Project Suitability Filter (PSF)

What is it?

The PSF can help assess the suitability of candidate projects to an agile development approach. It provides a consistent way for measuring the suitability of using an iterative approach and helps identify potential risk areas.

How do you use it?

When considering the suitability of a project, answer the filter questions. “Yes” answers to all, or the majority of all, the questions indicates that the project is suitable for an iterative approach. “No” answers indicate a risk to undertaking an agile approach to this kind of projects. An agile approach may still be appropriate, but extra steps should be taken to mitigate the risk identified by the PSF when undertaking the project.

Notes on use:

Remain objective when completing the filter. It may be tempting for enthusiastic project stakeholders to “bend” the interpretation or answers to questions in an attempt to prove or justify an iterative approach. However, the suitability filter can be a powerful risk identification tool and an iterative project with three “No” answers and a set of mitigation steps is more likely to succeed than one with all “Yes” answers and unresolved risk areas.

Agile Projects Suitability Filter

Suitability Factor / Suitable(Y/N) / Comments
1 / Does the sponsor/senior management understand and accept the iterative philosophy? / Buy-in to the approach is essential.
2 / Is there senior user commitment to provide end user involvement? / Identify whether there is a clearly defined and empowered user group and the commitment for them to be fully involved in the development process.
3 / Can the organization accommodate the frequent delivery of increments? / Configuration and Release Management procedures are required.
4 / Will it be possible for the developers to have access to the users throughout the project? / Do they need to co-locate or will a lower level of involvement be sufficient?
5 / Will the development team remain the same throughout the project? / The stability of the team including the user representatives is important.
6 / Will the development team have the appropriate skills? / These include technical skills, knowledge of the business area and interpersonal skills.
7 / Is there a supportive commercial relationship? / Between the IT development staff and the users.
8 / Will the project use technology suitable for prototyping? / The development platform needs to allow for iterative and where necessary reversible development.
9 / Is there a highly demonstrable user interface? / Screens, reports, file prints etc.
10 / Is there clear ownership? / Is there a champion who will progress political issues and ensure resources are provided? Is there a clearly defined user group?
11 / Will the development be computationally non-complex? / The more complex the development the greater the risks involved.
12 / Can the solution be developed in increments if required? / 80:20 solution, i.e. releases deliver some benefits early. If large possesses the capability of being split into smaller components.
13 / Has the development a fixed timescale? / Is the solution needed quickly? Is it business critical?
14 / Can the requirements be prioritized? / Can the MoSCoW rules be applied? Cannot only have “Must haves”.
15 / Are the requirements not too detailed and fixed? / Will users be able to define requirements interactively?
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