The Realization phase

This is the phase where the project team works to create the required results. Good cooperation from the project team, internally as well as externally is a key success factor.

• Keep the tempo up through active daily management, ensure good coordination and communication, resolving issues and removing obstacles as early as possible.
• Focus on achievements, e.g. passing milestones, making deliveries.
• Work iteratively and strive for early and successive deliveries.
• Continuously review lessons learned and refine plans to maintain a balance between overview and detail.
• Secure, maintain and release resources.
• Follow up on progress and risks, visualize these for the assignment team and stakeholders, manage changes, make decisions when needed and update status.
• Manage decisions that affect the assignment’s playfield formally, and manage the smaller changes operationally.
• Report status, with forecast, regularly and whenever larger deviations occur.
• Prepare and anchor delivery in good time and preferably make successive deliveries in order to gain early benefit for the organization.
• Clarify the required change management in order to secure realization of benefit.

Iterations with successive deliveries

Strive for iterations and early, successive deliveries. A suitable duration for an iteration can be 2-6 weeks.

• Start by planning the upcoming iteration. Prioritize and clarify what will be developed and divide the work so that each element is no bigger than two man-days.
• Visualise the activities and results of the iterations, e.g. using a Kanban-board.
• Gather the team and hold short (max. 15 min.) stand-up meetings at suitable intervals. Each team member reports briefly on
  What they’ve done since the last meeting
  What they will do before the next meeting
  Raises problems and need of support
• Prepare and carry out a demonstration and possible delivery of the results of the iteration. During the demonstration key stakeholders can see what the team have done and can give feedback that the team can use in future iterations.
• Deliver the results of the iteration to the receiver, if that is agreed upon.
• Gather the team and reflect on what has been learned during the iteration. What should we continue doing? What can we do differently/better? What obstacles need to be removed so that we can be even more effective?
• Celebrate and give each other feedback!

Dividing up a long realization phase into several, shorter bits gives increased flexibility and has other advantages, such as early discovery of misunderstandings/misinterpretation, early use of certain results and earlier gain of benefit.