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Agile and the PMO Working Together

February 5, 2010 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Agile Project Management, Project Management Office

Agile and the PMO Working Together
By Curt Finch

It often seems that a lean, agile development environment will always be at odds with the structure and constraints of the PMO. Yet it does not have to be this way. The agile PMO can bridge the gap between these two very important groups and help organizations to execute projects more successfully. While it does require a bit of change management, it is not as impossible as it seems and the benefits far outweigh the effort. First, let’s look at the skills and strengths that each team brings to the table.

The Benefits of Agile

Agile development has exploded in recent years for a number of reasons. For one thing, it encourages constant communication with customers throughout the development process, which helps to minimize scope creep. I recently spoke with an executive at a well known financial institution who believes that this is one of the key benefits of agile. It allows customer advocates to see what you are developing very early in the cycle, and you can then correct as needed before it’s too late. This also enables companies to adapt themselves to the needs of the market very quickly. With characteristics like these, it’s not difficult to see how agile development teams can be extremely effective.

The Benefits of the PMO

Likewise, the PMO brings significant advantages to the organization. Its primary focus is on metrics and progress tracking, which are crucial components of successful project execution. It can also help facilitate communication between developers, project managers and executives. While the agile worker is concerned mainly with innovation and fast delivery, the PMO can help to keep the rest of the organization informed as to what is going on. Scope changes, delays or quality issues can arise at any time, and when they do, they must be communicated to all of the stakeholders so that they can revise timelines and adjust their expectations.

In addition, standard PMBOK methodologies (e.g. compliance management) are often more successful at managing corporate initiatives than other methods. The executive at a large grocery store chain once told me that in his company, it is necessary to meet deadlines and not allow any deviation from scope from a legal standpoint. While agile is all about discovery – discovery of what the customer really needs as well as the discovery of what is possible – it does not always meet the needs of project-oriented organizations with specific requirements. If you have to meet a new HIPAA regulation right away, you don’t have much use for discovery. This is where the PMO can help the most.

The Value of Working Together

Combining the strengths of these two groups is a strategic move that will help organizations reach new heights of profitability that they never thought possible. Project risk can be more effectively managed when the PMO is keeping an eye on things, and agile teams can achieve greater levels of transparency than before. In addition, the PMO can benefit from increased flexibility and dialogue with the customer, not to mention the fact that they will have more time to focus on their leadership role.

Steps Towards an Agile PMO

One of the best ways to get two different teams to work together is to highlight their similarities instead of their differences. Believe it or not, the agile team and the PMO do have things in common. For one, they are both interested in prioritizing projects to ensure that the organization is investing in the right ones. Even as the economy improves, this is something that organizations must continue to do, and both agile teams and project managers can work together to achieve it.

When it comes to a difference of opinion, compromise is necessary. Creating an agile PMO in your organization will take a bit of diplomacy and mediation. The executive I spoke to at the aforementioned financial institution warns, “Don’t be pure PMI or pure agile.” Rather, find ways to get each team to give a little ground. Agile developers might compromise by tracking their time to task in order to keep the PMO updated on their progress. At the same time, project managers can compromise by being flexible and willing to update plans and schedules as necessary. If the organization uses a project tracking solution, a work request module would be especially helpful by providing a mutual feedback loop.

Organizations can really benefit from the agile PMO if they are willing to put in a little effort to make it succeed. The right management processes such as open discussion and compromise will enable managers to capitalize on the strengths of each group, resulting in successful project execution and increased ROI.

Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx (http://pr.journyx.com), a provider of Web-based software located in Austin, Texas, that tracks time and project accounting solutions to guide customers to per-person, per-project profitability. Journyx has thousands of customers worldwide and is the first and only company to establish Per Person/Per Project Profitability (P5), a proprietary process that enables customers to gather and analyze information to discover profit opportunities. In 1997, Curt created the world’s first Internet-based timesheet application - the foundation for the current Journyx product offering. Curt is an avid speaker and author, and recently published “All Your Money Won’t Another Minute Buy: Valuing Time as a Business Resource.” Curt authors a project management blog at www.project-management-blog.com, and you can follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/clf99.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 and is filed under Agile Project Management, Project Management Office. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 people have left comments

Agile and PM are in a death struggle. Agile is anti-PM, period. The sooner all PMs wake up to this, the better we may be able to save our role in software development.

CAP wrote on March 31, 2010 - 12:10 pm | Visit Link

Hi CAP,

The whole point of Project Management is getting the project done, regardless of the methodology. I don’t think that Agile is anti-PM, it’s just another flavor to accommodate needs in software project (of course, that’s not the view of all Project Managers).

PM Hut wrote on March 31, 2010 - 12:28 pm | Visit Link

PM Hut,
Your reply assumes that Project Managers exist, i.e. that they are even around to “get the project done”. What I am saying is that Agile banishes the role of PM. Perhaps you believe that as long as the ‘project’ gets done, it does not matter whether there are PMs. That would be an odd position for a PM, wouldn’t it?

Keywords: Project manager, versus, agile, eliminate, disestablish, role, unnecessary, scrum master.

CAP wrote on April 11, 2010 - 3:45 pm | Visit Link

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