This presentation by Michele Sliger is specifically aimed at traditionally trained software project managers who are new to Agile, and who would like to be able to relate the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) best practices to their equivalent practices in Agile.  By associating new Agile ideas to things that are already familiar, you can begin your Agile journey with a new shared lexicon and knowledge of general Agile concepts. In addition to the mapping some of the PMBOK Guide® knowledge areas to Agile practices, there is also focus on how the job of the traditional project manager is re-defined into a new - and often more important - role in the Agile development process. 

Michele Sliger is the co-author of The Software Project Manager’s Bridge to Agility. She has extensive experience in agile software development, having transitioned to Scrum and XP practices in 2000 after starting her career following the traditional waterfall approach. A self-described “bridge builder,” her passion lies in helping those in traditional software development environments cross the bridge to agility. Michele is the owner of Sliger Consulting Inc., where she consults with businesses ranging from small start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, helping teams with their agile adoption, and helping organizations prepare for the changes that agile adoption brings. She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP®) and a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST). She has an undergraduate MIS degree and an MBA. You can download her articles by visiting her website at www.sligerconsulting.com or contact her directly at michele@sligerconsulting.com.

Agile Project Management has driven successful results throughout thousands of projects across the globe through various frameworks like Scrum, Extreme Programming and others. Agile development, quality and project-level practices are allowing teams to react more quickly to changing market and business conditions, meeting customer needs more directly, and driving profits or cost savings sooner. Most organizations are experimenting with agile approaches on one or more projects within their portfolio.

The challenge, however, remains in the coordination across larger organizations aligning many projects, products and teams to deliver complex interdependent programs successfully. This presentation shares Agile Program Management Best Practices to guide project and program managers in larger organizations working across these boundaries to deliver complex programs. These best practices have been leveraged by programs with over 30 teams with hundreds of people (Larger programs are divided into subprograms and replicate similar practices). This presentation addresses best practices for program setup, goals, and investment; organizational team structures and work breakdown; and program coordination, tracking, dependencies, risk, and release predictability.

Many organizations have legacy processes which cannot be changed with a flip of the switch. These companies also recognize that in today's environment , agile practices may  provide solutions to their challenges. These organizations find themselves in a quandary as to how to introduce practices and techniques which are at a total different end of the spectrum than what they have been utilizing. Organizations want to know how they can integrate these new practices into the overall organization with minimal disruption to their actual day to day work and obtain buy-in from their staff.  After all, company business must continue.

This sessions will discuss and address the following:

• Blended Agile definition
• When and why to even use Blended Agile?
• Benefits and conflicts along with strategies to achieve Blended Agile
• Examples of a blended approach, discussing real life examples
• Steps to create "The Blended Agile Way" for your organization
• Scaling, including recommendations for consistent practices

Rose Anton, Engagement Manager & Master Lean/Agile Consultant with CC Pace, is a leader in helping enterprise level clients to adopt the use of both agile and lean practices within their organizations. Rose has extensive experience with system integration, web-based applications/portals, design/development of new systems and implementation for off the shelf packages. A highly sought after speaker, Rose has lectured and led seminars on various aspects of the full project lifecycle and facilitated sessions on variances within the Lean/Agile methodologies including Distributed, Spiral, MSF and Blended Lean/Agile.

How should we scale Agile methods  beyond individual projects?  How can PMOs avoid being process police and instead truly support Scrum teams, enable enterprise rollout of Agile methods, and sustain long-term Scrum adoption?

Learn how industry leaders are scaling Agile with Agile PMOs that:

• Support and empower agile teams through training, coaching, and organizational obstacle removal
• Track project portfolios using Agile tracking techniques
• Bring lean discipline to project prioritization
• Move towards a stable teams model of resource management

Sanjiv will share principles and techniques for an Agile PMO, and discuss how those concepts are being applied in the industry to scale Scrum through adaptive governance of programs and portfolios.

Sanjiv Augustine, President
An industry-leading agile and lean expert, Sanjiv is a co-founder and board member of the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN). He is also the author of several publications and the book Managing Agile Projects (Prentice Hall 2005); and the founder and moderator of the Yahoo! Agile Project Management discussion group. Sanjiv has assisted clients in deploying agile and lean methodologies at many institutions large and small. As a management coach and consultant, he has advised in the enterprise rollout and adoption of Scrum at several Fortune 250 companies. As an in-the-trenches practitioner, he has personally managed agile projects varying in size from five to over one hundred people and coached numerous project teams. For more information, see Sanjiv’s website: www.sanjivaugustine.com.

AgileEVM is an adaptation of the traditional project management practice of measuring actual value of integrated cost, schedule and scope against a baseline plan using Earned Value Management (EVM) metrics. The methods of measurement have been adapted to easily fit within the Scrum project management framework.

Because the AgileEVM method derives the same metrics as traditional EVM techniques, it can be utilized as a tool to implement Project Portfolio Management (PPM) within an organization.  This presentation will provide an introduction to AgileEVM, and provide some examples of how it can be used in a portfolio management process. 

Among the topics will be:

• What is AgileEVM? How does it fit within the Scrum process?  Why should we use it to measure project performance?
• How is AgileEVM computed?  How do we interpret the results?
• How can we use AgileEVM metrics within a Project Portfolio Management (PPM) process?  How does it meet the requirements of the ANSI standard for PPM?

Brent Barton is the Chief Technology Officer at SolutionsIQ where he plays a key leadership role in implementing the strategic vision of SolutionsIQ as an Agile organization. Highly regarded as a Certified Scrum Trainer and Agile coach, Brent is recognized as an international leader in Agile consulting. He brings more than 15 years of technical experience as a consultant and mentor to his role as CTO. Through Agile methodologies he helps companies successfully build software better and faster.