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Essays on software development, teams and the craft of building things that last.
Essays from 2009, page 2
44 essays from 2009
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Why PMBOK fails to embrace change
Yesterday we talked about the Project Management Plan process and how it is not adjusted to many software organizations. Today we will talk about the Project Scope Management knowledge area in the PMBOK. PMBOK defines that within this Knowledge Area there are five processes[1] Scope Planning: plan on how the scope will be defined [plus …
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PMI and the meta-planning process, or why software development planning is different
In the previous post I said I’d talk about Project Integration Management. Of that knowledge area from the PMBOK, I’ll focus on one specific Project Management Process within the Project Integration Management (this is how PMBOK calls the different components for each Knowledge Area).The process I’ll focus on is “Develop Project Management Plan”. There’s an …
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A message to PMI: let’s start a much needed dialogue. First post
Why PMI style project management is different and why should we care? Continues… Given the brouha about my last post, I thought I’d give my self some posts to clarify where I think the big differences are between Agile project management and the PMI-style project management (this last one I will affectionately call old-skool, because …
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PMI vs. Agile, what is different, and why should we care
The PMI people don’t seem to stop trying to “guess” what Agile is. Guessing is the right term, because anyone with more than a few hours experience in Agile software development can see their cluelessness from afar! Take this article by Lynda Bourne DMP, PMP (no, I’m not making those TLA’s up, she uses them). …
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To all PMBOK, PMP and PMI people: you are missing 1 million points! Stop trying to explain something you don’t understand!
The traditionalists are starting to be quite dangerous in the hostile “take over” of Agile and Scrum (Kanban can’t be far behind). In this post Glen tries to tell us that it is ok to call “project management” what we do in a Scrum (f. ex.) development effort. Now, that would not be so serious …
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The CMMI folks are out to get you! Seriously, they are starting with Scrum, what’s next?
The folks talking about CMMI and Scrum are dangerous! Not the least of which because they miss some of the most basic points about software development! You would think they would know about software, but you would be wrong! Check this out: In an article about CMMI and Scrum the site ExecutiveBrief (go there at …
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Agile scales, Waterfall doesn’t! The myth is busted!
I have, for many years, been working in software development and for about 6 years with Agile Software Development adoption. First as a project manager and later driving the adoption of Agile in the organizations where I’ve worked. One clear characteristic has become clear to me over time. You may not hear about it much …
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Stop committing to iteration scope!
This may seem like heresy in the world of “Scrum requires commitments from the team”, but think about it. If your iteration is about two weeks (give or take) and your team is pretty much fixed for that period of time (you can’t really “change” a team that fast), then what else is left? Yes, …
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Can Scrum and Kanban be used for non-software development work?
Can Scrum or Kanban be used to manage any other work than software development? Do the same concepts apply? The past week-end there’s been some chatter on twitter about using Kanban or Scrum for managing work outside the software development realm. People seem (pleasently) surprised that it can be done. But can it really? The …
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Waterfall in a Scrum world, yes it is possible. See how below
Can you do waterfall at the same time you are doing Scrum? Let’s explore the subject a bit… We all know what problems there are with waterfall and long term plans that are not changed. We start executing the plans and see that things don’t really work out as we thought but we stick to …
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Response to critical article on Kanban
I was reading Chris McMahon’s post “Against Kanban” and could not help but think that a response was in order. The post below is a response, in detail to the (flawed) arguments that Chris makes against Kanban. “were revolutionary, because they were software development processes actually created from scratch by people who were very very …
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A feature team needs more than a cross-functional group!
In a conversation with a friend we identified an anti-pattern that can often happen to “feature teams”. Feature teams are supposed to be cross-functional groups that focus the software development process in valuable-chunks of work, which normally cross the whole system (vertical slices of the system).[1] There’s a way in which you can meet that …
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