An agile project team is creating an enterprise workflow system for a company. One of the project team members, who is the system design architect, keeps receiving telephone calls from the users who are asking questions about the system. The calls are impacting the architect’s daily work schedule.
What should the project manager do?
Including user training materials as part of the project deliverables ensures that users have the resources to resolve their own questions without having to call the system design architect. This proactive solution reduces interruptions and allows the architect to focus on their primary responsibilities, ultimately enhancing team productivity and efficiency.
D is correct. It never mentioned that architect is heavily loaded. Creating training material will be part of removing impediment
Including user training materials as part of the project deliverables addresses the issue by providing a proactive solution to reduce the number of calls to the system design architect
Which part of the question mentions calls are part of the architect's daily work? Should it not be considered as an impediment which the project manager should help to resolve? so why C?
In an agile project, it's important to distribute work among team members to avoid bottlenecks and ensure that each team member can focus on their primary responsibilities. If the system design architect is being consistently interrupted by user inquiries, revising the backlog and redistributing some of the workload to other team members can help alleviate the architect's burden and allow them to concentrate on their design tasks. This also promotes collaboration within the team and ensures a more balanced distribution of responsibilities.
Option D suggests including user training materials as part of the project deliverables so that users can receive self-help. While user training materials are important, this option does not directly address the immediate issue of the system design architect being overwhelmed with telephone calls. Providing training materials might be a valuable long-term solution, but it does not address the architect's current challenge of handling user inquiries. Option C is more focused on resolving the immediate workload issue by redistributing tasks among team members, ensuring that the system design architect can concentrate on their primary responsibilities. In an agile environment, adapting the backlog to balance the workload is often more suitable for addressing immediate challenges.
D. Include user training materials as part of the project deliverables so that users can receive self-help Including user training materials as part of the project deliverables provides users with the necessary resources to resolve their questions independently, reducing the impact on the system architect's daily work schedule.
Remember that in agile the project team assigns the stories themselves
The main issue is not simply handling the immediate influx of user queries but proactively preventing the volume of user inquiries from disrupting the architect's work. Comprehensive user training materials provide sustainable long-term solutions.
In this scenario, the project manager should include user training materials as part of the project deliverables so that users can receive self-help (Option D). This approach proactively addresses the root cause of the issue, which is the users' need for information and assistance with the system. By creating training materials, the users will have a resource to refer to for their questions, reducing the need for direct calls to the system design architect. This allows the architect to focus on their primary responsibilities without frequent interruptions.
Encouraging users to send emails instead of making phone calls allows the system architect to manage their time more effectively. This way, the architect can respond to queries when it aligns with their schedule, helping them maintain focus on their daily work. Additionally, it provides a documented trail of communication that can be referred to by both parties if needed.