Monday, August 27, 2007

Agile references for PMs

By "PM", I'm referring to Project Managers.  Adopting Agile can be a scary proposition for those entrenched in waterfall processes.  I have a lot of sympathy for PMs whose dev team decides to switch to Agile out from under them.  PMs need not be left behind, and in fact, have a very valuable role in Agile development, just not what they might be used to.  I see it as a re-education on the reality of software development, that Gantt charts don't define reality, they distort and mislead those trying to make decisions based on reality.  Here are a list of references that will help those on the PM side try to make sense of those crazy developers and their Agile ideas.

Eliminating the PM role is ultimately a mistake for a dev team moving to Agile, as someone eventually has to answer the $$$ questions.  Putting the onus on the development team/organization to determine costs, staffing, direction, etc., can drag their focus away from delivering business value.  Not having a PM on your team (or reducing the role of the PM) is the quick-and-dirty fix to a dev team's Gantt chart nightmares, but eliminating that role won't address the business needs of having the role in the first place.

No comments: