Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Can Project Management survive Anarchy (aka Scrum or KanBan)




Anarchists are those who advocate the absence of the state, arguing that common sense would allow people to come together in agreement to form a functional society allowing for the participants to freely develop their own sense of morality, ethics or principled behavior. (via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy)
Question: Can Project Management survive Anarchy (aka Scrum or KanBan)?
Short answer: A good Project Manager Can

I am (always have been) very pro-Agile, especially those who adhere to the base Agile Alliance Manifesto. (http://agilemanifesto.org/). Who wouldn’t support it? I mean really support it?
Short answer: Those who feel threatened by lack of control…

In my opinion, a GOOD project manager is a person who helps in any way to ensure business value is being provided. For those who feel some form of anarchy is needed to shake off the shackles of corporate over management, I’m with them. HOWEVER, in my experiences, those who push the most to shed the chains of corporate oppression often have their own chains in the making, something to be very wary of when supporting such a movement. The best approach is to uncover the underlying drivers and realize that at the end of the day we’re all humans and we all tend to make the same decisions as those before us (in other words, people who seek freedom of choice often try to bind others to their preconceived choice).

What is this blog post about? My on-going discomfort with where Scrum, KanBan and like movements are going, more about putting a certification business model in place than actually providing a path for improvement. I always get comfort in reading Kent Beck or Ron Jefferies posts, they seem to keep to the original goal of the Agile Manifesto where others tend to seek monetization for a recycled idea with a different sounding name.

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