the ability to adapt, 2) the ability to accelerate, and 3) the ability to cope with the complexity and uncertainty [10]. 2.2. Agile project management APM Agile project management APM is known among software and non-software professionals as a lightweight and flexible way of managing software development projects through short iterative cycles [8]. Moreover, according to Ovesen [10], the word “Agile” in the English language is” an attribute often associated with animals like the big cats. Like being alert and responsive. Also, well-coordinated and quick when it comes to movement” [10]. Furthermore, Agile software development, Agile product development, Agile project management, or Agile Methods are terms commonly used by researchers in the field of software development [26]. Figure 1 Agile Value. Source: adapted from [27]. Therefore, APM is a software development concept represents a philosophy and a mind-set or a way of thinking that elaborated by applying certain practices that links to agile core values, see Figure 1, and principles described in the Agile Manifesto [28] in terms of becoming strategically capable to respond to change, to balance flexibility and linearity, to encourage innovation, and to strengthen organizations in a changing and uncertain environment [29]. According to Highsmith [29], APM process usually starts by creating a simple business case or product vision which has enough description to start the project. Based on the product vision and the team knowledge, team Speculates the product specifications. The second step of APM process is to go through short iterations to develop the product, and during these iterations, the uncertain requirements evolved as new knowledge that can be gained through the team experimentation and International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications (IJSEA), Vol.10, No.1, January 2019 54 collaboration with customers and stakeholders. Based on these experiments, the team continually incorporate adaptive actions into the next iteration. Finally, the project ends when the result satisfied the customers [29]. APM represented by several methods that recognized as an agile method such as Scrum Framework, and Extreme Programming XP [30]. These methods become widely accepted because of their usefulness, easiness, and maturity characteristics [31]. Moreover, Robert G. Cooper and Sommer [32] mentioned that Scrum is the most applicable method to be used in non-software products. Thus, this research paper will only go through Scrum explanation later-on in this chapter and uses Scrum as APM’s representative for this study. Section 2.5 provide brief information about Scrum. 2.3. Comparison between Traditional and Agile Methods There are some conditions that make APM a recommended approach over TPM and conversely, for example when the market environment is dynamic, the APM is recommended. While if the market is stable and predictable then TPM is the better [34]. Table 1 summarizes the conditions that drive the decision towered using APM or TPM; adapted from [34]. Table 1 Conditions that drive the decision towered using APM or TPM 2.4. Adopting APM in Non-Software Organizations Conforto et al [19]. connected a study to investigate the possibility of adopting APM out of software domain. Six management practices and ten agile enablers factors were used in their study. They have been extracted from several Agile studies to assess 19 companies. There were 48 responders to identify the presence of APM practices and the enablers in companies from different industry sectors [19]. Conforto et al [19], defined APM practices as a group of management practices that clearly differentiate the use of the APM approach from other approaches. In addition, APM Enablers are the critical factors that, if any, will make the use of APM practices, tools, and techniques favourable. Some of these critical factors can include, but not limited to, people competencies, team characteristics, structure, organizational culture, and available resources, uncertainty of technology, and market characteristics [35] which are summarized in Table 2. International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications (IJSEA), Vol.10, No.1, January 2019 55 Table 2 AMP enablers. *Adapted from [19] Additionally, Sommer et al. [7] investigated seven manufacturing companies in a variety of industries and identified several challenges that drive these seven industrial companies to implement Agile/ NPD hybrid processes, and in return six of these companies gained substantial performance benefits from it [7]. After that, R. Cooper and Sommer [32] expanded the explanation of the Agile/ NPD hybrid based on the same cases and summarized the benefits as the following:  Fast response to changing product or customer requirements  Reinforce pro-active and effective voice-of-customer (VOC)  Deals with the resourcing issue such as dedicating team members  Process Acceleration and productivity enhancement [32] 2.5. Scrum framework Scrum is regarded as one of the process models adhering to the agile manifesto. Takeuchi & Nonaka first mentioned the concept of Scrum in relation to development as early as in 1986 to describe the similarities between the strategy used in Rugby and product development in several companies in Japan – both are adaptive, quick, self-organizing, and have few rests [11]. Jeff Sutherland with Ken Schwaber announced Scrum as a formal process at OOPSLA'95 [33]. The Scrum emphasis is on an empirical process rather than on a defined process as well as emphasizes self-organizing teams [33]. In contrast to other agile methods, Scrums are intended to be a project management approach through the development process [30]. According to the official Scrum Guide, projects in Scrum framework managed by a selforganizing and cross-functional team called the scrum team which contains three roles; 1) Product owner role, 2) Development team role, and 3) Scrum-master role [33]. Scrum framework includes five formals and Time-boxed ceremonies called events which means these events are predefined and locking the activity into specific time period illustrated in Table 3 [33]. International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications (IJSEA), Vol.10, No.1, January 2019 56 Table 3. Scrum ceremonies summary. Source: Summarized from the official Scrum Guide [33] In addition to that, the Scrum framework includes three official tools called artefacts used to represent the work which is the backlog, the definition of done – DOD, and Burn-down chart [33] Also, there is unofficial artefact called The Task Board or the Scrum Board, that scrum teams are commonly used [10]. The Task Board is a visual communication tool that mainly helps to visualize the project tasks details and status by using post-it notes and a whiteboard [10]. 2.6. Resilience and performance In turbulent times like in nature crisis time, business environment inherently becomes unstable where organizations need to cope with such turbulence and the changes inherent [4]. Therefore, business environment turbulence can demonstrate as demands and customer’s requirement changes, market direction changes, and tools and technology changes which requires a new business management way because previous business strategies and practices would no longer be aligned with the actual environment which involved high ambiguity due to a lack of enough market information [36], [37]. Also, the high competition level may affect firm’s market position and influence the need for change and adapt [10]. Another important challenge is operation disruptions or unexpected disturbances that affect firm’s supply chain operation or firm’s performance [4], [37]. Therefore, the responsiveness strategy for the customers’ need in terms of providing value to the customers through products innovation, and the lead time to market strategy are the suitable strategies required to cope with market changes and to obtain better performance and resilience in turbulent times [4], [10], [37]. Carvalho et al. [37] argued that agility and resilient are two separate concepts; where agility is being able to respond to changes very quickly, while the resilience is the ability to recover after a disturbance; the combination of both concepts leads to better performance [37]. In contrast, McCann et al. [38] found a strong correlation between the two concepts, agility, and resilience. In addition, Wieland and Marcus [4] argued that resilience is the ability of a supply chain to cope International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications (IJSEA), Vol.10, No.1, January 2019 57 with changes which formed by two dimensions or component: 1) agility as reactive strategy to rapidly respond to change by adapting the initial stable state, and 2) robustness as proactive strategy to resist change without adapting the initial stable configuration where robustness requires predictions of change prior to occurrence [4] Therefore, according to Wieland and Marcus [4], achieving agility dimension can occur by achieving: 1) Visibility for better identification of changes, and 2) Speed for a faster response to changes Moreover, Wieland and Marcus [4] empirically proved that communicating, and cooperating for sharing information with suppliers, customers and other stakeholders have a positive effect on visibility and speed as well as the resilience overall, in addition improving agility contribute to enhancing firms’ responsiveness to their customer by providing more customer value as an essential performance measurement that would be gained through different aspects but mainly: 1) conformance to customer specifications and 2) conformance to customers’ satisfaction [4]. 3. RESEARCH METHODS This study is primarily based on the qualitative case study method. The qualitative study research is used when the problem needs to be explored through studying individuals to obtain their understanding regarding a phenomenon or an issue where the phenomena cannot be separated from its context [39], [40]. Qualitative research is also used when quantitative measures and statistical analyses do not fit the problem [39], and thus, to investigate a phenomenon in a real-life within its context where behaviour controlling is not required, and quantitative measures are not mature yet [19], and the qualitative case study approach is considered as a suitable one according to Creswell and Yin [39], [40]. The institutions in this study have been selected based on the following criteria: 1) most recently have been involved in developing new financial products, 2) willing to provide the required access to all relevant data and individuals, and 3) showing interest on the research subject. The institutions are identified through an official SFD list of registered MFIs. Due to the war circumstances in Yemen and the budget and time limits of this research work, this study limits the potential cases to those institutions located in the Capital of Yemen, Sana’a to partially fulfil the accessibility criterion condition. The researchers interviewed 11 employees from different levels of management, see Figure 2, and conducted three workshops with 22 participants who are involved in product development project recently. Figure 2. The interviewees job positions International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications (IJSEA), Vol.10, No.1, January 2019 58 Since this study is based on qualitative methodology, triangulation was used for the collection of the primary data. The term Triangulation refers to the combining of several research methods in order to overcome the weaknesses of a single-shot approach [41]. By considering Yin [40] recommendations, the researchers take into their consideration to reduce the threats regarding the study validity and reliability during all study stages. Table 4 summarizes the validity and reliability strategies of this research based on [40] Table 4. Summary of the study validity and reliability strategies Therefore, the current study’s data collection is triangulated by using semi-structured interviews [39], and workshop discussions [42]. According to Ørngreen, R., and Levinsen, K. [42], workshops become part of the research design and the data collection, that can be artful if they were combined with other empirical methods. The second data source is based on literature reviews and case study documents review that includes process manuals, project files, and internal policies. An interview guide is used, where its questions have been linked to the current study objectives and model as well as a pilot test conducted with one Yemeni MFI. The interviews were digitally recorded, transcript and saved using Atlas-Ti application. Data analysis started, after reviewing transcripts with participants, by quotation and coding process conducted using Atlas-Ti for each case. Second, conducting cross-cases comparative analysis, identifying the overall themes and consulting the literature for drawing the results. See Table 5 for more information about the interview guide. Table 5. Summary of the interview guide Reference Objective Main interview questions [6], [10], [4], [37] Assessing External forces and the need for agility  What are the external forces that have affected your institution during the current crisis and war?  How would you describe the demand for microfinance products during the war? [19], [10], [6] Assessing the product development process  Have you participated in the development of innovative or complex products recently? If yes? Can you mention the latest products? International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications (IJSEA), Vol.10, No.1, January 2019 59  How do you develop your products? Briefly explain the development process in your institution? Please  Regarding the products you mentioned to me earlier - what are the most important problems or challenges you faced in those projects? [4], [37] Assessing the institution’s resilience  What has helped you to survive? What has negatively affected your ability to withstand? [10], [4], Assessing the suggested solution  Do you think there is a need to change your project management method? And why?  What are the most interesting practices in APM, according to what you have seen in the workshop? 3.1. Case Overview Cases profile information shown in Table 6. all cases are focusing on providing Islamic loans products, and only case 1 has additional products which are micro-saving and money transfer. By comparing the performance indicators, case 2 is the lowest performer with Operational SelfSufficiency OSS=41%, Financial Self-Sufficiency FSS=30%. Also, only one institution is following a written process guideline which is case 1. Table 6. Cases profiles overview 4. RESULTS For this paper, the authors reanalysis each case and provide another point of view of the main study result by re-categorizing its finding result. The reason for that is providing more focused result regarding this paper’s scope. As a result, all institutions are not aware about APM but in response to the current turmoil, two of them start to adapt several ad-hock practices that improved their agility. Therefore, after Scrum fundamentals presentation, and during the workshop International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications (IJSEA), Vol.10, No.1, January 2019 66 6. CONCLUSIONS This paper presents a series of challenges related to product development during turbulent times in three MFIs in Republic of Yemen. As well as identifies several rooms of improvements that APM could help in. Generally, this research work has been focusing on introducing APM to nonsoftware institutions in Yemen as a potential solution for these institutions to cope with the current environment turbulences and improve their performance. Moreover, this study was conducted with only three MFIs in Yemen due to the time limits, further research for testing the framework is required with more MFIs or with other service institutions. 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Drury-grogan, “Performance on Agile Teams: Relating Iteration Objectives and Critical Decisions to Project Management Success factors,” Information and Software Technology, vol. 56, no. 5, pp. 506–515, 2014. [48] T. Vedsmand, S. Kielgast, and R. Cooper, “Integrating Agile with Stage-Gate ® – How New AgileScrum Methods Lead to Faster and Better Innovation,” innovationmanagement.se, pp. 1–15, 2016. AUTHORS Nabeel T. Alsohybe, is working as an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Computer and Information Technology, Sana’a university, Republic of Yemen. He received his BS degree in Computer Science from San Jose State University, MS degree in Telecommunication Systems Management from National University, and PhD in Organization and Management, Information Technology Management from Capella University, USA. Nashwan Sabrah, Holding a Master degree in Business Administration, Lebanese International University, Sana’a, Yemen, 2018. Scrum-Master, open source advocate and the co-founder of http://nvf.ngo foundation.