DC ACM

Agile Approaches to Project Management

Monday, March 16, 2009

2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. (half day)

Objective:  To learn the principles of Agile project management and several techniques to help introduce Agile PM to your organization.

Audience/Expected Skill Level:  Experienced project managers in the IT industry. Agile project management techniques are particularly helpful for software development initiatives, though any project (systems integration, data conversion, etc...) can benefit from the principles.

Format: Lecture

Overview: Successful software development projects are so rare that many organizations have shifted the definition of success from providing value to hitting arbitrary dates.  Why is this?  One cause is the expectation that people are able to predict outcomes (i.e. delivery estimates) in highly variable and complex environments.  This is compounded by our tendency to underestimate technical complexity.  "Just add a drop down with the day of the week."  Failing to understand the downstream repercussions of adding a day of the week to other UI screens, reports, corner cases and cross-platform support.  Agile project management techniques are emerging out of a necessity to address these limitations and get back to the true purpose of software development -- being useful.

Highlights:

·         Survey of current PM practices

·         History and philosophy of Agile project management

·         Lean Software Development

·         Kanban & Scrum

·         Simulation Exercises

Agile Project Management with Scrum, Schwaber

Maxwell Keeler

Max Keeler is the Vice President, Project Management at The Motley Fool -- a multimedia financial-services company dedicated to building the world's greatest investment community.  After 12 years at the company he has held many roles, from IT Manager, Senior Developer, Director of Analytic Technologies and other managerial roles.  He has presented at eMetrics and will be presenting at the Lean/Kanban Conference in Miami in February.  He helped to introduce Scrum to the Motley Fool in 2007. The company has been running Scrum for the entire technology and creative division for over a year.