For me RallyON was one of those – you know what, I am living my dream – moments in life. My favorite town (Boulder) was filled with 150 of our largest and best customers along with 85 expert agile practitioners from our coaching, product and technical account management teams. It was a swarm of agile expertise all gathered to share with each other for the sole purpose of getting smarter and building community. And you know what?
It turned out great! We prepared very well, the whole company came together to support it and all the right people were there. Typical for Colorado, the weather was perfect on day one (see the video below), but snowed on day two. Check out the runners pictured on top of Mount Sanitas in Boulder for our charity run with the white streaks of snow on May 11th! Fortunately, many folks also joined the Yoga class inside and we ended up donating 260 meals to our non-profit partner, Community Food Share, during the corporate challenge month.
Don’t just trust me
Please don’t just trust my words about this being a great conference! Below are a few of the artifacts from the conference including a quick video, the conference community site, links to twitter stream from the conference tag #RallyOn11 and great questions posed to StackExchange. But, the most stunning artifact is that 99% of of the attendees surveyed said they would attend again and recommend it to another member of their team.
To give you a little taste of the setting and the energy, PLAY the video to hear a collective answer to: WHAT IS AGILE?
If you are interested in what happened at RallyON, view the Twitter archive, join the discussion, download the presentations or read the notes at the RallyOn.Rallydev.com site by clicking on the banner below. To comment or participate, simply login with your Rally username and password or create an account if you don’t have Rally credentials.
A HUGE THANK YOU
The overwhelming success of this two day event could not have happened without tons of help. A huge thank you to:
our customers who showed up ready to learn and share – as well as present over 100 open space topics
our product, technical account management and coaching teams for kicking day one off with Rally developed content
I kicked off the conference by saying this was all about building a strong community. By bringing our best users together with all of our internal agile experts, it was my hope that we could address some of the problems that Jean, Eric and Liz highlighted in late 2009 with their Community of Thinkers post. And, also to run some experiments based on the shortcomings that we highlighted in the #10yrsagile celebration conference and my post. Based on feedback, usage of the RallyON community site and the excitement from the show, I think we got a community snowball rolling toward the crest of the hill.
Please let us know how you thought we did, either physically or virtually, at the conference, and share your ideas for how we can continue building our community.
What’s your answer?
Before you tell me, here is some food for thought:
Archeological Dig for Extinct Life Form
(a) YES!
Yes, if your PMO maintains a rigid conformance posture informed by Waterfall approaches to managing and tracking project risk and success, it is obsolete. Lose it. Here’s why:
Agile has no place for rigidity.
Agile rewards flexibility, responsible change, and continuous growth. This is true in processes, in practices, and in people.
Agile doesn’t seek conformance. Agile seeks emergence of the most useful, sustainable practices that deliver value, team by team, item by item, timebox by timebox.
A PMO that determines standards and then enforces these standards through status updates runs counter to the core of Agile.
Agile seeks more than status updates. There is no punishment or reward system other than finding impediments and removing them.
A conformance-based PMO, in contrast, will tend to hold onto old habits: create standards; enforce their standards; collect detailed status information about how projects are conforming to their standards; create pressure to bring non-conforming projects into line. Such a PMO can inadvertently (or purposefully?) create a culture of blame and hence engender skewed reporting by projects in order to avoid associated “punishments” or public flogging. This PMO with its incumbent culture will absolutely kill an Agile initiative before it has started.
So, if you find yourself in this environment, lose the PMO or you will never win with Agile.
(b) NO!
If your PMO is prepared to be a liaison and evangelist of the Agile rollout across the organization, don’t lose them! They can be a pivotal force that ensures the true essence of Agile; they seek to find out what delivers value in a regular rhythm and to keep improving on it.
The PMO has an incredible vantage point in an organization: they can look around and “see the whole”. Heads-down Agile project teams concentrate on what works in their singular context. An Agile PMO, on the other hand, with a broader view, has the golden opportunity to continuously survey project teams to learn from them what is working well and then spread that good news to other teams and to the management.
An Agile PMO applying Lean Principles such as eliminating waste and amplifying learning can serve as the servants to the Product Owners and ScrumMasters. They can support the Agile project teams by facilitating cross-fertilization of best practices. They become the guardians and carriers of the Agile emergence. You might say they are act as the Agile pollinators.
Ultimately, it comes down to this: What transitional fortitude does your organization have to move to a new way of doing things: the learning, the facilitation, and the Servant Leadership required of an Agile PMO?
That is the big MAYBE that will be sitting like an elephant in the room with you as you consider an Agile rollout with your PMO.
My Rally colleague Mark Kilby has a great way of testing this: Is your PMO prepared to sign an Agile PMO Manifesto?
We, as an Agile PMO, value:
Kaizen (retrospections for continuous improvement) over Conformance and Consistency
Org-team mutual Service Level Agreements over Top-down Policies and Processes
Communities of Practice over Central Authority
(d) All of the above :- )
So, where are you, where do you want to be, and how do you hope to get there? You may, at any time, be any one of the above, or all at the same time. Fear not! There is a way.
Just remember, answer (a) YES! reminds us that a traditional PMO has no place in a truly Agile organization and is hence obsolete.
To get to answer (b) NO! your PMO must be prepared for jolting change in its principles and practices. It may seem daunting. But Agile and Lean have great guidance to protect you along your path.
And, at any time during your Agile Adoption, you may find yourself in the ambiguity of (c) Uh, Maybe? or (d) All of the above :- )
If you are prepared to embrace the 10-step Agile PMO guidance and Mark Kilby’s Agile PMO Manifesto, you will be on the righteous Agile PMO path.
So, now tell me your answer to the question: Are PMOs Obsolete in Agile?
RallyDev.com
It turned out great! We prepared very well, the whole company came together to support it and all the right people were there. Typical for Colorado, the weather was perfect on day one (see the video below), but snowed on day two. Check out the runners pictured on top of Mount Sanitas in Boulder for our charity run with the white streaks of snow on May 11th! Fortunately, many folks also joined the Yoga class inside and we ended up donating 260 meals to our non-profit partner, Community Food Share, during the corporate challenge month.
