Enrollment Management, Managing the Alpha AXP Program

1 Abstract Digital's multiyear Alpha AXP program has involved more than two thousand engineers across many disciplines. Innovative management styles and techniques were required to deliver this high-quality program on an aggressive schedule. The Alpha AXP Program Office used a four-point methodology for management: (1) establish an appropriately large shared vision; (2) delegate completely and elicit specific commitments; (3) inspect rigorously, providing supportive feedback; (4) acknowledge every advance, learning as the program progresses. We consciously used each project event to propel progress and gain momentum. Digital delivered the Alpha AXP program on schedule with industry-leadership capabilities. 2 Introduction The program to develop the Alpha AXP systems has been the largest in Digital's history and one of the largest in the computer industry. During the course of the program, the Alpha AXP Program Office developed a model that provided the tools necessary to manage the program. At times, this paper may seem to imply that the program team developed the tools and then used them in a pure form. In practice, the team developed these approaches based on many years of experience and on the management theories of experts; we also learned and applied these lessons as we managed the program. Although the positive effects of timely delivery and high quality are particularly noticeable results of such a large program, Digital has also used the tools to good effect on smaller projects. Moreover, teams within the Alpha AXP Program used the tools recursively, project by project. The author's experience is that this management model is applicable to projects of nearly any size. The discussion that follows briefly defines the scope of the program and explains why traditional methods were inappropriate for managing the development of such a complex product set in a short time period. The Enrollment Management Model and the concept of cusps-a key element of the model-are then defined and clarified through discussion of the model's evolution during the Alpha AXP Program. Size of the ALPHA AXP Program Digital's Alpha AXP program encompassed the design of a world-leadership microprocessor chip, a new 64-bit system architecture, multiple hardware systems (from personal computers to mainframes), multiple operating systems, and hundreds of software products layered on these systems. The development of the first-generation products extended over several years and involved more than two thousand hardware, software, and systems Enrollment Management, Managing the Alpha AXP Program engineers at its peak. Digital managed the …