I talked to the Auckland branch of PMI last week about Agile. I’d been asked to provide a bit of an overview about what people mean when they say “we’re doing Agile”, and how Agile practices work with the PMBOK (the Project Management Body Of Knowledge, on which PMI members are certified).
I’m a PMI member and certified PMP myself, and I believe the PMBOK framework works just fine with Agile practices. The latest version of the PMBOK has even made quite a few changes which move “standard practice” closer to what I would call Agile.
What follows is my opinion only
I believe the PMBOK is a framework: it says that the things a project manager needs to consider are integration, scope, schedule, risk, stakeholders, quality, communications, procurement, and things like that. It says that any project management practice needs to fulfil all nine of these knowledge areas to be complete.
Agile is a set of practices built on underlying beliefs and values. The practices are about how to address the integration, scope, schedule, etc, of a project and how to initiate, plan, execute, control and close a project (and how to realise benefits). And Agile, when it’s done fully, quite neatly fulfils all of the PMBOK’s knowledge areas… even procurement!
The biggest difference between the two, at least in this humble practitioner’s opinion, is that Agile explicitly states and actually asserts its underlying principles and values in the form of the Agile Manifesto, while PMI restrains itself to talking only about the framework and processes and shies away from talking about the underlying set of values and beliefs that created them. The closest PMI gets to talking about values is in the Code of Ethics, and that’s not quite the same thing (it’s about professional behaviour).
My actual presentation was at a less lofty and more practical level, however, and it’s here:
I was asked a number of excellent questions after the talk and I am looking forward to more interplay between PMI members and APN members and other Agile practitioners.
