BridgingMindsets:CreatingthePMIAgilePracticeGuide MIKEGRIFFITHS,LeadingAnswersInc.JOHANNAROTHMAN,RothmanConsultingGroup

ProjectManagement Institute (PMI®) and Agile Alliance® partnered to create an Agile Practice Guide. This experience reportdescribestherecruitmentof7coreteammembers,teamformationanddevelopmentofthenewguidefromAugust2016toJune2017.

1. INTRODUCTION

OurstorybeginsinAugustof2016,whensevenagileexpertsmettocollaborateonhowwewouldworkand deliver the Agile Practice Guide, a partnership between Agile Alliance and Project ManagementInstitute.

2. BACKGROUND

Weareageographicallydistributed team,withpeoplealloverNorthAmericaandNewZealand.Whilemanyofusknoworkneweachother,wehadto learntoworktogetherasa team.Thatwork includedwriting,reviewing,retrospecting,andrespondingtoavarietyofrequestsfromthepartnership.

Mike Griffiths is the chair and Johanna Rothman is the vice-chair for the Agile Practice Guide.Together, we make a great pair. Mike is the cool, calm and collected person. He chooses his battles.Johannaisstilllearningtochooseherbattles.Webothadvocatedforamoreagileapproachtothework.

MikeisanindependentconsultantfromCanmore,AlbertawhoworksinboththeagileandtraditionalPMcommunities.HeservedontheboardofAgileAllianceandisaregularcontributortothePMBOK®GuideandotherPMIstandards. Johannaisanindependentconsultant fromBoston,Massachusettswhoworksinprimarilytheagilecommunitiesandwithpeoplewhowanttouseagileintheirwork.Johannawastheagileconnection.comtechnicaleditorforsixyearsandwasthe2009Agileconferencechair.

Our core development team, the writers, worked in iterations for the writing and reviewing. (Inaddition,we had an extended project team, for guidance.)Wedid notmeet our initial guesses at howmuchwecoulddoinatwo-weekiteration.Someofuscouldonlywriteorreviewontheweekends.Somepeoplewerenotavailableatkeypointsduringtheproject. It looked just likemanyotheragileprojectswhenpeoplehavemultipleresponsibilities.

Wewerenottotallyagile.Therewasanup-frontportion,weworkediniterations,andtheendisverymuch waterfall. For example, we were not able to run the review cycles in a more iterative andincrementalway.And,thefinalstagesofbookproductionisverymuchwaterfall.

Whenwestarted,PMIandAgileAlliancehaddefinedthescopeanddeadlines.Wenegotiatedforwhatwefeltweneededintheoutline.Eachofushaswritingexperience,sowenegotiatedformoreautonomyinhowweworkedandthetoneofthedocument.We’lldescribeourworkinthe“Whatwedid”section.Wewonsomeandwelostsome.

Asweworked,wepairedtoproducethecontent.Weuseddifferentapproaches:writingasapairandping-ponging(onepersonwrites,theotherpersonreviews).Wepair-revieweddifferentsections.Inthisway,wehadfoureyesoneverysection.Weweren’tperfect,butwewereprettygood.

3. OURSTORY

PMIandAgileAlliancedecidedtheywouldcreateaworkinggroupwithwritersfrombothorganizationstowriteanAgilePracticeGuide.Thisisthatstory.

Author'saddress:MikeGriffiths,LeadingAnswersInc.;email:Mike@LeadingAnswers.comAuthor'saddress:JohannaRothman,Rothman’sConsultingGroup;email:jr@jrothman.comCopyright2017isheldbytheauthors.

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3.1 OurJourneyTheAgilePracticeGuideprojectstartedAugust2016.WehadtobefinishedwritingandeditingbyMay2017toallowthestandardsandproductionprocesstimetocompletebyearlySeptember2017.ThegoalwastoallowPMItoreleasetheAgilePracticeGuidewiththePMBOK®Guide–SixthEditioninQ3-2017.

Westartedwithakick-offmeetinginSeattlewherewegottomeeteachother,andlearnaboutothermembers’backgroundsand thegoalsof theAgilePracticeGuide. Inaddition toacompressed timeline,our scope andwriting also had to conform to a number of constraints tomatch other PMI standards.TheseincludedtakingotherPMIpublicationsaspotentialinputstoourguideandaligningwithotherPMIstandards,lexiconoftermsanddefinitions,andthePMIreviewprocess.

Wecreatedthefollowimagetohelpexplainthesevariousinputsandconstraintstothewritingteam.

Figure1.InputstoandconstraintsontheAgilePracticeGuide

3.2 WhatWeDidAtthefirstmeetinginAugust2016,wedefinedwhatagilemeanttous:mindset,values,frequentdelivery.Wehadsomepushbackbecausepeoplewantedtousethe“agile” label inabroadersetting.We’veseentheagilelabelusedwhenpeopleworkiniterationsorincrementsorboth.However,theydon’tembodytheagilemindsetorvalues.Oneofthevaluesweoftenseemissingwiththeagilelabelisthatoffrequentdeliveryforfeedback.Thatdecisionlaidgoodgroundworkforustodefendourworklater.

At thatmeeting, we agreed on the outline.We created two-week iterations sowe couldwrite andreviewotherteams’work.Ineachtwo-weekiterationwecreateddifferentpairstowriteandreview.Thatwaywewouldn’twriteandreviewthesamepart.

3.3 HowweworkediniterationsandpairsEachpairhadachoiceofhowtheyworked.Weencouragedpeopletowriteasapair.Somepairsdidandsomepreferredtoping-pong:Writer1wroteapieceandWriter2reviewedit.Theyswitchedforthenextpiece.

Evenasearlyastheinitialwriting,noteveryonewasavailabletoworkthesameamount.Thatmeantthatsomepeopledidthebulkofthatsection’swritingandtheotherpartofthepairreviewed.Aslongasbothpeopleinthepaircontributedtothedocument,wedidn’thaverulesabouthowtopair.

Forreviewing,weencouragedpeopletopair-reviewsotheycoulddiscussanyconcernsinrealtimewith eachother.Weencountered trouble almost immediately, particularly givenwehada compressedtimeline. It took longer thanexpected to identifyandrecruitvolunteerwriters. Inaddition, twopeoplewerenotabletobeattheAugustmeeting,andoneofthoselaterwithdrewfromtheproject.

Twoweeksafterourin-personmeetinginSeattle,weaskedforanotherAgileAlliancevolunteer.PhilBrock identified a candidate, but after he realized the extent of the commitment, he decided againstparticipating.Weweredowntosevenwriterswhocomprisedthecorevolunteerteam.

DuringourSeattlemeeting,weeachvolunteeredfortwosectionsoftheGuide.Wechosefoursectionsinourfirstiterationtowriteandreview.Weplannedtowriteandreviewthenextfourinthefollowingiteration.Becauseweweredownawriter,MikeandJohannafloatedasthe“missing”personinthepairsduringthiswritingtime.

TheteammadesubstantialprogressonafirstdraftandmetagaininpersoninNovember.Thatwasthe first meeting where the writers met the editor from PMI. The writers checked with the editor

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regardingthetoneofthedocumentandsomeofthedocument-specificformatting,suchassidebars,tips,andexamples.Wethoughtweknewwhatwasexpectedofus.

UpuntilNovember,weusedbiweeklycallsviaZoomsowecouldseeeachother.WehadanumberofmilestonesinNovembersowemovedtoweeklycallstocheckonourprogress.And,inNovember,wehadaface-to-facemeetingsothatwecouldunderstandmoreofwherewewerewithrespecttofinishingthework.

Ourweeklyworkloadsvariedconsiderably.Someweekswhenwewerewritingorreviewingsectionsof theguide the timecommitmentmayhaveaveraged2-3hoursplus theweekly1-hourcall.However,approachingdeadlinesorwhenanurgentcall for inputwas issued,suchas: “Weneedall thediagramsrecreating in new forms” this often jumped to 10+ hours a week. Then when we had to review andprocess3,000+reviewcommentsinashortperiodoftime,theworkloadwas20+hoursaweek.

In addition to these ongoing commitments, when wemet for face-to-face workshops, we typicallyworked9hoursaday.Itwasalotoftimetovolunteerandwasdrivenbytheneedtodeveloptheguidewithin9months,ratherthantheaverage18-monthdevelopmenttimeframe.

At theNovembermeeting,weprintedallof theguidewritten todateandwalked through iton thetable.

Figure2.Theguidelaidoutontablesforreview

First individually and then as a groupwe reviewed the entire document. People added stickies toidentifygaps,overlapsandflowissues.Wealsoaddedanumberofgeneralreviewcomments.Basedonallthestickieswecreatedabacklogofworkitems.

Inadditiontothesestickies,asagroupwewentthroughthereviewcommentscollectedintheGoogleDocsmaster version of the document creating new backlog items for review commentswe could notaddressimmediately.Wereviewedthisnewcombinedbacklogtoclassifyworkitemsaseither“Now”forthingswewanted to tackle thatweekend, “Later” for things thatneeded tobedonebefore turning thedocumentinforediting,butdidnothavetobedonerightaway.Athirdcategoryof“Review”wasusedforthingsthatcouldpotentiallyhappenwhilethedocumentwasbeingreviewed.

Working in teams, the group processed the backlog items. This took about a month, but we goteverything done. We acknowledged the overlap being caused by having a content structure for thepracticeguidethatincludedTeam,ProjectandOrganizationsections.Asateam,wedecidedtomergetheTeamandProjectsectionstogether.

We moved to weekly calls after the face-to-face meeting in November. We realized we still had asignificantamountofworktocompletebeforeourSubjectMatterExpert(SME)reviewin January.TheweeklycadencehelpedusstayfocusedontheGuidework,eventhoughweallhadourregularjobs.

3.4 DifferentWorkingStylesAs we had a geographically dispersed team we needed time to learn about people’s preferredcommunicationstyles.Whenwewere face to face forourkick-offmeetingcommunicationswerenotaproblem, everyone was very happy to talk and share. As part of our team chartering exercise we

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discussedwhen and howwewould like towork as a group. However,when returning to our regularworkinglocationssomedifferentcommunicationpreferencesemerged.

Somepeoplewerehappy to replyonemail forupdates andworkobjectives.Others rarely checkedtheiremailandinsteadpreferredinstantmessagingandtools likeTrello.Thisdisconnectcreatedsomefrustrationandcrossedwiresinthefirstfewweeksoftheproject.Talkingtopeopleindividuallyrevealedtheirpreferredcommunicationstyles.Intheendweusedmultipleformats,postingupdatestothecentral(PMI)Kavicollaborationsitewhichsendseveryoneanemailwithalinktocontribute,aswellaspostingtoTrellothatnotifiesparticipantsviatheirpreferredsettings.

Aswithmostprojects,wefounditbettertoover-communicate,sendingmessagesinmultipleformats.Peoplecould ignoreduplicatesandwewantedtoensurewereachedeveryone. Inhindsight,weshouldnothaveassumedthatthetwomembersmissingfromthekick-offmeetingwouldwanttocommunicatein the sameway themembers present had agreed on. The lesson to be learned here is just because agroupunanimouslyvotesonewaydoesnotmeanmissingmemberswillalso.

3.5 ACompressedTimelineThe projectwas under pressure and time-constrained from the beginning. The PMI standardswritingprocessusuallytake18-24monthstocomplete.Contributingtothisdurationareseveralreviewsteps.These include: a review of the proposed document outline by the PMI Standards Advisory Group, anextensivereviewof the firstdraftby50-60SubjectMatterExperts followedbyanadjudicationprocessforeachcommentreceived,aPMILexicongroupreviewof termsused,PMIStandardsAdvisoryGroupreviewforalignmentwithotherPMIGuides,etc.Also,becausethisinitiativewasapartnershipwithAgileAlliancetherewerealsoAgileAlliancereviewsandfeedbacktoprocess.

In order tomeet the delivery goal we had to overlap some functions that resulted in rework. Forinstance,westartedworkoncreatingcontentwhilethecontentoutline(ourproposedtableofcontents)wasstillbeingreviewedbytheStandardsAdvisoryGroup.Theadvisorygrouprequestedseveralchangestotheoutlinethatwethenhadtoaccommodate.

WeprovidedanoutlinewethoughtwassufficientlydetailedfromourAugustmeeting.However,theMemberAdvisoryGroup(MAG)expectedamore in-depthcontentoutlinethantheteam.Ourchallengewas whether to spend time redrafting the outline versus developing content for the first draft. KarlhelpedMikeandJohannatomakesomechangesbasedonMAGfeedback,butwegotagreementfromtheMAGtoforgoacompleterevampoftheoutline.Thisallowedthewritingteamtofocusongeneratingthefirstdrafttomeettheaccelerateddevelopmentschedule.

Johanna and Mike shielded the team from some of these back and forths. It was difficult enoughgettingpeopletowritecontenttoouracceleratedtimeline.Changestotheproposedstructurethisearlyintheprocesswerelargelyirrelevantdiversionssincethecontentandstructurewouldchangesomuchasthestandarddevelopedanyway.Yetwehadtofollowtheprocess,acknowledgingrequestsforchange.Thesepeoplewere important final approvers and sowehad to consider andprocess each request forchange.

3.6 PersonalorProfessionalVoiceHowever, most of the suggested changes we shared and discussed as a team. The style of writing or“voice”wewantedtousequicklybecameabigissue.Wewantedsomethingconversational,likeweweretalkingtothereader,alongthelinesof“Ifyoustrugglegettinggoodfeedbackatdemo’s,considerrunningyesterday’sorderstomakeitseemmorerealistic.”

However, PMI Standards traditionally have more formal, detached style, such as “When engagingstakeholdersinendofiterationdemonstrations,considerbasingdatasetsonyesterday’sorderstoshowhowthefeatureswillbeusedinreallife.”Botharevalidwritingstyles.Somewouldargueanon-personaltone ismoreprofessionaland fittingofa standardsguide. Inmanyagile teams,werecognizeweworkwithhumans,whoeachworkdifferently.Especially in a geographicallydistributedpart-time team,werecognizedthatweeachneededtoflextoaccommodateotherpeople’sstyles.Wewantedtomodelthatdesiredbehaviourandtakeafriendlier,morepersonaltone.

Sometimes,wefeltlikewespentalmostasmuchtimetalkingaboutpassivevs.activevoiceaswedidthecontentoftheGuide.ThatwasafunctionofJohanna’sbelief(andexperience)thatpassiveintroducesmoreconfusionandactivediminishesconfusion.Wewerealllookingforclarityofexpression.

AstheAgilePracticeGuidewasbeingcommissionedbythePMIStandardsGroupitshouldcomeasnosurprise that theyhad standards for their standards.Casualwriting stylewasnotoneof theapprovedstandards.Everyoneunderstoodwhywewantedtouseacasualstyle,butthechangewentbackandforthmanytimes.InitiallyPMIsuggestedthatthemorecasualstyleshouldbereservedforsidebardiscussionsonlyandregularguidancetextshouldusetraditionalthirdpersonlanguage.IntheendPMIsuggesteda

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chapterreviewwithavolunteerfocusgrouptogatherfeedbackonthelayoutandstylebeingsuggestedfortheguide.

This independent review revealednearlyunanimous support for amore casualwriting style and itwasadoptedthroughouttheguide.Theteamfeltthisideaforanindependentreviewtosettlethewritingstyle issuewasagoodsuggestionbyPMI.Obviously, their standards teamhadgoodreason tosupporttheir standards and the writing team felt limited by dispassionate language. Using a third-partyperspectivetohelpdeterminewhatthefinalaudiencewouldmost likelypreferwasagoodexperimenteveryonecouldbuyinto.

Another option thatwasdiscussedduring this processwas to reclassify the guide as “book” ratherthana“Guide”developedundertheStandardsgroup.Abookwouldnothavetofollowanyoftheregularstandards forguidedevelopmentorapprovalandwouldbe free touseany formator language it likes.ThisoptionwasdiscussedatafewmeetingsandintheendadvocatesforkeepingitasaguidewereabletoworkwiththePMItogainsomeleewayonthewritingstylerequirements.

3.7 IssueswiththeReviewProcessEarly in our writing, the PMI standards specialist asked us for the names of the SME (SubjectMatterExpert)reviewers.Hewanted100names.Inhisexperience,withabout100names,wemightonlyreceiveuseful feedback fromabout20people.However,wewere surewewould receiveuseful feedback fromalmosteveryone.Sincewehadtomanageallourfeedback,wethought100reviewersweretoomany.

InOctober,Johannasuggestedseveralalternativestoonelargebetareview.Thesuggestionsincludedarollingreview,asmallerreviewteamwithpersonalcommunications,andrestrictingthebetareviewtopeoplewhohadagileexperience.

Despite their flexibility on other standard procedures, PMI held firm on their review approach. Inretrospect, it made sense, given the insights it generated (see below). However, we ended up with atremendousamountoffeedback.Whilewefoundmostofthefeedbackuseful,someofthefeedbackwasconfusionabouttypicalagiletermsaswellas languagethatpromptedobjectionsfromsomereviewers.It’spossiblewithasmallernumberofreviewersorifwehadbeenabletoembedreferencesinthetext,thesereviewerswouldhavefoundthewordingmorepalatable.

3.8 OverwhelmedbyFeedbackStandardsproducedbyPMI are subject to peer reviewand feedback. TheAgile PracticeGuidewasnoexceptionandanearlydraftwassentout forreviewand feedback tooversixtysubjectmatterexperts(SME). These SME representatives came frommembers of the PMI and Agile Alliance, includingmanyagileluminaries.

Wereceivedamuchlargernumberofresponsesthananyoneexpected.ThePMBOK®Guide–SixthEdition has recently been through its review process and received about 4,500 comments. Given thesmallerscopeofourguidewehadaninternalpollandestimatedwewouldreceivebetween1,000-1,500comments.Tooursurprisewereceivedover3,000reviewcomments.

Mike imported the comments document (a Word doc) into a Google spreadsheet that providedfreedomaroundhowtoprocessthem.IfwehadusedthenormalPMIadjudicationsystemwewouldnothavebeenabletoreorganizeorcollaborateaseasily.Inaddition,wewouldnothavebeenabletomanagethecommentsinareasonabletime.

Eachcommentneededtobereviewedbytheauthorteamandclassifiedas:• Accept-Wewillmakethechangeasdescribed.• Accept with Modification - We make the change in spirit but may change the wording to

betterincorporateothercomments.• Defer to Tampa - Tricky topics we wanted to discuss as a group at our next Face-to-Face

meetinginTampa.• Defer - Good idea but beyond the scope of this release. We will keep the request for

considerationinthenextedition.• Reject–Wewillrejectthesuggestedchangeandprovideanexplanationwhy.

Notonlydidwehavetodothisforeachcomment,butwehadtoagreeonthedecisionwithourwritingpartnerswhichrequiredinternalvotingbetweenthetwoorthreepeoplewhoreviewedeachcomment.This was a time-consuming exercise that came right on the heels of a big writing push we had justcompletedtomakethereviewdraftavailable.

Thereviewcommentsexposedsomerawemotions.Havingworkedsohardtogetthedraftreadyitwasupsettingtomanytoreadmanyofthederogatorycomments.Whileitisfineandunderstandablethatmanypeoplewillnotagreewithallofthecontentcreated,therearegoodandpoorwaysofstatingthisview.Commentsalongthelinesof“Idisagreewiththisstatementorclaim”and“Whereisthesupporting

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datatovalidatethisrecommendation?”arevalidandneedconcreteactionstoaddressthem.Commentsalongthelinesof“ThisishippyBS”arelessuseful,oractionable.

Wehada fewcallswithourcorewriting teamreassuring themtheattackswerenotpersonal.Thismaterial justbringsoutthepassioninsomepeopleandit isagoodsignweareevokingsomereaction.Wearenotsureweconvincedanyone.Thesheervolumeofcommentsoverwhelmedus.Wespentmanylonghoursmanaging thecommentsandchanging thedraft in response to the comments inaddition topeopledoingtheirregularjobs

Working through the comments that took a coupleofweeks to read seemedapoor reward for theworkinvestedtodate.Thenwestillhadtodecidewhattodowitheachcomment,voteonourdecision,and collaboratewith peers to develop and incorporate the change. Peopleweremature about it, theyunderstoodcreatingsomethingandpresentingittotheworldforreviewexposesyourselfandmakesyouvulnerable.Theprocesswastremendouslyvaluablefortheguideandwehadamuchbetterproductoncewehadcompletedit.

3.9 YouCan'tPleaseEveryone(andshouldnottryto)Due to our SME reviewers being experts in predictive domains and agile domains we had polarizingfeedback thatwas often contradictory. The plan-driven, predictive peoplewouldmake comments like,“Youaredisparagingpredictiveapproaches,anddescribingsolutionstopredictiveapproachesdonewrong,not predictive done right.” The agile SMEs commentswere along the lines of, “You need to explainwhyagileapproachesarebetterandnottoleratehalf-wayhouse,hybridapproaches.”

Often there is no pleasing both of these sets of people with a discussion on a single topic. Theenthusiastsateitherendoftheprojectspectrumholdquitedifferentviewsontheworld.However,theseexperts arenot the target audience for theAgile PracticeGuide. Insteadour target audience is projectpractitioners who are looking for help navigating the messy middle ground between seeminglycontradictorypredictiveandagileapproaches.

Oneof thewayswehelpedshrugoff theharshcriticismswastoreasonthat ifweareupsettingthezealots at either end of the spectrum in about equal amounts, thenwe have probably struck the rightbalanceformostreaders.Wewerenotabletoaccommodateeveryone’scomments,tostayonscheduleforpublication,wehad todefermore suggestions thanwewouldhave liked to.However,wedid readeverycomment, thoughtanddiscussedhowbest to incorporate it, thenwhereverpossibleupdatedthedocumenttoreflectit.

Everynowandthenacommentwasinpraiseofsomethingwrittenorsojustridiculousitwasfunnyto read. While the review process seemed overwhelming at the time we are grateful (mostly) foreveryone who participated. Your feedback is appreciated and helped us tighten and improve thedocument.

3.10 WritingandReviewingRevealedCulturalDifferencesItwas clear tousasawriting team thatwehadsignificant culturaldifferences—aculture clash—withsome of the PMI managers and review team. The writers wanted to use agile approaches on all thewritingandreviewing.SomeofthePMIpeoplerepeatedlysaid,“That’snothowwe’vedoneit.”Thatwastrue.Giventheirexperienceandperspective,perhaps itwasnaiveofus to thinkwecouldchangetheirapproach.However,weweresuccessfulinmakingmanychangessuchasnegotiatingtheremovaloftherequirementfordetailedannotatedoutlinerevisions,writingstyle,newelementsforthisguide,andthedecisiontode-scopeworkduetotimeconstraintandqualityconcerns.

In addition, some reviewers thought we wrote some silly things. One of the big questions in thecomments was the idea of the “generalizing specialist.” That was a term that seemed like it was ananathematoseveralreviewers.MikeandJohannadidn’tunderstandtheirconcerns.Wedidn’tknowwhattodowiththeircomments.

3.11 FinalRedraftingandMoreConfusionsDuringour final face-to-facemeeting inTampa,we redraftedmostof theGuide.We realizedwehadaverylargesection(4)on“ImplementingAgile”anddecidedtocall it4Aand4B.Someofusthoughtwewould renumber at the very end so we could still work through any remaining comments. However,neitherJohannanorMikeexplicitlytoldtheteamandoneofusrenumbered4Bandthefurtherchaptersto5andsoon.

Many of us were confused until we realized what had happened. We sent email to explain theconfusionandcontinuedtofinishtheremainingwritingandcommentintegration.Itwasnotabigissue,moreanicereminderthatwhatislogicaltoonepersonwilloftenseemillogicaltoanother.Hadwebeenlocated face-to-face or having daily conversations this likely would not have occurred. However, forvolunteerworkwhenthereisoftenalagbetweeneffortsthesemiscommunicationsaremorelikely.

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3.12 LateBreakingChangesOneof theproblemsnear theendof theprojectwas this:There isabody inPMI that reviewsandcanrejectguidesandstandards,evenaftertheteamshavefinishedtheirwritingandreviewing.ThatbodyiscalledtheMAG(MemberAdvisoryGroup).

Whenwewere all donewriting and reviewing,wemet in Tampa inMarch to readjust the Guide’sstructureandcontent.Wehadanumberofcommentsstill toaddress, the“DefertoTampa”comments.Weknewwewouldaddresstheminsomewayandedit/rewritethosesectionsasneeded.Weendeduprestructuringtheguideandrewritingsignificantportions.ThatmeantweneededfinalreviewfromboththeMAGandtheAAboardofdirectors.Weneededtoknowthattheywouldapprovethefinaldocument.

MikeexportedthedocumenteachweeksotheMAGandAAcouldreviewourchanges.WehadinitialpositivefeedbackfromtheAA.However,wedidn’thearmuchfromtheMAG.Whenwethoughtweweredone,severalmembersoftheMAGwereconcernedaboutthewayweoriginallywroteabouttraditionalproject management. They were concerned enough to consider withholding their approval unless thelanguagechanged.

Johanna and Stephen Townsend (from PMI) managed to move through almost all the requests.(Johanna thought some of their objections and requests were a bit silly, but she was able to changewordingtoaccommodatetheirrequestsandnotalterthemeaningoftheGuide.)However,therewasonerequestwhereJohannacouldnotseehowtochange.Johannawasstuck.

Miketookastabatchangingthewordinginanimage.Johannadidn’tlikethewordingbutshecouldlivewithit.WemanagedtoaddresstheMAG’sconcernsandwewereabletofinishtheGuide.

3.13 ChangeisSlowerThanYouThinkWe delivered the final draft to the PMI for final copy editing and illustration finalization on May 3,meetingourdeadline.DuringMayandJune,thePMIeditorhadquestionsandconcernsabouttheGuide.They sent those questions and concerns directly toMike and Johanna, becausewewere the chair andvice-chair.

However, we had written as a team.Wemade decisions as a team. And, especially important, wereviewed as a team. We (Mike and Johanna) could not perform final review without team input andapproval.Weforwardedtheseprivateemailstotheteamanddiscovered—again—thepowerofmultipleeyesontheartifacts.

The lesson we learned here is that “management,” as in the people responsible for the finaldeliverable, might want to have a point-person as the one responsible person. Although having aresponsibleperson for input toanagile teammakes sense,havingone responsiblepersondecidingonbehalfofanagileteamdoesnot.Changingculture—especiallyforusasoneagileteam—seemedslowerandmoredifficultthanwemighthaveimagined.

4. WHATWELEARNED

Along the way, we once again experienced that a project with an agile culture can bounce againstorganizationsthathavetraditions:

Wewerenotatruecross-functionalteam.Wedidnothaveacopyeditor.Asaresult,wedidnothavea“useful”andcompletefirstdraft.

Wedidnotget feedbackaswewroteandreviewed.WediscoveredmismatchedexpectationsaboutthedocumentvoiceafterNovember.Thatmismatchcreatedmanyedits.

WhenPMIaskedforharddeliverydates,weendedupdeliveringthecompletedeliverableatthelastpossiblemoment,insteadofbeingabletodeliversomethingsmallerearlier.

Welearnedalotaboutourprocess,also:Wemaintainedourwritingcadenceandabilitytopair.However,wedidnotsuccessfullyestablisha

regularcadenceforretrospectives.Wedidnothaveenoughagreementonwhichcollaborationtoolstousewhen.Weusedallof:Trello,

GoogledocsandGooglesheets,andZoom.Noteveryonecontinued touseTrello. Insteadweuseddocsandsheetstobetteraidourworkflow.

Wedidnotdemonstrateasweproceeded.Partofthiswastherewasnoaudienceforademonstration,butwedidn’t demonstrate the entire product to ourselves as a team.Wewerenot able to get regularfeedback from key stakeholders to see howwewere doing aswe proceeded. As a result, some of theinitialfeedbacksurprisedus.

Noteveryonecouldcontributeat thesame level throughout theproject.Collocateddedicatedteamsdon’thavethisproblem.Distributedteamsandpeoplewhomultitaskdon’tcontributeinthesameway.Wedidn’thaveanevendistributionofwork.Weadjustedourworkloadtoaccommodateourrealitiesandcommitments.

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Wehadtolearnhowtocometoenoughofanagreementthatwecouldcompletethesections.Someofus are iteration-agile. Some of us are flow-agile. Some use a combination.We each have strongly-heldopinions.Wehadtoagreeontheimagesandwordstobeabletocompleteourwork.

Thenextchallengewascorrallingagroupofagileevangeliststoworktoalargelywaterfallplanandheavily front-loaded production timetable. After much squirming by both groups, we used a hybridapproachforourwritingandreviewthatallowedforiterative,incrementaldevelopmentofthefirstdraftoftheguide.ItalsolargelysatisfiedPMI’sproductionscheduleandreviewgates.

Weused limitedconsensusonmuchof theGuide.Weneeded to findwording thatwe, asawritingteam,couldlivewiththataddressedreviewcomments.Ifwe,aswriters,couldlivewiththecurrenttext,thatwasgoodenough.Wedidnothavetobehappy.

Intrueagilefashion,whatweoriginallyplannedanddevelopedinouroriginaloutlineanddocumentchanged and morphed throughout the life of the product being developed based on feedback andstakeholderrequirements.

4.1 LessonsLearnedfromourwriting:Gaining consensus with experts with differing strongly-held opinions is never easy. It is even harderwheneveryoneisanunpaidvolunteerwhoisalsogeographicallydispersedandtime-shifted.Luckilywequicklyestablishedsometeamnormsandcadencesthatforthemostpartworkedforeveryone.

The content andwriting styles recommended by the agile authors fundamentally differed from thestandardsguidelinesusedbyPMI.Wewantedtouseadirect,personalwritingstyleusinglanguagesuchas“YoumaywanttoconsiderusingX…”butthiswascontrarytothethirdpersondirectivestylefavoredbyPMIforitsstandards.ThisisareflectionofPMI’sbackgroundbeinginprojectenvironmentsthatcanbedefinedupfrontandhaveafocusonprocess. Incontrast,agileapproachesassumemoreuncertaintyandfocusmoreonthepeopleaspects.ThewritingteamandourPMIcounterpartsdiscussedthisatgreatlength.Asa"book-team"(thewritersandourPMIcolleagues),wealldecidedtopushformorepeople-orientedlanguage.

Mike’sPersonalreflections:Iamgladwecreatedthisguide.Iknowagilistswillthinkwedidnotgofarenoughandtraditionalistswillthinkitisfoo-foononsense,butthat’soneofmymeasuresofsuccessfortheguide - addressing the trickybalancebetween thesecamps thatmanypractitionerswork inday today.

Agileapproachesallowteamstodeliver inshort timeframes,againstharddeadlinesandrespondtochange.Ourwritingprojecthadallofthosecharacteristicspresentbutwemissedmultipledeadlinesandseemedtostruggleonmanyfronts.Iknowagiledoesnotallowustobendthelawsoftimeandspacebutitfeelslikewedidnotadoptalloftheprinciplesthatwewereexpounding.Itisonethingtobuildsafetywithin a team so people are happy to share interim results without fear of criticism, but another toreleaseapartfinishedproducttothecommunity.Ithinkawikiorevolvingpublicdraftwouldhavereallyhelpedus.

Johanna’s personal reflections: I’m glad we created the guide. And, I found the writing timechallenging.IhadstartedabookaboutthetimetheGuideworkstarted.IwroteverylittleforthatbookuntilMarch.(IfinisheditinJune.)Ifoundsomeofourworkchallengingbecauseweweresodistributedacrossmanytimezones.AmIgladIparticipated?Yes.WouldIdoitagain?Isuspectnot.Thepersonalcosttomeintimeawayfrommywritingandconsultingwasquitehigh.

5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

WethanktheotherwritersontheGuide:JesseFewell,BeckyHartman,BetsyKauffman,StephenMatola,Horia Slușanschi.We also thank Phil Brock from the Agile Alliance and our PMI colleagues: Karl Best,AliciaBurke,EdivandroConforto,DaveGarrett,StephenTownsend,RobertaStorer.

WealsothankalltheSMEreviewerswhoreadtheentireguideandprovidedfeedback.Wethankourshepherd,RebeccaWirfs-Brockforherinsightfulguidance.