Traditional Project Management vs. Agile Development with Software as a Service projects
Introduction
The purpose of this entry is not to define Agile development methods (there's more than enough of that out there already), but rather to identify the characteristics of a company that is properly implementing and seeing positive results from Agile Project Management.
When an SaaS project is initiated, those who are responsible for building the invention are among the most important people to the business during that time. They must be treated with the kind of dignity and respect that demonstrate the impact they have on the success of an SaaS initiative.
Traditional Project Management
Analyzing the problem-solving characteristics of a company's Executive Officers will tell you a lot. More specifically, what you are looking for is the level by which they do or do not value and honor traditional means of solving problems.
The second major characteristic to look for is the existence of a process or strategy that religiously used as an approach for resolving every problem that comes up. Chances are, with this kind of leadership at the very top, you will usually find what - at first glance - appears to be an orderly, hierarchical structure to the way that tasks are delegated. You will usually also notice a disconnect between the lower-level management such as having a clear understanding for design requirements, for example. In other words, a developer might get a different answer depending on which manager they pose the question to.
It is also common to find a lot of finger-pointing and missed deadlines in this type of environment. This is an example of the type of atmosphere that does not work for successful SaaS. In fact, this kind of atmosphere can be such a detriment to productivity that these projects are usually shelved before they ever even make it to the