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How Agile Do We Need To Be?
Mark Mullaly is president of Interthink Consulting Incorporated, an organizational development and change firm specializing in the creation of effective organizational project management solutions. Since 1990, it has worked with companies throughout North America to develop, enhance and implement effective project management tools, processes, structures and capabilities. Mark was most recently co-lead investigator of the Value of Project Management research project sponsored by PMI. You can read more of his writing at markmullaly.com.
In the world of project management, there is much being made about the concepts of “agile” and “extreme” project management. This website has an entire department dedicated to just that. This suggests that it is unique and different, and needs to be applied of and thought of in different ways than “normal” project management. In fact, you don’t have to look too far to find articles, discussions and polemics that assert just that.
But how agile is agile? And how agile do we need to be, anyway? And, to be clear about the real question that we should be asking, how unique is agile from what most of us understand project management to be?
Agile project management as a concept has a variety of descriptions and assertions that define what it is intended to represent. Overall, however, it reflects a process that is adaptive, collaborative, based upon an evolving understanding of what the solution that should be produced is--and emphasizes personal interaction and co-operation.
The likely source of agile project management, and much of the perceived value in its adoption, is as a reaction to how projects have been historically observed. It is a backlash against what some consider excessive bureaucracy; formality; rigor and administration; and an attempt to define a management approach that is instead flexible and …
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