Pragmatic Agilist

I read with interest my colleague Mark Needham's recent blog post about his experience as a trainer at ThoughtWorks University , the on-boarding program my company uses for entry-level employees.  TWU utilizes a training methodology invented by Jay Cross called "workscaping," which is ably described in this blog post by the TWU director, Sumeet Moghe .  This is a very cool program, not least because most entry-level new hires get flown from all over the world to India for six weeks to participate in it. Sumeet's thesis is that the best way to teach people is to put them to work immediately, so they can become aware in context of things they need to learn, and then reach out for that knowledge.  Build the need, then satisfy the need.  And indeed my observation is that in this world, we are now much busier fending off information than reaching out for it. A poignant, but useful digression, I promise:  When I was growing up in Appleton, Wisconsin, USA, I was i...

Two years ago, an interviewer asked me with tactful pity how I happened to have gotten a Project Management Institute " Project Management Professional " certification, (and why I had the bad taste to include that fact on my resume).  I was applying for a job as an agile project manager, and my age and PMP certification both counted heavily against me in this endeavor, although of course we were all being tactful about the age thing.  I was told gravely that people like me are pretty set in our ways and it is usually hard for us to be light enough on our feet to handle an agile project.  I was quizzed heavily (and quite skeptically) on the fine points of stand-up etiquette and card wall techniques. I was taken aback by this experience.  Honestly, I did briefly flirt with the idea that I should just grab my Big Upfront Design binders and totter home. But something funny happened on my way to the glue factory.  It turns out that in real-life, you can't just ...

Pop quiz:  as an agile project manager, how much attention do you pay to your communications plan? A:  Dude, see the Agile Manifesto !  We're all busy creating working software here, and if you want to know what's going on, come to our biweekly showcase, or just drop by and visit the team room. B:  Ho ho!  My group has "Communications Plan" language we can just re-use for all of the projects, so I don't have to spend a lot of time thinking about it--I just drop it into the charter and off we go!  C:  I think we're fine.  We're using application lifecycle management ( ALM ) software, and we keep it up to date for anyone who wants to check.  Plus we have some regular meetings and a distributed email list people can subscribe to, and that seems to get the job done. D:  [runs away screaming] E:  Ahem.  "Project Communications Management" is number 7 of the 9 Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Body Of Kn...