You are on page 1of 1

Naveen Tegar | 2015PGP218

Course- Agile Project Management


Methodologies Assignment 3

Date- 17-11-2016
Case- Sapient Consulting: Enriching
Experience using Hybrid Agile Approach

Case Facts
Sapient Consulting is a global services company that helps clients transform in the
areas of their business, marketing and technology. It found its service differentiation
in in innovative contracting strategies. It had recently proposed fixed price, fixed
time value proposition that had opened up a host of market opportunities for Sapient.
GHRO was a leading human resource solutions provider, which aimed to optimize the
productivity of its clients.
GHRO wanted the project to be delivered in a phased fashion and with functionality
approved by them.
This required the project to be delivered through a Global Distributed Delivery
(GDD) model in an Agile approach.
The challenge was to use the methodology in an offshore software development
environment especially considering constant customer feedback required in an Agile
approach.
Ranjan Gupta, the project manager, adopted a scrum of scrum method for the project.
Regular meetings between offshore and onsite teams using videoconferencing
facilities.
Phases in the initial planning and design phase, unlike Agile, followed by time-boxed
iterations for implementation.
The overall approach was a hybrid between Agile and waterfall model with the idea
of phases and documentation taken from waterfall model while iterative development
from Agile.
After a slow first iteration, the team adapted to increase performance and involved the
clients in scope prioritization.

Recommended Solution
The company should follow a hybrid model for fixed-price Agile projects, as fixedprice projects require a certain amount of planning to avoid overruns. The company should
continue recommending the hybrid agile products in the future as well. They should take up
the learning from this experience and plan constructively for the next projects. Fewer
assumptions should be made from their side and more should be discussed with the client
involvement should be from the very beginning. They should not institutionalize it as
different projects have different requirement and should be approached differently.

Key Learning
Using hybrid models can help get the best of both development processes.
Leadership plays an important role in keeping the project going as evidenced by
Guptas handling of the team after the slow first iteration.
Involving client in the prioritization process can help the team to build essential
functionalities first, helping them to plan better.
Having distributed teams required high level of communication so that the teams can
collaborate effectively.

You might also like