How To Do Agile Project Management With The PMP
Overview
Until 2021 the PMP certification from the Project Management Institute, the world leader in Project Management Certification, was considered a waterfall certification primarily.
This all changed in January 2021 with the release of the PMBOK 7, which moved the emphasis to principle-based thinking and a strong focus on the Agile Manifesto.
This updated exam and approach to content learning now means that the PMP based on the PMBOK Version 7 is an excellent Agile Certification. As a result, it will gain widespread acceptance as the agile enterprise market learns more about it.
The PMBOK 7 is amazing, particularly the business acumen content. This is the approach our firm recommends for large-scale agile project delivery.
This document will help you learn how to use PMI’s approach for Agile Delivery.
Do you even need Project Management in an agile project?
Let’s deal with the elephant in the room. Does agile need a project manager?
Since its beginning, Agile and Scrum have advocated that Project Management is not required when doing an agile project. Instead, the concept is that the Scrum Master and the Product Owner assume the role of the Project Manager. Since Scrum is a collaborative framework and people work closely together often times this works and is more effective than traditional project management approaches, which include a Project Manager.
So this concept holds true in small companies, startups, and new small initiatives in larger firms where the number of people involved is small, communication between people is fluid, and goals are well-defined and understood.
Unfortunately, as projects start to scale, this the Scrum only concept starts to fall apart, and as our clients have said, things become chaotic. We see this problem as our number one download is a white paper on how to scale agile teams. This chaotic nature is the problem that the Project Management Institute’s PMBOK 7 now helps to fix.
As soon as we involve multiple teams, a large number of stakeholders, organizational risk, outsourcing, and many other issues, complexity goes up and usually way up. That is the reason for an Agile Project Manager, someone to help manage the business and delivery complexity but who is mindful of the agile way of working, or said another way an Agile Leader.
If you want to develop your agile leadership skills at no cost, sign up for our free 52-Week Agile Project Managers scenario-based Tips e-mail service. Each week, we provide a client example of how agile principles have been used to solve problems using the agile manifesto as the North Star.
There is also a blog written by Rod Bray on the topic of Agile Project Management with Scrum.
But regardless, as projects scale the need for an Agile Project Managers with Agile Principle-base leadership goes up, and usually very fast.
What benefits does Agile Project Management bring to your agile project?
In two words – “Business Acumen.”
Scrum is great, as is SAFe, but they need more business focus provided by the Project Management’s PMP (Project Management Professional).
Apply Project Management to your agile and lean initiative DOES NOT mean you need to have a fixed cost, schedule, and scope. That is old thinking, and Agile Project Management has evolved.
Applying agile project management does not mean discontinuing Scrum, Lean, or SAFe. Think of it more like plugging those methods into the project business framework provided by the Project Management Institutes approach.
We believe that for complex enterprise-based projects, Agile Project Management brings the following benefits:
- Sponsor, Stakeholder, and organizational alignment
- Effective Collaborative Teams to reduce handoffs and accelerate delivery
- Tools to break down work on an almost just it time basis
- Lean Risk Management for both project and business risks
- Quality Management
All of these benefits bring faster time to market and reduced frustration.
How to use the Fifteen Agile Project Management Areas
(this content will be update when we have time to write it, so check back, but listed below are the areas that will be discussed)
- Project Charter
- Stakeholder Management
- Communications
- Iterative Project Planning
- Breaking down work – Nouns
- Prioritize work – Nouns
- Dependency management
- Activities
- Resource Management
- Stakeholder validation – Product Demo
- Estimating and Schedule management
- Cost, Value, and ROI
- Quality Management / Acceptance / Automation
- Lessons Learned
- Lean Risk Management
Conclusion
Professional Agile Project Management brings many benefits to agile delivery and is worth exploring.
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