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Fifty is the new Thirty! Or should all episodes strive to be as great as Fifty? Either way, it’s a CELEBRATION!
Vic (@AgileCoffee) is joined by Brett Palmer (@brett_palmer), Larry Lawhead (@LarryLawhead) and first-time guest L. Mark Higgins (@LMHiggins1).
Today our heroes discuss the following topics:
- Who sets the agenda for the retrospective?
- Middle Managers and the Agile Transformation
- check out Em Campbell-Pretty’s “Thawing the Frozen Middle”
- The Agile project manager
- Scrum patterns and community at scrumplop.org
- Brett breaks down some distinctions between SAFe and LESS
Come join Esther Derby and Don Gray for a two-day “Coaching Beyond the Team” workshop in Costa Mesa, CA. September 13 & 14. Registration info at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/coaching-beyond-the-team-influencing-the-organization-tickets-25695621295
Like this podcast? Let us know! Go to iTunes or Stitcher to give us a review. It takes so little time and would sure help us a lot. Thanks!
Come back for episode 51, a conversation between Vic and returning guest Kimberly Brainard (@AgileBrain1). Kim and Vic were recently named co-chairs of the Global SCRUM GATHERING® San Diego 2017. Reach out to Victor (@AgileCoffee), and use the hashtag #tellAgileCoffee to join the conversation.
Really enjoyed Episode 50 and in particular the topics around LeSS vs. SAFe and the Agile PM.
The latter slightly took me by surprise with the statement that an Agile PM is an oxymoron. I was hoping we had gotten away from the ‘Agile does not need PMs’ or on the flip side, that ‘Agile isn’t disciplined’ type discussions. If there was any a blocker to the introduction of Agile into a Organisation, then stating you can’t have AGILE PMs is a great starting point [sic].
There was also a level of PMI comment (I am PMI-PMP) and hopefully, the team (also PMPs) are aware that PMI recognises all methodologies and hence the reason the PMBOK has been method independent from the get go. The one shining comment on this section came around the split out of responsibilities in Agile and how in the PMI, those world would belong to the PM. Yes, typically, PMI has the PM responsible for many things and these responsibilities are split out into different roles in Agile but I am not sure how a PM cannot be Agile? How do you equate tracking (burn down, burn-up, costs), supporting the team (servant support), ensuring resources are available (issues management), communicating to stakeholders (reporting velocity, capacity, ‘done’ statements), managing the scope (with the team per SPRINT), looking out for risks, coaching the team as un-agile? All those things happen in approaches like Scrum and as far as my PM job description goes, I should be doing all those things which you can apply to any method usage (just re-branded).
The conversation thread made it sound like if I go about the same job role but, I just have to re-brand myself as a ‘Scrum Master’, I suddenly can be Agile? Hey, I’m a PM and I’m listening to Agile Coffee – should Agile be taboo for us PMs?
It was a flippant comment to make and It would just be as flippant for me to turn around to state that all Agile is uncontrolled, no direction, does not deliver, you don’t document, no standards etc, which I know not to be true. Not really sure where the Agile PM oxymoron statement came from or the type of PMs some of the team have been dealing with to make such a statement – a real shame.
From my own perspective, my one rule is that there is no silver bullet approach for projects. Project delivery is an art form and you approach a project with a tool box of approaches and skills and, as a team, we pick which approach is appropriate for that project. Yes, that means Waterfall should and can be selected and yes, also Agile (Scrum, Kanban, Lean, XP TDD, DDD etc); it just depends on the situation and what is the right approach to deliver the value to the Business – I practice both approaches and will advocate either one or the other depending on the right situation.
Love to hear more book suggestions on the Podcast – certainly receive a lot of benefit from previous suggestions (e.g., Leaders Eat Last). Would love some collective recommendations on running Open Space events.
Looking forward to Episode 51 – happily listening in the UK (only if it’s okay for PMs to do so).