Question

In your perspective, answer the following questions: The managers and architects wanted to decide if they could recommend using agile methodology for fixed-price projects in the future. If yes, what would they do differently to avoid effort/cost overruns? If no, how could they better plan and estimate for projects with continually changing requirements? They wondered what practices and approaches adopted during this project should be recommended for institutionalization throughout the organization? Must contain 300 words or more

Answer 1

Yes! According to me, the managers and the architects can use agile methodology with fixed price projects, as this will help the architects get regular feedback of the work done from the customers and can make changes from time to time, by involving less cost, rather than correcting the entire project in the end.

But while following agile methodology, there are chances that the budgets so set can exceed its limit and the costs incurred may increase. In order to avoid this bad situation, the organization can apply approaches and strategies and following can be done in order to avoid cost overruns:

• Regular check should be kept by the project managers even before the work is presented to the customers for evaluation.
• Making immediate corrections in the project as this will involve less amount of money in small quantities.
• Ensuring that the resources are used efficiently and weekly checking the budgets will help bringing the costs under control.

Practices and approaches that can be recommended for institutionalization throughout the organization:

While conducting the project the management can apply different strategies and approaches so that the costs can be reduced to minimum and best results can be portrayed to the customers. Following approaches can be followed by the organization and can become part of its culture:

• The practice of keeping a track on the budgets on weekly basis will help managers be on the right track of using limited and required money only.
• The practice of regular check on the working of the project team and also providing immediate supervision and feedback can again be installed into the culture of the organization.
• Also the practice of the project managers keeping regular check on the team and also checking the output before it is presented to the customers for evaluation can be followed as an organizational culture.