Monthly Archives: June 2009

PMI’s DC Chapter Talks Agile

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evt200906AgilePanel

Last week, the Washington DC chapter of PMI hosted a roundtable discussion on Agile Project/Program Management, which featured a packed crowd, smart speakers, and some healthy debate. Indeed, the event was broadcast on the official PMI Agile twitter feed. The event was an outgrowth of the strategic partnership between the DC chapters of PMI and APLN. The panelists were:

PM Tools 2

General Inisghts
The discussion was moderated by Bearing Point’s Matt, who was reprising his role from the very popular APLN-DC event disussing Agile Government. Nicolette and Bodamer were brilliant for sure, but Cheng was itching for a fight and Cook was on fire with her quotable talking points. Among the panel’s key comments were:

  • “Top barriers to agile are 1. crashing against organzational culture and 2. anxieties about job security”
  • “Don’t just say let’s go agile”; target a specific problem.”
  • “ask how much am I willing to invest in this project, not how much will it cost”
  • “an agile PM facilitates process, relies on team to deliver results”
  • If you’re a theory Y manager already, then agile will be easier for you to do
  • “manage things, but lead people”

PM Tools

PMBOK != Agile
The event also yielded two interesting differences of opinion. When asked whether the PMBOK could be used in conjunction with Agile, most PMI Agilists will say yes. Cheng got a laugh when he read page 1 of the PMBOK, which calls for iterative processes that fit the project at hand. But we went on to critique that “agile does not talk well to adoption in organizations with multiyear budgeting cycles”, such as the U.S. government. He also made the point that a “traditional WBS is not an agile feature breakdown stucture”, a concept popularized by PM authors Wysocki and Sliger/Broderick.

Oddly enough noone on the panel disagreed with Cheng’s points, but they instead highlighted the common point that Agile practices are considered to be a subset of the best practices described in the PMBOK. Hmm….

A juicy debate, by PMI standards
The most interested disagreement came over how to get started using Agile. Nicolette assumed everyone in the audience was ambitious, suggesting you choose a high-value high-risk project, and then use Agile to turn it around. Cheng disagreed, suggesting that a high-risk project is inherently high-risk. Going Agile may not mitigate all the risks associated that project. Instead, choose a high-value low-risk project to show that you can deliver business value more effectively with an Agile approach. Then, with that track record, you can gradually take on riskier endeavors to spread the value.

After the talk there was a photo op (see top of the post) and some good networking.

PMI Hosts Agile Breakfast

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This morning at the National Press Building, the Washington DC chapter of PMI hosted a talk entitled “Agile or PMBOK? You can have both”. The presenter was David Sides from ESI, who has been using Agile at his client engagements for a while, and shared his observations light-hearted fashion (more on that in moment).

The event was sold out, with more than 100 DC-area professionals coming to check out the talk. When David asked how many were using Agile, only 2 raised their hands (including me). When he asked how many were looking into / thinking about using it, a full 40% raised their hands. Clearly, this was a topic that had significant draw.

pm-in-the-am

So with that backdrop, Dave went about debunking some Agile myths, and making some interesting points. Here are the highlights:

  • “There’s no such thing as pure methodology” – His point here is that all Agile projects have a dose of reality tempering the ideal process. Indeed, even waterfall projects use iterative/incremental process to knock out bugs during a test cycle.
  • “Will Agile get you working software faster? Yes. Will Agile get your product to market faster? Maybe.” Getting to market depends on more than just working software. Packaging, marketing, sales prep, training, need to be considered.
  • J.E.D. = Just Enough Documentation

    • <li >”Too often we don’t have enough SMEs. Instead we get SMRs (subject matter rookies)”

  • “How many of us have been on ‘stereo concalls’…where half the participants are in the cubes next to us?”
  • “Some cultures never change.” Even those that do need a “constant iterative change process to get where we can use Agile”.
  • Move away from “Earned Value” to “Achieved Value”

He also had fun doing his Letterman routine: 10 stupid Agile tricks (e.g. “We in IT know what is best”). David did a good job, and he’ll be reprising the talk as a webinar tomorrow: http://request.esi-intl.com/forms/EV09JUN11FM-PM-AgileWebinar

At the end of the talk, he took questions from the crowd:

  • But what about regression testing?
  • But what about fixed-price?
  • But what about Agile teams that need a full iteration to finish testing?
  • But what about matrixed teams? My organization would never give dedicated staff

What suprised me about this event, was not that Agile newcomers were asking the same questions. Instead, my eyes were opened to the uncharted ocean of opportunity that exists in the market. So many projects are struggling with the same issues. So many PMs are tasked with the impossible. Agile offers a management approach that can solve those problems, but people are not getting the message.

This is why I volunteer with PMI’s Agile Community of Practice. The market needs a place for dyed-in-the-wool PMs to go for their first exposure to Agile PM. A place where people can have these basic questions can be answered, and then get directed to a local user group and local training. This kind of resource could the beginning of a journey of growth and expertise that could transform our workplace from a dungeon to a dynamo.