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Friday, June 27, 2014

Coming out of the closet - the life and adventure of a traditional project manager turned Agilist


I’m coming out of the closet today. No, not that closet. Another closet, the tabu closet in the Agile community. Yes, I was (and to a point still am) a control freak, traditional, command and control project manager. Yes, that’s right you read it correctly. Here’s why this is important: in 2003 when I first started to consider Agile in any shape or form I was a strong believer of the Church of Order. I did all the rites of passage, I did my Gantt charts, my PERT charts, my EVM-charts and, of course, my certification.

I was certified Project Manager by IPMA, the European cousin of PMI.

I too was a control freak, order junkie, command and control project manager. And I've been clean for 9 years and 154 days.

Why did I turn to Agile? No, it wasn’t because I was a failed project manager, just ask anyone who worked with me then. It was the opposite reason. I was a very successful project manager, and that success made me believe I was right. That I had the recipe. After all, I had been successful for many years already at that point.

I was so convinced I was right, that I decided to run our first Agile project. A pilot project that was designed to test Agile - to show how Agile fails miserably (I thought, at that time). So I decided to do the project by the book. I read the book and went to work.

I was so convinced I was right that I wanted to prove Agile was wrong. Turned out, I was wrong.

The project was a success... I swear, I did not see that coming! After that project I could never look back. I found - NO! - I experienced a better way to develop software that spoiled me forever. I could no longer look back to my past as a traditional project manager and continue to believe the things I believed then. I saw a new land, and I knew I was meant to continue my journey in that land. Agile was my new land.

Many of you have probably experienced a similar journey. Maybe it was with Test-Driven Development, or maybe it was with Acceptance Testing, or even Lean Startup. All these methods have one thing in common: they represent a change in context for software development. This means: they fundamentally change the assumptions on which the previous methods were based. They were, in our little software development world a paradigm shift.

Test-driven development, acceptance testing, lean startup are methods that fundamentally change the assumptions on which the previous software development methods were based.

NoEstimates is just another approach that challenges basic assumptions of how we work in software development. It wasn’t the first, it will not be the last, but it is a paradigm shift. I know this because I’ve used traditional, Agile with estimation, and Agile with #NoEstimates approaches to project management and software delivery.

A world premier?

That’s why me and Woody Zuill will be hosting the first ever (unless someone jumps the gun ;) #NoEstimates public workshop in the world. It will happen in Finland, of course, because that’s the country most likely to change the world of software development. A country of only five million people yet with a huge track record of innovation: The first ever mobile phone throwing world championship was created in Finland. The first ever wife-carrying world championship was created in Finland. The first ever swamp football championship was created in Finland. And my favourite: the Air Guitar World Championship is hosted in Finland.

#NoEstimates being such an exotic approach to software development it must, of course, have its first world-premier workshop in Finland as well! Me and Woody Zuill (his blog) will host a workshop on #NoEstimates on the week of October 20th in Helsinki. So whether you love it, or hate it you can meet us both in Helsinki!

In this workshop will cover topics such as:

  • Decision making frameworks for projects that do not require estimates.
  • Investment models for software projects that do not require estimates.
  • Project management (risk management, scope management, progress reporting, etc.) approaches that do not require estimates.
  • We will give you the tools and arguments you need to prove the value of #NoEstimates to your boss, and how to get started applying it right away.
  • We will discuss where we see #NoEstimates going and what are the likely changes to software development that will come next. This is the future delivered to you!

Which of these topics interest you the most? What topics would you like us to cover in the workshop. Tell us now and you have a chance to affect the topics we will cover.

Contact us at vasco.duarte@oikosofy.com and tell us. We will reply to all emails, even flame bombs! :)

You can receive exclusive content (not available on the blog) on the topic of #NoEstimates, just subscribe to the #NoEstimates mailing list below. As a bonus you will get my #NoEstimates whitepaper, where I review the background and reasons for using #NoEstimates

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Picture credit: John Hammink, follow him on twitter

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