Agile 2 a new tree or just a small scrub in my agile forest?

Someone noticed me of Agile 2. If you look at the corresponding website, Agile 2 is positioned as the next iteration of agile. It’s still works in progress of a group of 15 authors.  You can find their case for Agile 2. Why they think agile is deeply broken and that they want to fix it. Among other things, in their opinion the Agile Manifesto says little pertaining leadership. 

The core of their guidance is about leadership. “Leadership is the most important thing of all in an organization: with good leadership, the initial methodology will not matter in the long run because it will be adjusted as needed; conversely, with bad leadership, the best methodology in the world will fail”.

At this moment the author group already agreed on the values and principles of Agile 2.

The six values are:

1. Thoughtfulness and prescription
2. Outcomes and outputs
3. Individuals and teams
4. Business understanding and technical understanding
5. Individual empowerment and good leadership
6. Adaptability and planning

Besides the values they see 10 principle categories:

1. Planning, transition, and transformation
2. Product, portfolio, and stakeholders
3. Data
4. Frameworks and methodologies
5. Technical dimension and technical fluency
6. Individual versus team
7. Team versus organization
8. Continuous improvement
9. Focus
10. Leadership

As stated, these are principle categories. Each category has its own principles. In total there are 43 principles. For me a principle must be universal, self-validating and empowering. 43 principles are far too much. I would suggest focusing on agile leadership and stay away from the rest otherwise I think this scrub will never become a tree in my agile forest.

See their website for more information: agile2.net

Agile PM2: a new tree in my agile forest

It looks like my forest is changing into a jungle. This time I added Agile PM². Agile PM² is an extension of PM² (initiative of the European Union, see: https://www.pm2alliance.eu/forum/an-overview-of-agile-pm2/). To be honest I have some problems with this initiative. As a European citizen, I ask myself, looking at my agile forest, why do we need to spend tax money to develop a new (agile) methodology when there are already so many frameworks and methodologies available?

The Agile PM² Extension

The PM² Methodology supports the use of Agile practices in PM² projects through Agile PM² which is an extension to the core methodology that provides the necessary collaboration framework. Agile teams should be able to collaborate effectively with teams and stakeholders following alternative approaches.

The extension provides:

• Agile roles & responsibilities: The Agile Project Core Team (A-PCT) is part of the overall Project Core Team (PCT). In Agile PM, the additional agile specific roles comprising the Agile Project Core Team (A-PCT) are:
  • Team Coordinator (TeCo) – equivalent to the well-known Scrum Master role
  • Product Owner (PrOw)
  • Architecture Owner (ArOw)
  • Agile Team Member (ATeM) – equivalent to the Scrum Development Team role.
• integration with the overall PM² project lifecycle: The Agile PM² has iteration cycles at three levels – daily cycles, iterations, and releases. Regardless of their duration, these cycles follow what is termed in Agile PM² the CIR rhythm (Coordinate, Implement, Review)
• a set of suggested Agile artefacts: Agile Specific Artefacts capture information regarding the planning of specific (implementation) processes, activities, releases, iterations, and other milestones (Development Handbook, Development Work Plan, Deployment Plan, Testing Plan, Agile Logs (Testing Log, Retrospectives Log)
• A set of Agile PM² Mindsets

In my bird’s eye view I positioned Agile PM² in the project level box.See my blog for the complete Bird’s eye view on the agile forest article.

PM World Journal 2019 Editor’s Choice Awards

I published two papers in the PM World Journal during 2019:

• Creatures that slow down portfolio delivery and how to kill them, By Marisa Silva (Portugal/UK) and Henny Portman (The Netherlands) – Oct 2019
• A bird’s eye view of the Agile forest, By Henny Portman (The Netherlands) – November 2019

Fifty-seven original featured papers were published in the PMWJ in 2019, by authors around the world. Seven papers by authors in seven different countries were selected for special recognition. See: https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/200214-pmwj-2019-Editors-Choice-Awards-papers3.pdf

Awesome to see that these two papers received the 2019 Editor’s Choice Awards – Papers Category.

See for an updated version of the paper: A bird’s eye view in the Agile forest post