Agile Project Management
Posted on Wed, Oct 03, 2012
by Dan Williams
Agile is the umbrella term we use to designate a set of values which had their inception in the software development business space. Those values, encapsulated in the Agile Manifesto, around persons, negotiation, collaboration, and delivering something useful to clients were derived from and contributed to a variety of practices, related to both project management and engineering techniques.
But how does the traditional project manager, working within the structure of the Project Management Office (PMO) of a large enterprise, move to Agile while retaining both the good PM practices they have learned and the career investment they have made?
The Project Management Institute (PMI), the largest and most prestigious project management standards and certifying organization in the United States, has embraced Agile -- with its panoply of processes, methods, practices, tools, and techniques -- and created a certification process that enables practitioners to be recognized for their expertise in Agile Project Management.
To that end, PMI has created the Agile Certified Practitioner certification, which validates the knowledge, experience, and training of agile practitioners. The PMI-ACP is not limited to project managers or Project Management Professional (PMP)® credential holders -- anyone with experience working on agile project teams can apply for the certification.
There are various Agile project methods, and the PMI-ACP recognizes knowledge of agile principles, practices, tools, and techniques across them. To that end, Scrum, Extreme Programming, Crystal, Feature-Driven Development, and Lean are all referenced in the certification exam and are a part of the PMI-ACP tool bag.
In The Software Project Manager’s Bridge to Agility, and in Agile Project Management, Slinger, Broderick, and Highsmith have shown how to move from traditional project management methods to agile techniques. The following table maps traditional to agile artifacts.
Develop Project Charter and Preliminary Scope Statement
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Traditional
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Agile
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Obtain input and feedback from appropriate parties on project objectives and justifications.
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Obtain input and feedback from appropriate parties on project objectives and justifications as part of a vision meeting.
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Prepare a business case and associated documentation required by the company and/or project approval board in order to obtain project approval.
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If needed, prepare a business case and associated documentation required by the company and/or project approval board in order to obtain project approval.
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Use the company-sanctioned software development methodology and prepare accordingly.
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Use an agile software development methodology and prepare accordingly.
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In my next post, I will expand on the benefits of incorporating some of PMI’s project and team-oriented perspective into client engagements.