Hello,
What the best resources (books, sites, etc) available to understand how PMBoK fits in Agile methodologies? Or how we can leverage our knowledge about PM to go to Agile Project Management?
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George JucanManaging Partner| Organizational Perfomance Enablers NetworkWoodbridge, Ontario, Canada
Hi Joao,
I’m a PMP and also an Agile Manifesto signatory, and I find no conflict between them despite bold statements coming from both sides. Going Agile does not mean that you don’t plan no more, and following PMBOK doesn’t mean that you should control every detail in the project / product.
The main thing to remember in an Agile project is that you’re responsible for the client satisfaction, so you control WHAT needs to be done to achieve that. The HOW part of it should stay with the technical team - and this is valid even in “traditional” projects, even if the PM has a technical background.
Specific to Agile, the PM role moves up to a more strategic level, having most interaction with management and executives to decide the major functionality that will satisfy the goals. At working level the PM role is focused on facilitating the cooperation between the user representatives and technical team to define and choose components delivering the major functionality agreed upon.
Most important advice: if you’re a traditional PM make sure that you really understand Agile principles, and they do not conflict with your personality – you need to trully accept them to be successful in Agile projects. As long as you can let go to the details and focus on the big picture there should no problem.
Hope it helps,
George Jucan
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Anonymous
Our organization is quickly adopting SCRUM, an Agile method. I and the other PMP’s in our group all had the same question as you’ve posted. The more I learn about Agile, the more I see that it is just another method, “The How”, that is consistent with the PMBOK framework (“The What”). There are a few things in the PMBOK that are not specifically covered by SCRUM, but it is a pretty good match. Go to your favorite internet search engine and key in the words “PMBOK” and “Agile”, and you’ll be amazed by how much has been written on this topic. Saving Changes...
Don KimPROJECT-TO-PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT EXPERT| Seeking opportunitiesSacramento, CA, United States
I had posted about this topic back in February which you can find at this link:
The upcoming 4th edition of the PMBOK for the first time directly acknowledges the benefits of a more iterative approach, but they do emphasize that it is based on the needs of the project and not for all situations (which I believe is correct).
But the whole notion of progressive elaboration or "rolling wave" planning has been exposed by PMI for some time, and it is an iterative approach to planning, where you progressively build out your schedule and project plan as the requirements reveal themselves in situation where they are uncertain.
But I think for things like Scrum, people get the wrong impression that such a methodology does no planning, when in fact, you do more planning, but in shorter time boxed cycles, and where the emphasis is more on the empirical, descriptive based control and feedback system, whereas waterfall emphasizes having most or all of these requirements done ahead of time. The waterfall and traditional PMBOK is more prescriptive.
Nevertheless, I'm of the opinion that you use the best of what you need for the given project, so use a waterfall/PMBOK approach when needed, and a more Agile/Scrum approach if the situation warrants and go back and forth as needed. In other words, pragmatism should always be the focus whatever process, framework or methodology you adopt and use.
I agree on the opinions concerning the hotly debated Agile/Traditional PM approaches. Agile represents one more method for getting things done in the appropriate circumstances. Many people do confuse Agile software development with Agile Project Management, however, and the lines remain a little blurry in practice. But the 4th PMBOK will hopefully provide a framework to handle these fuzzy situations. Saving Changes...
