Book Review: Agile Hybrid Book for Chefs

 

In a previous post, I wrote a brief book review of "The Software Project Manager's Bridge to Agility" by Michelle Slinger and Stacia Broderick, which I felt was an excellent guide for the traditional software PM who needs to get up to speed with Agile/Scrum.  Another book I am getting acquainted with is the book by Robert K. Wysocki titled "Adaptive Project Framework: Managing Complexity in the Face of Uncertainty", that is another excellent book that can be used to bridge traditional process oriented PM practices with Agile ones.

In this book, Wysocki uses an analogy that differentiates between the cook, whose skill lies in following a recipe accurately and consistently, with a chef, who has the experience and skills to create new recipes for each dish and to improvise within existing recipes based on the circumstances at hand.  This is to distinguish a traditional PM who follows a PMO driven process and obtain success if the project is well defined and the solution understood.  Adaptive PMs, according to Wysocki, would thrive in situations where the project goals are partially or not specified and typically evolve as the project progresses and where the solution is speculative.

I'll take the analogy further and assert that APF as outlined and described in the book is really for chief chefs, such as PMO directors/leads and or Agile coaches to adopt, customize and implement the framework for their department or organization.  This is especially for organizations who have a traditional waterfall like methodology in place, but have found a need to incorporate more Agile practices.

Wysocki has written some in depth articles on Gantthead to describe the APF framework before the book was published, which has not changed much since the publication of the book and I recommend checking them out.

Though Wysocki's book is dense and academic, it does provide a sound theoretical framework for those who are in charge of managing and leading a company's traditional, prescriptive PM process and/or methodology to integrate Agile practices into them.

In summary, for those whom this book and "The Software Project Manager's Bridge to Agility" by Slinger and Broderick are targeted, namely those who wish to adopt and integrate Agile practices into their traditional process oriented one, these two books will work as book ends:  The APF by Wysocki is for those who are tasked with implementing Agile in a top down, across the PMO fashion, whereas the Slinger and Broderick book is for the PM who desires to integrate Agile into their traditional process bottom up on an actual project they are managing.

I highly recommend these books!