Scrum vs. PMP® in IT Projects: A Possible Compromise?

Emanuele Boschi, PMP, is an Information Technology Project Manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Cologno Al Serio (BG), Italy.

  Agile   Scrum   Using PMI Standards   Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)  

As an IT project manager with more than 18 years of experience, I face every day with a fundamental question: What is the best project management approach when you receive a project charter from your key user?

As commonly accepted, the Scrum methodology works like a charm in a context where customers have no clear idea for deliverables, or where you are dealing with a feasibility study; but it also has some (critical) limits when applied to a complex scenario with the process already in place—big problems that have to be extricated and so on.

Some examples in an IT context may be “performance with big database” or “define a process for backup and restore quickly and efficiently more than 4,000 mailboxes.” Another example (not only found in IT) is how to dedicate seven people to a single project when I lead a team of 12 developers and I receive more than two project charters per week.

At the opposite end, a strong and pragmatic approach—one directed by the 47 processes of the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute—is sometimes too casehardened to be accepted by customers.

When I started studying Scrum, My first reaction was that this methodology would not work at all in my context (a company with more than 4,000 people, and a …

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