Cost has traditionally been an important factor and component in investment  decisions as well as profitability  of an organization. Market conditions dictate some sectors to be more sensitive to cost management as compared to others. Nevertheless, even non cost conscious industries need to understand cost due to ensuing competitive pressures and for moving up the value chain for e.g. from a service based industry to providing solutions or products. This session will present an Introduction to the Total Cost Management or TCM Framework as enunciated by AACE – The Association for Advancement of Cost Engineering. TCM is a systematic approach to managing cost throughout the life-cycle of an enterprise, program, facility, project, product or service. ‘Costs’ in TCM include any investment of resources in the enterprise’s assets including time, monetary  ,human and physical resources. ‘Total’ refers to the comprehensive approach in managing the life cycle of the enterprise’s  strategic assets which are more inclusive as compared to capital assets. This approach gives a link to the strategic objectives of an organization. While the concept of cost management has been in vogue for quite some time and is being practiced to a large extent in some industries e.g. engineering and construction, it is not observed at similar levels in the IT industry. This session will explore the relevance and application of the Total Cost Management framework in this industry. It will be an interactive session with audience participation.
Session Learning Objectives

This paper has been broadly divided into nine sections. The first section gives a quick overview of the Agile Scrum process. The common problems of a traditional development method, especially for release management of a complex product are brought out and the advantages of Agile Scrum method are highlighted. The process of Scrum is explained in brief giving the essential details such as the artifacts, roles involved, the development process and the important meetings. A diagrammatic representation of agile scrum process flow is given for quick understanding.
The second section talks about the project context giving the details of the organization, the development team structure, the project complexity etc and putting the reader in the context of the project where the release management practices were incorporated.
The next section contains an overview of the essential ingredients of managing a product release in Agile Scrum context. Bare minimum required activities involved in a complex product release management process are listed.
The fourth section gives the specific technique adopted for applying Agile Scrum for our project context. The scaling of the Scrum process is explained.
The importance of project management in Agile Scrum has been briefly brought out in the fifth section. The sixth and seventh sections give details about the organization of scrum levels and typical agenda items for the meetings at different scrum levels. The detailed responsibilities for various roles involved at these levels are also given as a table in this section. The last two sections list the best practices followed at SISL and also some of the lessons learnt during the transition process to Agile.

How do we then take our perfected skills of project management to this changed scenario? What are the capabilities needed for this? Using real-life examples, it is illustrated what it takes to be successful in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment, with cultural & language diversity.