The PMI Information Systems Specific Interest Group (ISSIG) puts out a publication called the ISSIG Review. They just published their latest edition and it contains my article “Agile Project Management: A Firestorm and A Rebuttal”. The article is a counterpoint to another author’s attempt to find the “one best way” to get started using Agile software development. My position is that there is no such thing as one best way to do any project.
You can download the article from their website here:
To my utter shock and delight, the Agile 2009 Conference Committee accepted all three of my submissions:
[When Marriott began to build its brand management intranet, the tech vendor ran into several problems that jeopardized the whole program. The introduction of Agile began a long recovery process: When should you be be covert/overt with Agile practices? How do you convince stakeholders a daily concall is more efficient than a weekly concall? Why would you pay for the tech vendor’s Agile training? How do you structure Firm Fixed pricing to be Agile? This is the story of how applying Agile techniques, first covertly, then out in the open, slowly steered the ship on course.]
[What happens when you get Agilists together to build an organization within one of the most ill-reputed bureaucracies in the world? When the Project Management Institute chartered the PMI Agile Forum, it was a huge announcement. However, now the team had to deliver a fully functioning organization to support the Agile-minded members within PMI’s membership…and do so on schedule and under budget. How do we build a business plan? How do we execute a marketing effort? How do we plan a launch event? Come see how this all-volunteer distributed virtual team extended PMI’s reach using Agile.]
[Project Managers comprise the single largest category of agile practitioners that are actively engaged in the Agile industry. However, there is no clear consensus on the role of project manager within the Agile community. Viewpoints range from: "The PM is complete waste" to "The PM is a necessary part-time helper" to "The PM is a crucial communicator and facilitator." So who’s right? This interactive session will seek to address these questions about who is good, who is bad, why they are, and who says so.]
The conference will be in Chicago in mid-August. Registration is not yet open, but stay tuned to this channel for details.
This keynote event will follow the dramtically well received keynote by PMI’s CEO Greg Ballestrero at the Scrum Gathering Orlando 2009 this past May. At that event, Ballestrero’s unifying remarks, and his one-on-one conversations with Agile sketpics, facilitated some very real collaboration between the PMI and Agile communities through some unexpected . Given the March event will serve as the backdrop for Vargas’ keynote address in Brazil, expectations will be high for even more collaborative energy.
Also, consider that the conference is offering a discounted USD 200 registration fee until May 1st, this event will be an outright bargain. Those of you who missed the Orlando event, should consider making the investment to see PMI visiting another Agile conference.
My company just posted a “what’s new” article about our efforts to push the PMI Agile movement along. There’s a lot going on. Check it out: http://www.excella.com/whats-new-agile.htm
This past Thursday, the Washington DC chapter of the Agile Project Leadership Network conducted its monthly meeting. The chapter hosted a roundtable on Agile in the Government, and featured the following panelists:
With such a talented panel addressing a topic that resonates strongly with Agile practitioners in DC, it was a format certain to deliver good nuggets. The moderator, Bearing Point’s Matt Vandegrift opened the evening with some discussion around current momentum and opportunity. For example, the CIA’s CIO has issued an agency wide mandate to use Agile Project Management. However, some expressed skepticism over the long-term impact of an appointee who would likely be off to another assignment before real culture change can happen. Mr. Carpenter suggested the most Agile-friendly agencies are those with an existing entrepreneurial culture of value delivery, such as IARPA or DARPA. However, most of us know those kinds of government cultures are far and few between.
Eventually, the age old debate surfaced of bottom-up grassroots adoption versus a top-down Agile mandate. Interestingly, a consensus emerged that this was the wrong debate. Both the panelists and the attendees called out mid-level government bureaucracy as the key barrier to effective Agile adoption.
Even if a senior sponsor wants to alter project scope to reflect emerging information, the project’s contract officers will resist it. A mid-level career staffer serving as the Contract Technical Representative (COTR) will be graded on performance-to-plan. Indeed, many situations carry more than just career consequences for adjusting scope, they may face criminal charges. Current procurement policies and statutes are designed with a plan-driven philosophy. If your project takes 2 years to get funded, it’s not the COTR’s fault the scope is no longer relevant to the mission, but he still gets stuck with it.
Mr. Carpenter further broke down the this dynamic into functional roles. In his mind, the real opportunity for breaking through this impediment is not the technical route (easier), not through the Prime/Sub teaming partnerships (harder), but from government PMOs.
Claire Moore, also from Sphere of Influence, challenged the group for some value metrics to facilitate such a cultural transition. What are some examples of programs that measure “value to mission”, rather than “performance to plan”? Several examples were cited (decreased costs, customer satisfaction, or Dr. Rico’s book ROI of Software Process Improvement), but all agreed getting contracting officers to implement them was the hard part.
Dr. Rico emphasized this point several times by issuing the charge that Agilists take influential positions in these policy organizations such as the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) or Institute for Defense Acquisition(IDA). One attendee raised the possibility of launching an Agile lobby, as a means to influence contracts. Yet another suggested outreaching to MBAs, to overcome the buzzword status Agile has in the minds of the few executives who have heard of it.
Other observations included:
In all, the evening was a successful discussion. I left with a better sense of how I would tip-toe through a government environment as an Agile Project Manager.
I was mulling over how our project team might get better at doing Agile / Scrum, and stumbled over two proverbs that capture the substance of our efforts:
“Perfect is the enemy of good” – Voltaire
and
“Good is the enemy of Great” – Jim Collins
When contemplating the truth embedded in these statements, I wondered if they could be mashed up to yield a new cliche’ of my own:
“Good is a Necessary Evil” – me
Let’s unpack this a little more, using a few more colloquialisms along the way…
Those are my meandering thoughts for the week. Now, I have to go back and count how many oft-repeated truisms and buzz-phrases I just mashed together…
