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At the early of the last two decades, the software development projects were more straightforward, with teams specialized in many things, and playing different roles. I remember that I used to develop the front-end, the back-end, and doing the testing. Sometimes, I had even to write the requirements and be engaged in business meetings to conduct the acceptance test. Also, after the launch of the project, I used to handle the support and reaching out to the users to resolve any issues they are facing.

The nature of the projects changed by time, along with the complexity and the team required to achieve project goals. Also, on the people level, the talents become more specialized, so there’s a talent for every activity. At the same time, the competition between the companies becomes high, so it’s not an easy job to find the right talent.

That’s why Agile find the way in the software development industry. The size of uncertainty is enormous in the initial phase of a project or designing phase for a product. It’s essential to think big and clearly define the objectives, but at the same time, start small and progressively elaborate the product and project activities. The regular waterfall methodology is not wrong or an old fashion that we have to throw it away; the problem is in the planning based on assumptions with uncertainty, not the approach.

ً Regardless of the delivery approach you are following, here are some tips based on my experience:

• Log any uncertainty in the project risk register.
• Review all the project documentation from the bidding phase, along with any customer-related documents (i.e., RFP)
• Try to find a contact from the customer side to understand more about the expectations and the problems that the project shall address.
• Look for someone in your connections, has a similar project experience (And maybe any other project with the same customer), and understand the challenges.
• Avoid planning based on assumptions.
• Validate any assumptions at the early stage of the project.
• Plan spikes or short iteration to develop POCs that validate any technical or business uncertainties.
• Focus on visualization over documentation. People can understand more through prototypes and wireframes.
• Engage all the stakeholders in the project risks and uncertainties.
• Avoid planning based on assumptions.
• Any assumption not validated, has to be logged as risk and keep monitoring.
• If it’s not possible to follow an Agile approach, work iteratively, and include a demo after each iteration.
• Avoid planning based on assumptions.
• If you are building a product, focus on the MVP, and launch your product as soon as you complete the MVP features. And collect the feedback to plan forward.
• Check the company assets for similar projects to extract the lessons learned.
• Avoid planning based on assumptions.

Any project comes with enormous uncertainty, disconnected and vague requirements. And the execution phase of the project is where the realization of the project come to light, and of course, when you realize something, you start to validate assumptions, the market needs, and your delivery capacity. The projects that can continue and succeed are the ones that follow a flexible approach in delivery and address the uncertainties at the initial phase

Ahmed Moneim

Ahmed AbdelMoneim is a Program Manager with 17+ projects management centric experience and strong technical hands on experience in software development, services and products delivery including multi-dimensional exposure to different regions, countries, industries, technologies, sectors, and projects scales up to $6.5 million budget.

Ahmed is currently leading a Digital Transformation Program for 300+ UAE governmental services with 70+ resources in different countries where he manages programs and projects life cycles including planning, setting controls, monitoring progress, budgeting, risks, resources allocation, deliverables, stakeholders and interdependencies between different projects and programs. Before his current role.

Ahmed worked with different global and multinational organizations. One of his last roles was a Program Manager at Incorta, a Silicon Valley company, serving customers like Stanford, Facebook, and Starbucks. Known for “getting things done”, One of Ahmed’s key achievement is delivering the learning management system implementation for the largest Digital transformation project in the Middle East (Mohamed Bin Rashid Smart Learning Program) for the year 2013/2014 in 123 schools across UAE while he was a Senior Project Manager at ITWORX Education. On 2019.

Ahmed became ICAgile certified and at the same year he co-founded Agile Club community which is a community that gathers people around knowledge, believes in Kaizen and that continuous improvement is better to be achieved through collective minds within a strong community and powerful echo-system.

Ahmed was graduated on 2002 from Ain Shams University with B.Sc. of commerce. Also, he acquired MCIT Software Development Scholarship on the same year. Ahmed enforced his professional experience with many technical and project management Certifications, and he became PMP certified on 2013. Ahmed is value driven leader who always looks for meaning beyond the surface and how what he does can enhance people lives. Ahmed is well known for his innovative problem solving, great communication skills and good sense of humor. He loves collaboration and building rapport among different types of teams. When it comes to people management, negotiation or decisions that involve different levels of stakeholders, Ahmed knows how to lead the way.

Ahmed was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt. He has travelled to many countries around the globe and currently he is settled with his beloved family in Dubai, UAE.