Agile is from Venus and PMOs from Mars

Agile is from Venus and PMOs from Mars
Thomas M. Cagley Jr., Vice President, David Consulting Group

Concepts

Thomas M. Cagley Jr. will present the following key concepts in this presentation:

Where do PMOs fit in an agile environment?
Are administrative project managers coaches?

Participants will learn:

The roles played by PMOs shifting as organizations leverage agile techniques
How to adapt a command and control / administrative PMO to leverage influence.
How agile projects are influenced by the voice of the project, voice of the business and the voice of management, how can these voice be focused to enhance success.

Outline:

The role of the PMO must shift as an organization embraces agile methods.
There are many points of potential conflict between agile teams that self-manage and self-organize and the control-oriented, administrative PMOs that have been deployed in many organizations.
Conflict reduces efficiency and trains practitioners on both sides of the divide that getting what they want justifies most behaviors.
A solution is to decide that the PMO can provide value by refocusing activity on tasks outside the teams review.
The three voice metaphor is useful to sort out who plays which role.
- The SCRUM Master represents the voice of process dealing with the everyday activities needed to address delivery;
- The product owner/customer is the voice of the business and prioritizes and refines the product vision so the team can deliver.
- The PMO is the voice of organization ensuring that management knows what is happening and that the strategic vision is known.
At the team level, the PMO needs to keeps the team’s path open ahead by dealing with external risks and interruptions.
The role of the PMO must shift or risk being viewed as overhead or worse as a cause of friction within the organization, both uncomfortable positions.

Biography

Tom Cagley leads DCG's Agile Practice, Estimation Practices, Software Process Improvement, IT Performance Improvement and Software Measurement Consulting Practices.

Mr. Cagley has over 20 years experience in the software industry in which he has been a consultant since 1997. He was previously Metrics Practice Manager at Software Productivity Research. Earlier, he held technical and managerial positions in different industries as a leader in software methods and metrics, quality assurance and systems analysis. Mr. Cagley is a frequent speaker at metrics, quality and project management conferences. His areas of expertise encompass management experience in a wide variety of methods and metrics, quality integration, quality assurance and the application of the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model® Integration (CMMI) to achieve process improvements.

Mr. Cagley is a member of the International Function Point Users Group and is a Certified Function Point Specialist. Tom is currently serving on the IFPUG Board of Directors as Secretary. Mr. Cagley has served on the IFPUG Board of Directors as the President. He previously served as the Vice President, Chair of the IFPUG Conference Committee and Director of Conferences and Education.

Mr. Cagley earned his BS from Louisiana State University and has done extensive postgraduate work at Cleveland State University, Case Western Reserve University and Kent State University. Tom also is holds an IT-CMF Professional Certificate.

Mr Cagley co-authored Mastering Software Project Management: Best Practices, Tools and Techniques with Murali K. Chemuturi.

Outside of his work at DCG, Tom is an independent thinker, author and podcaster – visit his excellent Software Process and Measurement Cast (SPAMCast) website at http://www.spamcast.libsyn.com/.