The Role of Progressive Baseline Planning in Enhancing Agile Project Effectiveness (A Comparative Case Study of Two Projects in an IT Consulting Environment)

Abstract

Agile methodology is widely adopted in software development due to its adaptability to evolving requirements. However, within IT consulting organizations that manage projects with fixed deadlines, high task dependencies, and concurrent multi-project execution, Agile implementation often faces challenges related to project planning, scheduling, and control. This study aimed to analyze the role of progressive baseline planning, a staged planning approach that applies layered baselines and detailed timeline decomposition, in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of Agile project execution. This research employed a qualitative approach using a comparative case study design involving two software development projects within the same IT consulting organization: the NOI External Project and the Document Generator Project. Although both projects demonstrated comparable levels of complexity and development duration, they showed significant differences in execution performance. Data were collected through project document analysis and semi-structured interviews with project team members.The findings indicate that the implementation of progressive baseline planning in the NOI External Project enabled more detailed task decomposition, identification of parallelizable activities, and data-driven project monitoring through planned-versus-actual performance comparisons. The project was completed 12.5% faster than the initial estimate (14 weeks compared with 16 weeks). In contrast, the Document Generator Project experienced a 60% schedule delay (16 weeks compared with the planned 10 weeks) due to the absence of a structured baseline planning approach. These findings suggest that progressive baseline planning can strengthen Agile project control by improving schedule visibility, resource coordination, and execution predictability in complex IT consulting environments.