Helping the PMO and Agile Play Nice Together – Stuart Lesley and Yanlin Liu
Abstract:
In the federal space how can you be successful with Agile while being able to conduct long term planning and meet reporting requirements? Introduce a framework that bridges the gap between the Agile development process and the PMO’s responsibility.”
In recent years, agencies have adopted the keyword “Agile,” hoping it is a silver bullet to cure all the malaise. It’s common is hear people say things like: “For sure we will be on schedule this time because we are using scrum now. Don’t worry about planning or documentation, just run, we are on sprint.” However, the outcome of those agile projects has not been all satisfactory.
On one hand, the government budgeting, reporting and oversight process requires the PMO to have long term plans for the program and be able to assess progress and status on a regular basis. On the other hand, the agile teams are saying we can only plan for the next 40 days; or, just trust us, we will get it done, at some point; the planning will only slow us down.
We argue that even in the Agile world, there is value for long term vision and roadmap. Without proper and constant planning, the Agile development process could run off the track or run toward the wrong direction.
In this presentation, our intention is to show that there is a way to meet/balance the needs of both the PMO and Agile teams, we call it the “Integration and Implementation Planning Framework.”
PMI Talent Triangle: Technical Project Management
