Ok Grasshopper ... When you can take this pebble from my hand...

On the Merits of Certification:

At its very core, Certification is a piece of paper that says you have been exposed to or have been trained to a certain level of proficiency in a certain body of knowledge.

I won't question the value of the certification. I for one think that there is intrinsic value to being trained and certified, Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Project Management Professional(PMP) whatever. For me the issue is that the connotation that one can be certified in something like the PMP or the CSM and they walk away a master in the art/discipline is specious.

All PMPs are not created equal all CSMs are not created equal. All those credentials really mean is that they have exposure and ideally a better than average understanding of what the methodologies offer as value propositions to an organizartion and how to implement them, to what levels of success may vary.

In the case of the CSM, I think the real weakness of the certification is that because its "Agile" it is some how easy and fast a panacea of sorts. This connotation sets erroneous expectations of what someone walking around with a CSM is or is not capable of. Maybe a more hardcore approach to the certification is warranted. Hopefully the discussion with the village elders of the Agile Community will come up with something that better protects the integrity of the skilled practitioner and brings more value to the table.

For the PMP, while the certification is much more rigourous with the concept of an auditable period of time before qualifying and continuing education requirements, that really only scratches the surface of what it means to run a project or be a project management professional or a leader in general which is really what project management provides at its basest level, and any leader worth is salt will tell you no one can just magically wave their leader wand and bam you are a leader, something about blood, sweat, and tears needs to get mixed in there,

Let's use a metaphor for this issue (everyone loves metaphors), I look at it like the mall strip Karate Studios and how many people have black belts these days? 2k and 1 year and bam you get yourself a black belt. They were certified in "attaining" knowing a certain level of skill, practiced it in a prescribed time, and a governing body approved said level of skill.

I have studied and trained for more than half of my life never got more than a brown belt at any one school of martial arts. To the uneducated many would discount me as a dabbler or amateur until they check my references as a closed door student to several highly respected masters of the martial arts, renown by blood and by deed. Maybe one day I will pony up 2k and join the certification class but then the master's would look at me funny and say so what's this about you want to start your own school too huh? (like that?... yeah like that and all it implies.)

Certifications are always nice to haves. I for one am far more concerned with practical skill and experience than fancy papers even though they can make me look really cool. My real value lies in how I apply my skills and expertise not whether or not I have a pedigree and I sleep-walked through it all. Black belts like that get weeded out eventually, usually by a kick to the neck and a short nap on the canvas.

Does that mean I don't value a certification process? No but I do check under the hood and kick the tires a couple of times just to be sure things are where they are supposed to be.

Remember in Kung-Fu the series Grasshopper's journey didn't end when he was able to take the pebble from his masters hand... It was only the beginning. Oooooo...Zen-esque Mystical stuff now what would be the billable for that?

- Optimal Optimus

Agile Perspectives

I recently attended an Agile Seminar sponsored by RallyDev (a great tool so far as I can tell). Anyways I found it very very informative.

Ordinarily I am never one to drink the proverbial "Kool Aid" but I found their approach to implementing the Agile Methodology as very rational and sound. Yes there was an air of Yoga to it but it was light.

I found the discussions with Israel Gat to be particularly ... profound would be too strong a world but insightful is a much better ring to it. His blog captures alot of what I discussed with him in our break out.

Either way what I took away from the event was that not everyone that does Agile is a "Bible Thumping Zealot" and that the methodology is sound to the point major corporations have leveraged the principles presented in the Agile Manifesto to great success. So for any of those who watch the Dog Whisperer it was an opportunity to see the possibility that it could work, it can be done, and that is very empowering and also encouraging.

It also reminded sadly how far away my current organization is from truly being Agile or even following the precepts of Agile to realize any of the economies of scale that the panelists are extolling and challenging us to meet.

But if everything is an iteration then we are a few more iterations away from having a shiny agile implementation. Here's to the next release.

-Optimal Optimus

Project Management… Science or Crusade? Red Pill or Blue?

So this is my first post on R-Cubed Project Management and I thought long and hard about what the first rant would be because that’s really what I am doing here, ranting. I decided to go with a Matrix/Transformers motif ergo the little YouTube snippet with the apropos Red Pill "Truth"/Blue Pill "Blind Faith" dialogue; Project Management Methodologies/Tools/Processes...Science "Red Pill" or Crusade "Blue Pill".

Being a project management professional for the last 10 years I have seen my fair share of project management flavors of the month: Agile, PMBOK, LEAN, XP, Scrum, etc. What gets me standing on a soap box is that these PM Tools, (cause that is what they are tools) come complete with pushy evangelists and "over-internalizing" chest thumping adopters.

Instead of looking at the problem space that an individual organization faces and what tools that the scope of the project management profession has developed i.e.: Agile, Scrum, XP, LEAN, PMBOK. These so-called "practitioners" adhere blindly to a methodology or worse a PM Tool Suite thinking that it will miraculously solve all of their operational woes. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There is no magic bullet or cure to project management or management/leadership in general. The only thing I can think of that would come close to a cure for project management/leadership woes is to look at it scientifically as opposed to taking it on like a crusade.

Selling Agile processes is not project management.

Identifying how applicable and how Agile processes can be implemented and thereby prove a value add is project management. The idea that having multiple iterations and weekly meetings is not being "Agile"; its simply having multiple iterations and weekly meetings. Thinking that any one methodology or any particular part of a "methodology" means you are doing it 100% is dangerous ground to stand on and since being in Project Management means you try to find the least dangerous ground to stand on, it would make sense to pause and re-evaluate such decisions.

Science or "Scientia" in the latin means "to Know" which later spawned the Scientific Method meaning "to know" via the practice of observation and experimentation. This concept has a couple implications on this issue:

• It takes away the marketing pull of Methodologies/Canned Workflow Tools as a panacea for Project Management.
• It applies a reason/rational approach to how we make our management decisions this includes what methodologies/processes/tools we adopt.

Applying a scientific approach divests us of the emotional clamor of "crusades" to handle projects in an "Agile" fashion or a "Lean" process. It allows the Project Manager or decision maker to evaluate the methodologies/tools/processes to make decision on what makes best sense to solve the business problem. After all we are in the business of business not thumping the latest management mantra. Just because an expert says that true blue Agile works best at XYZ company doesn’t mean that true blue Agile will work for yours. It may take a hybridization of different methodologies, tools, and processes to get it just right for the decision maker and their organization.

Crusades, generally speaking have rarely ever been a good idea because a crusade takes rationality out of the equation and replaces it with faith. Effectively saying "who ever believes hard enough will win out in the end". It's rings with the tone of "God Wills it". I don’t presume to know the "Will of God" or to speak for him. I will however take my "God-given" brain and apply rational thought to my selection of methodologies, tools , and processes to solve the business problems presented to me, because it makes sense and not because the "Agile" gods will it.

-Optimal Optimus