I finally had to listen to the recording instead of the live webinar. Work sometimes sucks…
One of the assumptions laid out at the beginning of the webinar was that we’d be talking about large project involving single and multiple teams. This is interesting because most of the Agile case studies I’ve seen are for small projects.
The presentation continued into a review of the Agile manifesto. I don’t want to be nasty (well maybe I do…) but nothing new here and the manifesto is basically just good common sense applied by most good project managers, Agile or not.
There was some silliness about “reversing” triple constraints. Again, time boxing is not new and using it in Agile does not make for a new approach. The presenter then stated that “known” projects are more suited to the predictive (traditional) approach while an empirical (agile) approach works more for discovery type projects. It flies in the face of the definition of a project doesn’t it? If you know everything that you are going to face I would contend that you are in an operations setting not a project one.
The presenter went into a couple of notional graphs; one on Emergence or Convergence for which there was a Y axis but no X axis, and one burndown chart. Both looked good but meant very little; no scales equal no real number hence no metrics. What is the point?
The presenter then stated the Agile is team based. Compared to what? I don’t work in an Agile environment and I sure as hell have teams. The presenter also contended that in Agile PM brings people together while in traditional projects the PM is a hub through which all must go to communicate to each other. Really? Who the hell does that?
A couple of interesting statements
- “You look for the presence of teams…”. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
- “Linking resources between Agile teams diminishes Agility”. Doesn’t it invite resource problems regardless of you approach?
- “Agile PMs manage the system not the people”. Old PMs manage tasks and lead people…
I could go on and on. Show me how Agile is different from the existing approaches. Don’t tell me and expect me to drink the Kool-Aid... All I hear about Agile would be recognized by anyone with some experience as a rehash of existing methods. I am getting bored about this entire thing, real fast.
What do you think? As always questions and comments are welcome.
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