Participation Cycle

Participation Cycle

By Project Management Sub-Group (compiled by Dana)

Conversation that began from the Agile Project Management meeting held on Oct 23, 2011. Subsequent meetings were held via Teleconference on October 24th, 2011 and at the Occupied office on November 15th, 2011. It is based on those calls and subsequent conversations that it was determined the importance of developing Best Practices for Work Groups in regards to Project Management. It was determined that the main goal of the PM Group is to: Reiterate the existence of group & use a version of Agile methodology to do work.

Given the horizontal and open nature of this movement, it is practically impossible to recommend one structure within a group to work with. However, we can provide tools and best practices that are available for all to use within a given project or group as needed. This was determined given the variety of tools and practices already being used with existing projects or groups. Instead of creating a structure, the processes we go through and be viewed as cycle that we all can participate in based on our own choice.

See visual sample here: Participation Cycle

Plan

Projects are proposed to the Work Group to be approved.

• New Projects
• New features on to existing projects
• Conflicts within a project

Decide

Decisions are made at working group meetings and approved for a project team to work on.

• Open Discussion
• Friendly Amendments
• Reach Consensus

Map

After project consensus has been reached, create a work map, project timeline and/or prioritized activity log to start working on project details.

• Create map of complete project
• Break down into prioritized weekly goals
• Manage back-log after initial goals have been met

Develop

Work on the activities prioritized from the mapping. Work until project is launched.

• Choose project management tool
• Create team contact method
• Work on prioritized weekly goals

Track

Track the completed project and add new ideas based on feedback loop that will lead to the Planning stage.

• Choose project management tool (can be the same as above or different)
• Get feedback from end-users
• Add new items to Plan or Map areas of the cycle

Additional Recommendations

• Best practices
  • Agree on decisions made
  • Accountability enforcement
  • Use Agile burn charts
  • Daily/Weekly activity status (short list)
• Responsibility to check tools
  • Team of 5 or less
  • Acknowledge work done
• Inter-team/Inter-occ Tech Communication
  • Take responsibility about adding updates to project management tool of choice
  • Accountability for time commitment