I’m learning yoga. So far, it’s helped to make me more flexible, both mentally and physically. (I can bend in ways I never thought possible, and after going through a workout I no longer have the desire to yell…much.) By in large, that’s considered a “good thing” in business these days. Flexibility, resilience, the ability to bounce back, bending without breaking, are all terrific Post-Millennium-Depression business themes. We survived (some of us), and managed to weather another storm….hurray!

So with this in mind, more and more companies are starting to forgo the regimented, rigid Traditional project management process. It’s documentation heavy and focuses on distinct phases with required deliverables for each.

Agile, like the name implies, is a more nimble method for accomplishing projects. It focuses on producing actual work, with management acting as facilitators for removing obstacles.

Scrum, again a very descriptive name, is a very down and dirty way of following Agile development, with chickens, pigs, and the shortest meetings you’ve ever seen in corporate America.
I’m bringing it up because PM Network (PMI’s magazine for members) had two really terrific articles about getting large companies on board with Agile:

“Philisophical Makeover: Not everyone thinks change is good—which makes assembling an agile dream team that much more difficult.” Sandra Guy, pg. 38-43, May 2010 PM Network

“A closer look: Atlassian, Sydney, Australia: An agile software development team puts its money where its mouth is.” By Carol Hildebrand, pg. 44-47 May 2010 PM Network

The first article describes how it’s best to use Agile on projects where requirements aren’t set, or customers don’t know exactly what they want. It also cautions that because of the very open nature of progress and problems that occur, it’s very difficult to do in highly-political organizations.. The second describes a case of Agile done well, with a team that normally works virtually, who co-located for a week to kickoff their project initiative. Working in the same room from beanbags and laptops, they ground through a mountain of work without the typical distractions associated with working through an electronic medium. (Hello CNN.com, how are you today? *Click*)

I work 100% remotely with teams spread over the globe. I’ve also worked on large SAP implementation projects, where everyone converges on-site for four days a week. I can personally vouch for the benefits of being able to chase someone down for an answer in the physical world, vs. phone calls, emails, and IMs (Pings in corporate-speak.) It really depends on the type of work you’re doing though. For a functional analyst or project manager that has to interface with many different people at any given moment, it’s frustrating to work virtually/remotely. For an independent contributor, such as a developer going off of functional specs or engineering notes, it’s probably bliss to have all those methods of screening people out.
So, what do you absolutely have to know about Agile? It’s completely acceptable to use over traditional project management when one of three criteria is met:

1. The project is less than $250,000.
2. The scope is limited not initially clear.
3. The timeline is less than 1 year.

Any other type of project is too long, has too many moving parts, and too many people to keep happy. Can you use portions of Agile on a long-term project? Sure! But don’t skip important things like kill-gates, earned value analysis, risk mitigation and stakeholder analysis.

I’m a big analogy person, so let’s put it this way: At a large company, on a large project, being a project manager is a bit of a mix between an old-fashioned telephone operator and a rail-yard dispatcher. You make a lot of connections between people who need to talk, and at the same time are trying to move thousands of tons of big clunking objects around a constrained space hoping and praying they don’t collide. An Agile project manager is more like being the driver of a steam roller and keeper of the tin man’s oil-can. You respond to all the squeaks for help, and try to smooth out all the bumps in the road so people can focus on work. They’re both important jobs, but done in massively different ways.