All this digital and agile and other cr-p buzz words will end up in disaster, the monekys who just want to copy others will fail miserably.
I agree. However, what's not clear to me is how come they don't see that agile does not work? Everyone sees problems with agile except those who really need to see them.
The longest distance between two points is a short cut. This is exactly what management thought they had when this got put in place. All we heard was how great the process was. Projects need a strong PM who draws a consensus but makes the hard call when needed. They thought this would eliminate the PM category.
Who’s the new president of CTC?
4fdl+, Ahh, yes, the new president of CTC, EB, has had an illustrious career of pandering to management, running Alpha way off schedule, and running TCO $$$$$billions over budget on the Tengiz upgrade project. What a role model! Oh, and she’s allergic to communications (‘no bread? let them eat cake!’), don’t expect any inspiring emails or town halls from her.
@3qcw - all you have to do is ask some BCG or McKinsey "futurist" expert today what will transform Chevron. Then 3-4 years later during a ROM, it will be the new focus with the new buzz words or phrases. It takes us that long to get organized and decide that's what we want to do. If you were lucky enough to have worked with BCG during ImagineIT, those are the friendships that last throughout your career. How do you think our new president of CTC got to where she's at? Yep, Project Alpha and her BCG goons.
To admit a problem with Agile, they would be admitting someone in leadership made a mistake. Won't happen! They'll push it, push it, and push it some more. Sometime down the road, there will be some other "bright shiny bobble" that they'll say is the next "wave of the future" and then they'll focus on pushing it, completely forgetting about Agile.
Agile will die when the “chip-dip” process-oriented mentality dies. Never it seems.
You didn’t get the memo? Nothing actually fails, they just keep changing the name/process/etc...just go with it until they change it again! It is bigger than you and you can’t escape it because basically all large corporations do the same thing.
There isn't anything wrong with agile in principle. There is a massive problem with agile AT CHEVRON though. I have worked with highly effective people from agile, but these are the same people who have historically been good. They're useful, organized, practical, and just have very sound fundamental project management skills. The problem with agile at Chevron is that we are trying to get to become a more technical organization, and there are just a disproportionate number of non-technical people without the basic fundamentals of project management skills. These people are hidden in agile and given a bunch of buzzwords and Chevron IT spends money to certify them in things and all of a sudden, they have become some agile professional, running all these projects on platforms. These are people you would never ever give real projects to run in the past, but we do it now because they're "certified" and given this role in round 4. The good ones are still out there. There are just very few. If you're a petrotech function product owner, and some IT schmuck says that you need a proxy PO since you don't really know agile yet. Tell them to F off.
Naive Chevron management, fed by their sycophant high-pots (with newly minted MIT degrees), assumed that Agile, which works wonderfully in the software world where mistakes cost nothing more than time, would translate to oil industry, where mistakes (and iterations) are costly. It's also the ultimate micro-managing tool, with your boss checking your work everyday. Also a great way to 'promote' technically ill-equipped high-pots into management.
ImagineIT and Agile is just IT Leadership desperately feeding the alligator in the hopes that it will eat them last.
@1qfx+1bQTn5kd the casual observer VPs will figure it out in two to four years and will shift gears again. By then, current IT Management will have achieved their goal of extending their careers and their points. None of this is driven by a desire to transform. It’s pure self preservation and extending a high psg to as close to retirement as possible.
However, what's not clear to me is how come they don't see that agile does not work?
The whole agile thing is trying to counter the issues that CVX have had historically with over engineering/over complicating things to where costs blow out and time lines are blown. In principle it sounds good but in practice you can not ignore sound science and try and over simplify things to the point where this is not added value. There is a fine balance needed. A concern I have is the lack of technical oversight with individuals being liberated to do what ever they want through various digital initiatives like working Agile with no clear oversight as far as consistency of processes etc... I think working in this way could potentially result in inconsistency between practitioners (or BUs) and potential for inappropriate methodologies creeping in which have not been vetted by technical experts.
@jhx is spot on. Drop the mic. Cannot be stated more clearly.
We have branded ourselves with SAFe and agile, therefore we are agile. Very much akin to an out of shape person putting on new nikes, expensive sports clothing so that the casual observer will assume they are fit now.
"They" only hear how these concepts help; nothing more.