Mark’s new story for Information Management on project portfolio management best practices in an Agile organization has been published. You can read it here.
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I think we’d all agree that collaboration in these days of Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 is important, requested by users and here to stay. But how much does that actually need to be embedded in common business functions such as project management, business process management, budgeting, planning, etc?
I ask, because I am researching several ERP-based projects and collaboration keeps surfacing as a high-priority requirement. But is it necessary to enable collaboration directly in business applications?
What are your thoughts?
I put my thoughts directly into this EBizQ thread here. In talking with customers and analysts, my thoughts are that the requirement is likely satisfied through collaborative platforms such as SharePoint, Notes, Google Wave or Beehive. This would put less of an emphasis on enabling real-time multi-user collaboration into budget plans, capital plans, project plans, BPMN models, etc. and rely more on collaboration capabilities of a tool that enables virtual meetings, idea sharing, Wikis, etc.
I am starting a series of blog posts where I am collecting some of my thoughts for a new article I writing that covers a case study of a traditional product manager’s role in a technology company that is taking products to market with a development team that has embraced Agile development principles.
In this first part of this series, I want to touch first on why this is a topic of interest and needs to be discussed and dissected at all.
In new product development in technology companies today, a traditional role of a product manager includes responsibilities such as project management, cost/benefit analysis, requirements development, pricing, marketing and evangelizing. That is not a comprehensive list, but sufficient to make my point that those responsibilities for the role of product manager to not map well into the Agile world.
Why do I refer to it as an “Agile world”? Because aside from the process and practice of product backlogs, feature backlogs, burndown charts, scrums and sprints, is a frame of mind that believers in Agile embrace. To me, I see that as the developer’s mentality and Agile is embracing that type-A personality, make things happen now, drive toward completing tasks. It is a style that is for developers, by developers, and takes a negative view on what is seen as the overly burdonsome processes that product managers, as an example, impose on software development.
But I spent the first 8 years of my career as a heads-down, cube jockey, software developer. When I transitioned into project management, program management, and now product management, I knew full well, the value of the developer’s brain and ingenuity and they way that developers think. But still I embraced what I call “just enough process management” such that I could act as an effective product, program or project manager in the world of software development.
I am going to share some of my thoughts, best practices, lessons learned and ideas for a more succinct mapping of processes into Agile development teams such that these topics are covered, discussed and straightened-out:
1. Requirements management with a product backlog
2. Portfolio management for go/no go gating
3. Customer focus, market focus or innovative focus
4. Incorporating site visits into sprints
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