Agile and Project Management

 

Almost every time I check the discussions on ProjectManagement.com, I find at least one question about doing Agile.  It's often along the lines of "I've been a project manager for two months, already; how can I get a job as an Agile coach?"  (It reminds me of the classic question, "How can I get my PMP and skip all the education and experience requirements?")

These questions typically receive the same general answers, so let me summarize them.  (Note: I've stolen some content from people smarter than me.)

1. "Agile" is not a project management methodology.  It's not a method at all.  It's a set of common values and principles that an organization can either adopt or reject.  The most frequently cited and commonly held set of these are contained in the "Manifesto for Agile Software Development."  It fits on 1-2 pages, depending on your font size, and you should read it before you continue.
2. The history of "Agile" predates the manifesto by decades.  It springs from a rich history of process and manufacturing improvement, such as Lean, and predates the modern "software" industry.  Much has been written about it by people directly involved.  If you look, you'll soon find that businesses are still wrestling with process and management problems that were resolved by others decades ago.
3. Agile is not the enemy of Waterfall, and Waterfall should not be considered the "old" or "traditional" way of managing projects.  (I don't like the term "waterfall," but that's another topic.)  PMI does a good job identifying best methods and practices for managing projects, and continues to revise their standards with new and proven ideas.  However, as I stated above, Agile is a culture, not a management methodology.  
4. Agile is adopted to make organizations more adaptive to internal and external change.  These changes could come from a variety of sources, such as changing market conditions, competition, or new technology.  Major changes require rework (waste) to your project plan.  If your organization struggles to deliver new products because of change, then it should consider Agile.
5. Conversely, there's nothing that says you can't use a predictive plan in an Agile organization.  There may be times when it makes perfect sense.  If a project has relatively few unknowns, a stable scope, and is repeatable, then a plan-driven project might even have some advantages.
6. Agile is not an absence of discipline.  Agile frameworks require at least as much discipline as other frameworks, and often more.  This is one of the reasons why they seem to fail, because organizations lack the discipline required to succeed.
7. Another reason Agile frameworks seem to fail is that they're not properly implemented or supported.  A common conversation goes like this:
   "We tried Scrum, but it didn't work."
       "Did you have a bad product owner or scrum master?"
   "No, we never hired either of those positions."
        "Then who kept your backlog?"
   "We didn't keep a backlog, we worked off our waterfall plan."
        "Then you weren't using scrum."
   "That's what our lead developer said, so we fired him."
8. You, as a project manager, cannot "do" Agile.  You can't implement it, force it on your company, or manage a project with it.  As already stated and repeated, Agile is not a project management method, it's a collection of values and principles that your organization can adopt or reject as a part of its culture.  If you try to be Agile in a non-Agile organization, then you will be operating on a different set of principles and values.  That creates a lot of friction!  If you can absorb the heat, you might be able to sustain an Agile "bubble" in a traditional culture, but you'd better be prepared.
   (This is a third reason why Agile frameworks fail, because the organizations aren't really Agile.)  
9. Agile cultures can be very threatening to those who thrive in the middle management levels of highly bureaucratic cultures.  These are the people who will generate that heat that I mentioned, above.

This is just a summary.  There are plenty of books written about this topic, many of them written by people more educated, eloquent, and serious.  Good luck and happy reading.