Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
According to many practitioners Agile is an attribute rather than a different approach to project delivery. Any (traditional) framework can be Agile and any (Agile) framework can become dogmatic. Did Agile impacted significant your life as a Project Manager? Saving Changes...
@Kiron, with all due respect the 'expectation gap' starts in the training class. Agile in practice is very different that the one 'sold' by trainers. Agile is an empirical approach and as someone who is doing it since 2002 I don't understand how it can be learned in a classroom.
Stelian -
You are generalizing - there are many good trainers out there who don't sell snake oil. Yes, there are always going to be training and certification providers out to make a quick buck of the latest fad, but a lot of the hype around agile has been created by the media as well as tool companies, not just training firms.
Kiron Saving Changes...
Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
Nov 14, 2018 2:24 PM
Replying to Stelian ROMAN
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@Kiron, with all due respect the 'expectation gap' starts in the training class. Agile in practice is very different that the one 'sold' by trainers. Agile is an empirical approach and as someone who is doing it since 2002 I don't understand how it can be learned in a classroom.
@Kiron, sincere apologies if it came that way. I believe in the role of trainers and coaches and I know that there are good ones because I worked with some of them.
What I mean is that training itself doesn't make someone Agile and parading a certificate took after 2 days course as an achievement is wrong. Back to trainers; I believe that the Agile mindset and passion should also apply to trainers. I don't see an Agile training the old way following a PowerPoint and a booklet. I also believe that Agile needs some experimentation prior to attending a course. Making mistakes or feeling that it doesn't work for you will add value to the training.
Agile is not easy and it can't be learned in a couple of days. An honest trainer should start the course with this simple statement: that some of the attendees will never be Agile and there is nothing wrong with that. Saving Changes...
Symon ThelappillilTechnical program manager| Intel Technology India Pvt Ltd.Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Nov 14, 2018 2:32 PM
Replying to Stelian ROMAN
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@Symon, the 'mindset change' is one of the buzzwords that are associated with the 'fake' Agile. It is mentioned in every sales pitch but it's never explained. People don't change overnight or after a 2 days course. Agile will (maybe) change you but it takes time time and a lot of practice and mistakes, It takes years and some people will never become Agile. Many people were Agile long before 2001. You don't need Scrum to be Agile. Iterative and incremental delivery is used since 1958, the servant leader is a 1970's concept, kanban is also in his 70s.
Agree with you, practice is most important Saving Changes...
Greg GithensAuthor, "How to Think Strategically." Executive & Leadership Coach| Catalyst & Cadre LLCLakewood Ranch, Fl, United States
agile is best seen as a set of values. Saving Changes...
Elaine DiMasiProject Manager specializing in High Tech Instrumentation| Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryOakland, Ca, United States
I was involved in big-ticket instrumentation projects at national labs - where the procurement takes 6 months and the fabrication/ metrology takes 18 months, for each of several $1M-valued packages that are one-off and bleeding edge. The PMs and CAMs were all scientists trained into the world of EVMS and waterfall planning. "Agile" wasn't in our vocabulary. Still, I stayed well ahead of potential delays and problems by breaking up my sub-project into smaller waterfall pieces. I took heat for having a WBS that didn't look like my mates'. But it came out like roses when the flexibility in the face of problems was demonstrated! Felt "agile" to me! Or maybe I should've called them "rapids" :-) Saving Changes...
Matjaz MozeticCEO| LUXIM d.o.o.Sempeter Pri Gorici, Slovenia
Nov 14, 2018 2:39 PM
Replying to Stelian ROMAN
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@Matjaz. I agree that Agile practices were used long before the Manifesto. Like Lean Agile was defined in Manufacturing. There are a lot of articles published in early 90s about the Agile Enterprise, an organisation that can respond rapidly to change. 'stand-ups' were a practice on the production floor for 100 years. I've seen it in early 80s: the whole team had a meeting in the morning to discuss what will be done and if there is anything that needs action/attention. The Scum Guide (scrum.org) formalised in a framework practices that were used in software development for many years.
And not only software development. I'd say development in general, since we used the same approach in real estate development projects, energy infrastructure development projects, traffic infrastructure development, power plants, airport or marine port upgrades, etc...
It's an approach used for the projects where you don't have clear deliverables defined in the initiation and planning stages and where you approach them with the learn as you go attitude. Those were actually some of my favorite projects in absolute. But what I tried to state is: there's no impact on our careers by agile since it was always there, even if called and addressed differently ("customize at assembly" management, operations centered project management, .... we had a list of names going from the 80s to the 00s). The only real change is the terminology. Saving Changes...
Anton OosthuizenSenior Business Analyst / Project Manager| Self EmployedPretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Nov 14, 2018 1:51 PM
Replying to Stelian ROMAN
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@Anton, Agile is not a methodology. There are Agile frameworks (i.e. Scrum) and Agile practices.
Thanks. I'm not even going to enter that debate ;) Saving Changes...
Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
Nov 14, 2018 1:51 PM
Replying to Stelian ROMAN
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@Anton, Agile is not a methodology. There are Agile frameworks (i.e. Scrum) and Agile practices.
@Anton, giving up is not Agile :). There is a big difference between a framework and a methodology. Confusing one with the other leads many times to dogmatic Agile.
Agile doesn't mean stand-up, backlog and burndown chart. It is a (different) way of delivering products, services and projects.
The huge majority of people doing (or considering that are doing) Agile are using Scrum. If you have the curiosity to read the guide the authors defined Scrum, and Nexus, as frameworks.
The word "Agile" associated with traditional concept Agile Project Management, Agile Product Delivery, Agile Project Manager is a clear indication that Agile is an attribute. Agile BA, Agile Tester etc.
Understanding that Agile is not a methodology is pretty important for anyone that wants to become Agile. Saving Changes...
Stelian ROMANProject Manager| MicroSafetyCarlingford, New South Wales, Australia
Nov 14, 2018 2:39 PM
Replying to Stelian ROMAN
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@Matjaz. I agree that Agile practices were used long before the Manifesto. Like Lean Agile was defined in Manufacturing. There are a lot of articles published in early 90s about the Agile Enterprise, an organisation that can respond rapidly to change. 'stand-ups' were a practice on the production floor for 100 years. I've seen it in early 80s: the whole team had a meeting in the morning to discuss what will be done and if there is anything that needs action/attention. The Scum Guide (scrum.org) formalised in a framework practices that were used in software development for many years.
Interesting, Partially I agree with you: many techniques and fundamental principles were used before Agile was formally defined. The best examples is the iterative and incremental software development method used (documented) in late 50s, kanban and kaizen.
In my experience moving from planned delivery to Agile approach will change people. It develops initiative, self management skills and most importantly the team spirit. In my experience the hardest thing for people that have long experience with planned approach where they are told what to do, is to start taking initiatives, think outside the box and provide feedback, especially highlight things that can be improved.
There are people that are Agile by nature, people that like change and to challenge the status quo. I hope that I am wrong but they are a small minority comparing with the others,
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1 reply by Matjaz Mozetic
Nov 17, 2018 3:30 AM
Matjaz Mozetic
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It does change you in that way. In the local "lingo" of that time, we were called "project operatives" (since we managed the project management "operations", and we had quite a larger "mandate" compared to others).
This kind of approach was largely developed in the construction industry in our country since the end of WW2. It emerged probably because everything had to be built from scratch and there was no time to research and schedule - the learn as you go approach. Some still use derivatives of that approach in infrastructure projects, but it's not that often anymore after the 2008 real estate crisis and the following construction industry collapse, since the experienced managers mostly went in other sectors and the passing of knowledge to the next generation failed.
