After yesterday’s formal keynotes and presentations, today was the more organic Open Space portion of the conference. Attendees each proposed topics they wanted to discuss and explore, and then posted those topics into open room/time slots.
conference attendees choosing which topics to discuss
There were two sessions of primary interest to me: PMI (for those interested in the PMI Agile community) and anti-PMI (for those skeptical of PMI’s involvement in Agile at all). During these two sessions, some compelling observations were shared by attendees:
- The PMI/Agile “gap” is more a gap between the traditional management mindset and the Agile mindset. Traditionalists have to go through a personal journey that eventually bridges that gap
- Employees often take the easy way out. Whether using PMI/Project Management as a scapegoat for organizational dysfunction or using Agile as a scapegoat for project failure.
- Often workers have a group identity (mac vs. PC = Agile vs. PMI) that distracts us away from pragmatism and moves us more towards fundamentalism
- Scrum certification is a hook to Scrum itself, which is then a gateway drug to the Agile mindset
- The terms “project manager”, “product manager”, “product owner”, and “program manager” each carry baggage unique to everyone
I was really impressed by the insights, all of which are documented here: http://scrumorlando09.pbwiki.com/Session-Notes.
More insights sure to come tomorrow….
