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Agile Project Management Is Not Enough

March 23, 2009 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Agile Project Management, PMBOK, PRINCE2, SCRUM

Agile Project Management Is Not Enough
By Kelly Waters

For agile project management, agile development methodologies (such as Scrum and eXtreme Programming) alone are not enough.

Scrum is excellent for managing a project team’s workload and delivering products incrementally through iterative development.

eXtreme Programming (XP) is excellent for agile engineering practices that improve product quality, and User Stories from XP are an excellent way to simplify the understanding and management of requirements on a piecemeal basis.

If you’re not familiar with it, take a look at the Project Management Body Of Knowledge (PMBOK). This body of knowledge is a globally recognised standard and was put together by the PMI (Project Management Institute). It encapsulates common practices for project management irrespective of specific methodology.

Although PMBOK really embodies all we ‘agilists’ refer to as traditional project management, it is a very useful resource. No doubt it includes traditional project management practices that are not appropriate if you are doing agile. But it also includes key aspects of a project that need managing which are simply not addressed by Scrum or eXtreme Programming.

For instance:

  • Project Initiation
  • Cost Management
  • Human Resources Management (hate that term, but important nevertheless!)
  • Communications Management
  • Risk Management
  • Procurement Management
  • Stakeholder Management
  • Organisational factors

Sure, in agile we don’t want to see a big specification up-front. We don’t want to see every task mapped out on a huge gantt chart. We don’t want to see change control as the process for scope management. But we do need the above list of things managed in many agile projects.

So how is this overcome in practice? In my experience, it is overcome by having a ‘traditional’ Project Manager, who understands project management (such as PMBOK, or the PRINCE2 project management methodology that has become the standard in the UK), who can apply the relevant aspects of the traditional PM approach with the agile practices of Scrum and eXtreme Programming. Effectively augmenting agile with traditional project management methods where appropriate.

Wow! In my view that requires a lot of skill, knowledge, experience and expertise. To understand Scrum, eXtreme Programming and PMBOK, and somehow blend it all together to create a method that encompasses agile management, agile engineering and project management. All the time still retaining the agile mindset and satisfying stakeholders that are used to a more traditional project approach. And without a clear industry reference point to help convey the blended process to all stakeholders and members of the project team.

Is it my imagination, or are we missing something important in the agile community?

Is there anything similar to “PMBOK” for agile? Is there something that blends PMBOK with Scrum and XP, in order to create a comprehensive methodology for managing agile projects. Something described in a way that is easily accessible to all roles in a project, not just those that are experts in the subject? If there is, I’d really like to hear about it…

Kelly Waters is Head of Web Solutions for Reed Business Information (UK), the world’s largest business-to-business publisher. By implementing agile development, he has transformed his department of more than 90 people. Prior to joining Reed Business, Kelly was CTO for Glass’s Information Services, Europe’s leading provider of information to the automotive industry, most famous for Glass’s Guide, the UK’s bible for used car prices. Kelly has been in software development for more than 20 years. He is well known as a narrator of agile development principles and practices, as a result of his popular blog ‘All About Agile’ (www.allaboutagile.com). He is also a voluntary business advisor for Young Enterprise, an organisation that helps young people gain valuable business experience through practical projects.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 and is filed under Agile Project Management, PMBOK, PRINCE2, SCRUM. 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.

1 person has left a comment

DSDM will address some of your points however we (UPCO - http://www.upco.co.uk) will use DSDM with aspects of PRINCE2 to address all your points. There’s a good white paper on how to use DSDM with PRINCE2 produced by the DSDM consortium and Keith Richards has written a book on this topic.
Hope this helps,

Richard

Richard Walker wrote on March 25, 2009 - 6:24 am | Visit Link

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