PM ADVISORY:

Bridging the Gap Between Agile & Project Management

by Curt Finch
CEO of Journyx

Can project managers and agile development teams really work together, or will there always be a conflict of processes and attitudes? On the surface, the constraints of the PMO seem to be diametrically opposed to the flexibility inherent in agile methodologies. In fact, Rick Freedman recently blogged, “I’ve had people in my Agile Project Management classes tell me that their perception of agile is that the key message is “everything you know about project management is wrong.”

Yet it does not have to be this way. Setting up an agile PMO can bridge the gap between these two groups and help organizations to execute projects more successfully. Doing so is not as impossible as it seems and the benefits far outweigh the effort. Let's consider the skills and strengths that each team brings to the table.

Agile Benefits

Agile development is extremely popular, partly because it encourages constant communication with customers throughout the development process in order to minimize scope creep. I recently spoke with an executive at a large financial institution who believes that this is one of the key benefits of agile. When customer advocates are allowed to see what you are developing very early in the cycle, you can correct as needed before it's too late.

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About the Author Curt Finch Author Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx (http://pr.journyx.com), a provider of Web-based software located in Austin, Texas, that tracks time and project accounting solutions to guide customers to per-person, per-project profitability. Journyx has thousands of customers worldwide and is the first and only company to establish Per Person/Per Project Profitability (P5), a proprietary process that enables customers to gather and analyze information to discover profit opportunities. In 1997, Curt created the world’s first Internet-based timesheet application - the foundation for the current Journyx product offering. Curt is an avid speaker and author, and recently published the book “All Your Money Won’t Another Minute Buy: Valuing Time as a Business Resource”. Curt also authors a project management blog at www.project-management-blog.com, and you can follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/clf99.