Pragmatic project management is common sense plus Agile philosophy plus experience.

Another Suspect Agile Metaphor – Disaster Response

Smith & Sidky’s Becoming Agile in an Imperfect World opens with a description of the Quecreek mine rescue as a metaphor for Agile software development.  They identify elements of the rescue team’s efforts that are shared with Agile development.  Those elements include the presence of time constraints to the work (see Newspaper Production as a Metaphor for Software Development for analysis of the example used), the need to establish and follow priorities, expecting and embracing Read more…

By Chris Powell, ago

Self-Organizing Teams – Take 3

In my ongoing quest to identify the origins of the idea of self-organizing teams, and even a concrete definition of the term, I turn to a chain of blog posts leading back to prior work applying the concepts of complex adaptive systems to business management. A 2018 blog post by Leading Agile’s Dave Nicolette Limits of a Self-Organizing Team seeks to define self-organizing by defining boundaries for self-organizing teams (what they are not).  One of Read more…

By Chris Powell, ago

Assumptions of Agile Culture

Many Agilist writers and methodology creators make strong assumptions about organizational culture for Agile approaches to be successful.  I’ve described some examples of these assumptions in The Lake Wobegon Assumption and  Scrum applicability by project characteristics and reference Becoming Agile by Greg Smith & Ahmed Sidkey as a prime example.  But these instances shouldn’t surprise us given that the principles supporting the Agile Manifesto are explicitly software product centric and do not refer to general Read more…

By Chris Powell, ago

Agile vs. The Mythical “Waterfall”

It seems anecdotally accepted in many places in the literature that among software development methodology choices, Agile is better than “waterfall.”  Agile enthusiasts often describe waterfall as rigid, wasteful, demoralizing, and old-fashioned. Rarely, if ever, do these writers provide supporting data for these reported qualities but rather, simply assume that these criticisms are accepted fact, then using them as a straw man against which Agile can be compared, not surprisingly conclude that Agile is the Read more…

By Chris Powell, ago

How Do You Know You Are a Project Manager?

Years ago, a colleague taught a product management course through our local university extension program.  A feature of the course was that they convened a panel of product and project managers as an ask-us-anything resource for their students.  One of my favorite episodes serving on that panel was when one of the students asked, “How do you know if you are the type of person to be a successful project manager?”  Each of the panelists Read more…

By Chris Powell, ago

Is Agile a Utopian Vision?

A 2020 blog post titled Why Are There So Many Misconceptions Around Agile? by Agile Manifesto signatory Andy Hunt said, “The agile manifesto establishes abstract principles for skilled practitioners in a healthy environment.”  Deconstructing his statement suggests that the principles are not intended to be specific rules, they’re only to be employed by those who properly understand their intent and application, and they can only be used in organizations meeting an idealized set of criteria. Read more…

By Chris Powell, ago

Is Scrum a Local Search Technique?

I have often wondered if Scrum can be characterized as a local search technique, specifically hill-climbing, and therefore can be understood from a theoretical perspective by comparison.  In computer science, local search is a heuristic method for solving computationally hard optimization problems. Local search can be used on problems that can be formulated as finding a solution maximizing a criterion among a number of candidate solutions.  Similarly, Scrum is an empirical method for creating solutions Read more…

By Chris Powell, ago

Criticism of Agile Methodology

Criticisms of Agile methodology abound and are perhaps nearly as numerous as its praises.  I’ve taken issues with a number of its elements in prior posts.  Perhaps most surprising is that the original signers of the Agile Manifesto have also seen issues with the practice, especially in how it has been interpreted by others.  Here are a few that resonate with me. Agile’s Teenage Crisis? by Philippe Kruchten in 2011 describes debate at a 10th Read more…

By Chris Powell, ago

What is a Program Manager?

In the Seattle job market, there are at least 3 different interpretations of the Program Manager title.  Two are common in IT and software products companies, although one of those appears outside those industries as well, and the third appears mostly in connection with health and human services, marketing and similar business functions.  No doubt other exist as well.  So what are these different interpretations, how do we identify which is which, and why is Read more…

By Chris Powell, ago

Change Management – Practical application

I have previously considered change management and its general application to software projects.  Following the principles of pragmatic project management set forth at the beginning of this blog, I have found that the use of change management can be adapted and applies in a wide variety of situations.  I have two examples to illustrate the use of those principles as they applied to a project we completed to redesign our public web site and replace Read more…

By Chris Powell, ago