Leveraging Scrum and Incremental Delivery in Construction Projects

The value of Scrum Alliance’s certifications reaches beyond software developement and IT. The skills taught in the courses are readily applied to other industries and roles. In the example below, we see how scrum can be applied to construction projects that are made up of incremental parts.

Dr. Tobe Aguocha, CSM, PMP, MBA, is a construction project manager for Valero Energy in San Antonio. He pursued the Certified ScrumMaster® because he saw that it would provide him with the skills necessary to succeed in his role. In particular, he felt motivated to take the course as he witnessed the transition in popularity from waterfall to agile project management in his industry.

“Large-scale construction projects have many sections that are broken into little segments, and that’s where learning the scrum framework was very helpful. With process-driven projects, sprints are very applicable,” Aguocha says.

Aguocha has over 15 years of experience in the construction industry, managing teams and projects ranging from $150 million to $850 million. His certification and scrum skills have helped him succeed with project coordination, problem-solving, and project planning.

Aguocha really embraces a common scrum master method of using a whiteboard and sticky notes as facilitation tools for his meetings. His training also empowers him to bring together a cross-functional team to complete a project, such as mechanical engineers and project managers who synchronize their work and pivot based on feedback when necessary.

On other occasions, Aguocha uses sprints because, in construction, tasks repeat themselves and the goal is to always improve these processes. The way this work is delivered and the value of the outcomes can be improved with each sprint. He explains that no building is the same, but the technology going into each structure is similar, and sprints help with those iterations.

One of Aguocha’s proudest accomplishments was overseeing the construction of a $300 million Amazon fulfillment center in Texas that occupies over 1 million square feet. He used his experience and what he learned from his Scrum Alliance certification course to help him with most parts of the project, from the building’s IT hub to its security requirements.

He especially appreciates how Scrum Alliance continues to provide learning resources, clear paths to advanced certifications, and educational content so he can continuously grow his agile skills and expertise.

Aguocha’s colleague, an IT manager, convinced him to pursue certification. When he took the course, everyone else there was in the IT field. However, over the two-day CSM experience, he could see how scrum can be applied to construction projects. Since then, he's let his colleagues know that there is value in considering a certification course to learn more about agile principles. As an adjunct professor at the University of Texas San Antonio, he tells his students about scrum and encourages them to think about how adaptability, incremental delivery, and responsiveness to change can be applied to many contexts. 

“Certified ScrumMaster is a very effective approach, and it’s also a way to expand one’s professional network, which is tremendously important in today’s competitive environment.”

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From construction to human resources, professionals across the globe are finding ways to leverage scrum and agile values to improve how they deliver results to their customers, colleagues, and stakeholders. Scrum Alliance is bringing their experiences to you in the Agile Stories series. To be the first to hear about new additions to our Agile Stories series, subscribe to our emails.