If you’re in the UK this November you’ll be very welcome at this year’s AgileNorth 1-day conference. There’s always a very interesting mix of agile experts and newbies, and it’s a great opportunity to network for those of us based in the Greater Manchester area. It’s November 13th at UCLan, the University of Central Lancashire in Preston.
This year I’ve dropped out of the organising committee (which will probably help make this event better than ever :). I will be running a session though — a think-tank on the topic of “Do project managers have a role in agile software development?“. If you have an opinion on that, or if you want to know what others think, please do come along!
Posted in: agile, agilenorth
Kevin E. Schlabach
October 10, 2008
Yes, project managers have a role in agile, depending on the organization.
Wish I was in the UK then… have fun!
PM Hut
October 10, 2008
Is the topic actually valid “Do project managers have a role in agile software development?”
How can you run any project, even if it’s agile, without a Project Manager?
Kevin Rutherford
October 11, 2008
@PMHut: That’s kinda why I’m asking the question. On the one hand, neither XP or Scrum has a defined role for a Project Manager, both preferring to set up “self-organizing” teams. Conversely, such teams operate in a context, and that context needs to be managed.
So I want to give the session participants the opportunity to explore and discuss what kinds of management approach work, and under what circumstances. Please come along and share your experience.
Kevin Rutherford
October 11, 2008
@KevinS: “depending on the organization” — exactly.
Kevin E. Schlabach
October 13, 2008
To clarify the “kind of organization” a little further.
If you are in one where self-organizing scrum teams are responsible for a portion of the product and there are quite a few cross-team dependencies, I would guess that some form of formal project management role is valuable in addition to the scrum of scrums concept.
If each team is self-sufficient and working on separate code bases and products… then it’s possible that a mature agile team won’t benefit much from a project manager.
That would my thought going into such a conversation, but I’m sure I would come out with a different viewpoint.