Thoughts on Project Management and Scrum

Heads up. This is not exactly Internet or Computer related, but it has to do with it in a relevant way. Or...at least, I seem to think so.

Back in 2005 I became interested in project management. I must have discovered it was an actual science or career by reading something online, somewhere.

The fact is, after purchasing a membership in the Project Management Institute, and a copy of the Body of Knowledge to begin studying it, I found it intensely terse and process focused.

When you overemphasize tools and processes, you focus 90% of your time and attention to the tools and processes and only 10% on deliverables and end goals/objectives. That's a no-win in my view.

Half-hartedly I stepped up to take the CAPM exam, and failed with flying colors. It was a big setback, both economically and emotionally, because I had seen a glimmer of hope in my skill-set and career prospects. Yet, obviously, hoping against hope that a new, trendy career path would work out for me was the wrong mindset to have, to begin with.

When you're looking at expanding your skillset, the financial aspect is usually what makes or breaks the decision. It's also important to path out the decision and the work required after the decision takes place to make it where you're heading.

When I went to take the CAPM exam in a specially-designated testing center, I realized immediately upon the third or fourth question that the test was rigged to fail people rather than to test knowledge from the study materials.

Many associations with certification programs make it seem like their certification is the only thing between you and your next paycheck/promotion/crown of laurels. They throw your way a membership requirement ($), then the prep material ($$), then the user study group ($$$), then the prep test ($$$$), and finally, the actual test ($$$$). Don't forget the annual coursework to keep up the certifiacation ($ⁿ).

They urge a candidate to participate in online communities and in-person networking events. I can't imagine having that much time in my life, to be honest, to be spending supporting an organization with my time, money, and presence--just to sort of validate their sales objectives.

The PMI certification is pretty much irrelevant and unknown EVEN in IT circles. It's a "heard of it before" "nice to have" kind of thing, but no one really has it as a job requirement. To be honest, I've yet to see a job description where that's even mentioned anywhere.

It's so document focused, you basically have a total encyclopedic bible by the time you're halfway through your project, imagine what it looks like when the project's completed! People on these sorts of teams will actually spend valuable meeting time arguing about which tool, software package, or document template is better. Instead of focusing on the deliverable, which is probably two years down the line.

So now, seven years after, we have agile workplaces and workspaces--a.k.a. insane project timelines, team members thrown together at the whim of superiors, and no concrete project plans because everything is done on the fly.

Agile working environments go along with Scrum: what have you done since yesterday, what are you doing today, what are your challenges in getting it accomplished? Scrum is the latest flavor in collaboration and efficiency for the management of products and projects. It's almost the exact opposite counterpart of Project Management.

Scrum is all about daily face-to-face meetings (the bane of most office workers existence), ownership and hard work, and story-boarding things to death--then jumping right in to the project work to provide periodic deliverables which are as complete as they can be--until they come up with new cool features you should have added and that they forgot they wanted. Changes are welcome in a continuous stream and must be available in the very next reiteration.

The Scrum philosophy, to work in a practical application, relies on on capable product owners and independent, stimulated, enthusiastic workers. I know I'm being sarcastic (no! you? really?), but very few team members have all three qualifications (independent, stimulated, enthusiastic).

Self-centered moochers company jumpers abound. Most teams I have had the pleasure of being a member of, seem to just want to do the bare minimum to get by, prefer to dump work on whomever in the team they respect the least (for whatever reason), and make a big deal out of team bar hopping building at the beginning of each project and at the end of each project--and at birthdays, anniversaries, departures, new staff member welcomes, and any other similar money-out-the-window-let's-get-drunk celebration. Apparently, there are some drawbacks to working in an office full of 20-something-year-olds. Go figure.

This is when motivation theory may kick in and discuss the financial rewards of a job versus the intellectual rewards of a job, especially in IT, where you're likely to have both and no spare time to sleep and brush your teeth. Family? What's a family? Vacation time? Mwahahahaha!

I think I like the working environment of Scrum and agile better. People are actively involved in verbal communication and have a sense of community and team-manship (yes I just made up a word). People are stimulated intellectually and have a healthy list of assignments aligned with their skill sets--unless they lied on their resume and now the project and the team are screwed.

Ideally, people may be in "the zone" most days, working away and building usable iterations for their customer or product owner. Never mind the drumbeat and whip background noises...keep rowing kids!

There's also very little hierarchy, and more focus on staff with the skill-sets to get results in products as fast as possible. Even the lead and product owner are in the same cubicle layout as the team members. These elements seem to set up a fair and equitable foundation for lots of work that creates efficiency and gives employees a sense of belonging and of achievement. Then again, middle and upper management may get bitter that they have to share their working space with common serfs on a daily basis.

I want to learn more about Scrum. I think it suits the Millennial attitude a lot better than the stodgy Project Management philosophy. There's more face-to-face time, there's more communication all around, and there's a sense of achievement and progress with each iteration.

Having said all this, I can't shake the feeling that this is just another "latest flavor" of the same old thing: the industrial cubicle farm. Just rosier for now. What will tomorrow bring? Well...besides the 10 am Scrum meeting.

You can learn more about project management from the Project Management Institute, and you can learn more about Scrum from the Scrum Alliance.