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The project management profession is on the verge of a major transformation as a result of

the convergence of Agile and traditional plan-driven project management that will cause us

to rethink many things that we have taken for granted about what “project management”

is for a long time.

In this presentation, I want to give you a brief overview of how I see that transformation

evolving and talk about what it means to you.

The key driver behind this transformation is the rapid acceleration of the adoption of Agile

methodologies. Let’s look at how this trend is evolving. There’s no question that Agile has become

the latest management trend of today and it is much more than just a fad – it is really here to stay

and the rate of adoption of Agile methodologies has increased significantly since 2009.

• A Forrester study from 2009 observed that 35% of organizations used Agile

• By 2013, a study by Actuation Consulting showed that the adoption rate of Agile had grown to

over 70% which was more than double what was observed in the 2009 survey

It is clear that this trend is continuing to accelerate.

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There are two really significant factors that are behind this rapid adoption of Agile

• One is higher levels of uncertainty in the world today – technology is rapidly changing

and solutions tend to be more complex. That requires a more adaptive approach in

many cases. Attempting to force-fit a project with high levels of uncertainty to a

traditional plan-driven approach to project management is not likely to be an optimal

solution

• The other is the competitive environment we live in today demands higher levels of

innovation for companies to keep pace with their competitors. A traditional plan-driven

approach to project management that is focused on control and conformance to a plan

does not put sufficient emphasis on innovation

Think of many of the most recent and most innovative technological advances that

we’ve had today such as smartphones and tablets. I doubt that any of those advances

would have resulted from a purely plan-driven approach to project management

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This presents a significant challenge for the project management profession…

At one time, if you had a PMP, you were recognized as a very well-qualified project

manager. Over the past few years; however, PMI has recognized the need for project

managers to at least have some awareness of Agile and Lean and created the Agile

Certified Practitioner (ACP) certification. That’s definitely a step in the right direction, but it

doesn’t go far enough, in my opinion.

The real challenge is learning how to blend Agile and traditional project management

principles and practices in the right proportions to fit a given situation and we’re only

beginning to scratch the surface of that challenge.

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Agile and traditional plan-driven project management are still treated as separate and

independent domains of knowledge with little or no integration between the two and it’s

pretty much left up to the imagination of each individual project manager to figure out how

to fit these two seeming disparate approaches together in the right proportions to fit a

given situation.

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Another major problem is that there is a lot of polarization that has existed for a number of

years between the Agile community and the project management community.

However, a lot of that polarization is based heavily on a lot of myths, misconceptions, and

stereotypes that exist on both sides of this fence.

As an example, about 6-7 years ago I attended a presentation by a very well-known Agile

author.

• She positioned herself as a “reformed project manager”;

• She made some very disparaging remarks about project management; and

• Said she pretty much had to forget everything she knew about project management to

adopt an Agile approach.

• She also made a very concise statement that I have remembered ever since that “Agile

Project Management is an oxymoron”.

I came close to walking out of that presentation because it was so biased but it really was a

catalyst to me. From that point on, I became passionate about helping to correct some of

the polarization that exists in this area that is based heavily on stereotypes, myths, and

misconceptions on both sides of this fence.

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Here’s another quote from a recent online discussion I participated in. In response to a

person’s question about how he should learn Agile and traditional project management, a

person posted this response:

“Project Management and Scrum have nothing to do with each other. In fact, they

mutually exclude each other.”

That’s an indication of the kind of polarization that still exists today.

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Since that time, I’ve channeled that passion into publishing three books on Agile Project

Management in addition to two earlier books I published on Business Excellence and over

the past 2 years I’ve developed an online training curriculum on Agile Project Management

that has grown to over 25,000 students.

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The key question is “What is the project management? And is our current project

management approach mutually-exclusive with Agile?

The impact of Agile is clearly a trend that we cannot ignore in the project management

profession that will cause us to rethink what project management is but I don’t think that

there is a clear vision of exactly what that impact is.

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First, there’s a narrow view of what “project management” is that has been heavily

engrained into people’s thinking. This view has become so strong and predominant that it

has come to define what project management is for many people and will be difficult to

change. This slide shows how many people think about what project management is:

• “Project management” is something that is only done by a single person called a

“Project Manager”

• There is only one way to do “project management” and that is using a traditional plan-

driven methodology (what many people loosely call “Waterfall”)

• “Project management” is completely incompatible with an Agile approach because an

Agile approach must be dynamic and adaptive and project management emphasizes

control and is inflexible

Some of these statements are obviously stereotypes but there is some element of truth

behind them because many people including project managers have come to accept this as

a way of thinking.

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The project management community has not done enough to change this perception of

what “project management” is.

In the past, a project manager has typically been thought of as someone who plans and

manages a project to deliver fairly well-defined requirements within a budgeted cost and

schedule. PMBOK defines “project management as:

“The application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to the project activities

to meet project requirements”

That is exactly what a traditional plan-driven approach to project management emphasizes.

The emphasis in this environment has been on predictability, planning, and control and a

project has been generally deemed successful if it delivered the defined requirements

within the budgeted cost and schedule. That can lead to a somewhat inflexible approach

with an emphasis on control.

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A major problem with the traditional plan-driven approach to project management is that

it assumes that detailed requirements can be defined and stabilized upfront prior to the

start of the project. That approach might work well in the construction industry and other

areas that may have relatively low levels of uncertainty but it just doesn’t work well in

environments that have a high level of uncertainty.

If you try to force-fit a project with high levels of uncertainty to a traditional, plan-driven

project management approach, it just doesn’t work well and can be very problematic.

• It forces you to make a lot of assumptions to resolve the uncertainty in the project in

order to adopt a traditional plan-driven project management approach and many times

those assumptions are wrong

• With a traditional plan-driven approach, there is typically an emphasis on predictability

and control. That can create an environment that is not very adaptable to change and

frequently the customer of the project may not even see the solution until the very end

of the project and by that time it is either too late or too expensive to make significant

changes

The result is that there have been many projects that have successfully met their cost and

schedule goals but failed to deliver an acceptable level of business value

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In today’s world, there is typically a much higher level of uncertainty in many areas that

calls for a broader and more adaptive approach to project management. In an uncertain

environment, a project manager needs to be given a general objective without necessarily

having well-defined requirements and he/she needs successfully define, plan, and manage

an initiative to meet that objective.

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Let’s consider how “project management” is implemented in an Agile/Scrum project.

• In an Agile/Scrum project you may not find anyone at the team level with the title of

“Project Manager”

• The project management functions that would normally be done by a single person

called a “Project Manager” are distributed among all the members of the Agile team

• The project management approach is much more adaptive rather than plan-driven

Many people would not recognize it as ‘project management” at all because it doesn’t fit

with the traditional narrow stereotype of what project management is that is so well-

engrained into people’s thinking. I think it definitely is “project management” but it’s a

different style of project management that doesn’t fit the usual stereotype of what project

management is.

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I think Agile will force us to adopt a broader view of what “project management” is.

• It’s integrated because project management is fully integrated into the way the team

works rather than being done by a single person called a “Project Manager”

• It’s dynamic because the nature of the project management approach isn’t limited to a

traditional plan-driven approach to project management. It is expected that the project

management approach will be adapted to fit the nature of the situation

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In this new environment, the emphasis is on maximizing the business value that a project

produces for a given level of investment

Rather than simply delivering well-defined requirements within a planned schedule and

budgeted cost

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This is definitely not a trivial problem to redefine the way we do project management in

much broader terms and there are a number of significant challenges to overcome.

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The first challenge is that choosing the right approach to fit a given project and business

environment can be a big challenge. Many businesses have an existing management

system and project management approach that is based on a traditional, plan-driven

approach to project management and there may be good reasons to not completely

abandon that approach and replace it with Agile.

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A fundamental problem is that many people see this as a binary and mutually-exclusive

choice, they make the mistake of attempting to force-fit their projects and business

environment to one of these extremes and that can cause a lot of confusion and

consternation because it often doesn’t result in a good fit.

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A better solution is to go in the other direction and fit the approach (or combination of

approaches) to the project and to the business environment. That may require more skill

but it definitely can be done!

That’s exactly what a well-integrated Agile Project Management approach is. It’s not just

throwing out a traditional plan-driven approach and converting to Agile, it is integrating the

two approaches in the right proportions to fit the business and project environment.

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There are several things that are critical to implement this new vision:

1. We need to think of “project management” in broader terms rather than thinking that traditional plan-driven

project management is the only way to do project management and we need to see Agile and Waterfall in a fresh

new perspective as complementary rather than competitive

2. Project managers need to be trained in how to blend Agile and traditional plan-driven project management

principles and practices in the right proportions to fit any given situation

3. We need to recognize that “project management” is a function, not a title, and the function of “project

management” is not always exclusively performed by someone called a “Project Manager”

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There are many potential benefits of developing an Agile Project Management approach but the exact benefits might

be somewhat different among different companies. I’ve summarized here what I think are some of the most

important general benefits of developing a more Agile approach:

1. First is adaptability – Many people make the mistake of using a “one size fits all” approach for all projects and

that just doesn’t work well in all situations. You need to be able to fit the methodology to the project and Agile

offers an alternative approach that is particularly well-suited for projects that have high levels of uncertainty.

2. The next one is time-to-market. An Agile approach can improve time-to-market by accelerating the startup

phase of the project by deferring some of the upfront planning that might be done with a traditional project

management approach. And, using an iterative approach to deliver at least a portion of the solution as quickly as

possible can also have a significant impact accelerating time to market.

3. Third, In many situations, Agile and Lean thinking in general offer the potential to reduce the costs and overhead

associated with a project. By putting the emphasis on producing value as opposed to maximizing control, there is

a lot of opportunity to reduce the costs of documentation and other overhead in a project. That’s not to say that

documentation and other forms of project control and administration are all bad things to do, but it is definitely

good to take a hard look at those items and see if they really produce value and who they produce value for.

4. The biggest advantage in many situations, as I’ve mentioned is higher customer satisfaction that results from

producing solutions that are more well-aligned with customer needs by engaging customers more directly in the

project to provide feedback and inputs as the project progresses rather than relying heavily on documenting

requirements upfront prior to the start of the project.

5. Finally, a major indirect result of an Agile approach is that it offers the opportunity to have a significant positive

impact on the culture of the whole organization by building a spirit of collaboration, trust, and shared

responsibility within the organization. That can be a difficult thing to achieve but the benefits are well worth it in

terms of organizational synergy and productivity.

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Each of these approaches has advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation

and we should think of them as complementary rather than competitive.

It’s important to be able to objectively understand the advantages and disadvantages of

each of these approaches in order to choose the right approach to fit a given situation.

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Here’s an example of how the comparison of Agile to Waterfall is misused. This statement

says that:

“According to the 2012 CHAOS report, Agile succeeds three times more often than

Waterfall.”

I totally agree that Agile has huge benefits but comparing Agile to Waterfall like this is really

misleading. It creates the impression that Agile totally replaces Waterfall and Agile is good

and Waterfall is bad and that is not the case.

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Saying “Agile is Better than Waterfall” is like saying “A Car is Better than a Boat”. Each has

advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation and the environment you’re in.

It also raises questions of “how did you measure success to compare the two approaches?”

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The Waterfall process and a number of other plan-driven processes use well-defined

processes.

• The process doesn’t change significantly from one project to the next

• It’s similar to a manufacturing process where you’re producing the same product over-

and-over again – you want to control variation in the process to produce the same

product every time

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That kind of process has the advantage of being predictable and providing control over

changes in scope, schedule and costs

But its weakness is that it is can be inflexible and not work well in environments where the

requirements are uncertain and likely to change. The emphasis on control can also create

some unnecessary overhead

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The level of uncertainty in a project is a major factor in choosing the right approach. If the level of

uncertainty is relatively low, a traditional plan-driven approach based on a predictive control model

may be very appropriate.

Here’s an extreme example. If I were building a bridge across a river, it would be ridiculous to say

“We’ll build the first span, see how that comes out, and then we’ll decide how to build the remaining

spans”. That just doesn’t make sense.

Building a bridge is a relatively predictable kind of project and calls for a more plan-driven kind of

approach.

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An empirical process like Scrum is based on continuous improvement and uses what is

called an empirical process control model. The word “empirical” means based on

observation; and, in this context, it means that both the process and the result are adjusted

as needed based on observation throughout the process rather than remaining fixed

Scrum provides a general process framework but it is a very general process framework

that can be easily adapted to different kinds of projects and within a given project it is

adaptive to projects with highly uncertain requirements.

In a Scrum project, changes to requirements are encouraged as the project progresses to

maximize the business value of what is produced

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The advantage of an empirical process like Scrum is that it is very adaptive to uncertain and

changing requirements and it may also have less overhead and faster time-to-market

The disadvantage is that because changes are encouraged rather than limited, there is less

predictability over the costs and schedule of the project

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On the other hand, if the level of uncertainty is high; a traditional plan-driven approach doesn’t work

well and a more Agile or adaptive approach is probably needed. For example, what if I set out to find a

cure for cancer? Would it make sense to try to develop a detailed plan for the effort? That would be

equally ridiculous –

There are just too many unknowns and uncertainties. You might develop a high-level plan based on

what you do know and possibly some assumptions to test and validate, but most of the effort would

be based on a trial-and-error approach and the plan would evolve as you went along based on the

results of those trials.

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I want to reemphasize that this is not a binary and mutually-exclusive choice between

“Agile” and “Waterfall” and it is very possible to blend those two approaches together in

the right proportions to fit a given situation.

Let’s talk about how that would work…

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Scrum is probably the most widely-used Agile methodology in the world and it does

provide an excellent framework for defining an Agile project but it really only defines a

process for a team-level and sprint-level process. It doesn’t explicitly specify any additional

layers of management that might be needed on top of that for larger and more complex

enterprise-level projects.

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The important point to recognize is that very few Agile projects start out by just writing

code with no planning at all as some people might think.

Some level of planning is always appropriate in an Agile project; however Scrum does not

explicitly specify higher levels of planning.

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In many cases for larger and more complex projects, it is essential to add additional layers

of planning to the project

Most Scrum projects will have at least project-level planning where at least the high-level

goals and objectives of the project are defined; however, project-level planning can be as

“thick” or “thin” as necessary depending on the nature of the project.

The project-level planning forms an “envelope” around the team and sprint-level planning

process defined by Scrum; however, the project-level planning would typically be at least

somewhat dynamic. Rather than defining a rigid upfront plan that might not change for the

entire duration of the project, it would be expected that lessons learned from the team and

sprint-level planning process would be fed back into the project-level planning process to

make adjustments to the project-level plan as necessary.

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And, of course, release-level planning may also be necessary depending on the scope and

complexity of the project

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This is what a spectrum of approaches would look like:

• At one extreme, a highly adaptive approach might be limited to team-level planning only

with little or no release-level planning or project-level planning

• At the other extreme, a more plan-driven approach would put a much higher level of

emphasis on project-level planning and release level planning

By adjusting the level of emphasis on planning at each of those levels, it is very possible to

create a broad range of hybrid Agile approaches with different levels of agility and

adaptivity.

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In my books and online training, I have included some case studies of companies that have

successfully developed an Agile Project Management approach. I just want to briefly

mention a couple of them before we close.

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The first company I want to talk about is Valpak. Valpak is best known for the blue

envelopes containing discount coupons that many of you get in the mail. They have a

highly automated plant in Tampa, Florida where paper comes in one end and millions of

envelopes stuffed with coupons come out the other end virtually untouched by human

hands. Valpak is a great example of a company that has successfully implemented an Agile

transformation using the Scaled Agile Framework. Some of the key factors that made this

successful were:

• Strong senior management support coupled with a very aggressive and capable Agile

leader (Stephanie Stewart) to make the effort successful

• An independent coach was brought in to help define and implement the process and

train and mentor the teams

Aside from the many other benefits of the Agile transformation, Chris Cate, the CIO of

Valpak noted that once the Agile project methodology was running smoothly; the teams

became self-managing, the projects required a lot less management focus, and managers

were able to focus on a much more strategic level.

Valpak did a very complete, top-to-bottom implementation of Agile throughout the whole

company which had a huge impact on improving their business; however, it required a very

aggressive senior management commitment to a very significant business transformation

to make it successful.

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The next company I want to talk about is Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare.

• First, here is some background - Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (HPHC) is a full-service health

benefits company serving members throughout Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and

beyond. For over 40 years, Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare has built a reputation for exceptional

clinical quality, preventive care, disease management, and member satisfaction and has

consistently rated among the top plans in the country.

• This was a very important factor because it meant that the implementation of this project could

not be allowed to cause any problems that might impact Harvard Pilgrim’s excellent reputation

and standing.

• The project was very large and complex and required the replacement of almost all of Harvard

Pilgrim’s outdated IT infrastructure requiring approximately 100 Agile teams over a five year

period. It’s equivalent to changing the wheels on a high-speed train as it is moving down the

tracks at over 90 miles an hour.

• Because of the scope and complexity of this effort, the number of moving parts was huge and

required a lot of planning and coordination to minimize any operational business impact. As a

result, it was essential to blend a traditional plan-driven project management approach with an

Agile development process

The results of the effort were very significant – over the period of this project, Harvard Pilgrim:

• Developed flexible business architecture to support change

• Introduced Agile approach and philosophy without disrupting business operations

• Was ranked #1 for nine years in member satisfaction and quality of care despite massive

changes

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I want to quickly recap some of the topics we’ve talked about in this presentation.

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Here’s a quick summary of some of the key points:

• Don’t fall into the “Program Du Jour” trap by just jumping on the Agile bandwagon

without understanding what you expect to get out of it and what it takes to be

successful

• Take time to understand the benefits and limitations of Agile and what problems it will

solve for your business and craft and approach that is tailored to fit your business

• Learn to see past the stereotypes, myths, and misconceptions that exist about both

Agile and “Waterfall”

• Develop a fresh new perspective to see these two different approaches as

complementary rather than competitive and learn to blend them together as necessary

to fit a given situation

• Don’t force-fit your business or projects to some arbitrary approach

• Go in the other direction and fit the approach to your business and projects

This may seem difficult and it is…Agile requires a lot more skill and training to do it

successfully because it requires very knowledgable people making intelligent decisions to

fit a process to the situation rather than simply mechanically following a defined process,

but it definitely can be done and these are exactly the challenges that my training is

designed to address!

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This presents some significant challenges for project managers, I’ve often used the analogy

of a Project Manager as a cook versus a Project Manager as a chef…

• A “cook” knows how to prepare a limited number of simple recipes by the book.

• A “chef” knows how to prepare a much broader range of more exotic recipes, his/her

knowledge is not limited to pre-defined recipes, and he/she will often create new and

innovative recipes for a given situation.

I think that sums up the challenge for project managers very well.

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This has only been a very short presentation and this is a very complex topic but there are

lots of other resources available for more information:

My latest book, entitled “The Project Manager’s Guide to Mastering Agile” has a lot more

information in it plus many more detailed case studies of how to put these ideas into

practice

My blog site at managedagile.com is another valuable resource with over 100 free articles

on various topics related to Agile Project Management. That site is very popular and draws

a lot of traffic

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Another important resources is that I’ve developed a complete online training curriculum

that is designed to help project managers bridge this gap through the Agile Project

Management Academy. You will find t that school at

agileprojectmanagementacademy.com. Those courses are offered on three different

training platforms and, as of now, have more than 25,000 students with over 500 5-star

reviews!

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Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today. I will now try to

answer any questions you might have

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