I have nothing against Agile, Agilests, Agilistas, etc. so take the following with a grain of salt. Having just read Derek Huether’s post “Agile is in the PMBOK so it must be true” and in particular these two statements:
- “Things can be so slow and expensive, we rarely get to see actual value delivered. Rather, successes are measured with earned value.” I’m not Mr. EV but when I declare earned value, the actual value has been delivered. I do not declared 33% earned value because said that they are 33% done. I declare 100% earned value when 100% of the feature is done, tested, and delivered.
- “If you start using terms like Sprint, ScrumMaster, and Burndowns, when they understand contract periods of performance, project managers, and EVM reports, you may lose that essential stakeholder buy-in.” Very, very true; you have to speak in a common language to be understood. However, this statement could be interpreted as saying that Agile is nothing but a renaming of PMBOK jargon. That would be far from the truth and anyway, you can’t compare apples (Agile) to oranges (PMBOK).
If all that is needed to get the Agile and PMBOK religious wars over is selective renaming, then let’s go for Tom, Dick, and Harry instead of contract periods of performance, project managers, and EVM reports. I’m sure some already think PMs are Dicks…
What do you think? As always questions and comments (not about PMs being dicks) are welcome.
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