Category: Project Manager

How to Talk to Project Managers

October 24, 2008 by mcottmeyer

This week, I have had the distinct pleasure… the rare opportunity… to attend the PMI Global Congress in Denver, Colorado. I missed the deadline to propose a talk but there are at least 5 agile presentation happening over the course of the event. That is really good news. The PMI crowd is interested and trying to understand what this agile stuff is all about.

This week, I am working the VersionOne booth, so while I have a full conference pass, I will probably not going to make any of the talks… bummer.

Talking to Project Managers

It has been really fun talking to all the folks that have come by to see our software. The people that stop to talk to us have already been exposed to agile on some level, so my perspective might be biased, but there are many more agile friendly people that I expected. Again… people are interested and want to know more.

After my first full day of meeting and greeting the conference attendees, there is one thing I would like to share with the agile community. When you talk to a traditional PM about agile project management, you need to be prepared to speak their language. While teamwork and collaboration are important, that is not the language of the PMI crowd. Empowerment is essential but can be very threatening to someone that is accustomed to being "in control".

I've found that a good place to start is with a discussion of the triple constraints.

Scrum Master Vs Project Manager

February 4, 2008 by sureshkrishna

Scrum Master is specialized in ensuring the scrum process is implemented as intended. He is the one who takes care of the different agile practices to reach the team. Project Manager is the one who takes care of the planning, project deliverables, billing, process, QA, etc...
And now the question for many is can a project survive without the Scrum Master. Its often the case that a traditional project manager takes training as scrum master and he takes the role of a scrum master.