PMI is a global non-profit professional association with over 600,000 members that develops standards for project management. PMI has engaged with agile practices since 2004 by hosting agile tracks at conferences and referencing iterative development in the PMBOK Guide. In 2011, PMI launched the PMI-ACP certification for Agile project management. While traditional PM focuses on detailed planning and control, agile emphasizes iterative planning, continuous feedback loops, and self-organizing teams. The PMBOK Guide practices can be mapped to agile practices like release planning, iteration planning, and prioritized backlogs.

1. Agile, PMI, and the
PMBOK ® Guide
Rory McCorkle, MBA
Priya Sethuraman, MS
Product Managers – Credentials 18 February 2012
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2. PMI in Summary
• Global Non-Profit Professional Association
−More than 600,000 members and credential holders
−260 chapters, 182 countries
• Global Standards
−13 global standards
−3 million+ PMBOK® Guide in circulation
• Credentials
−6 major credentials, used worldwide ( PMP® | CAPM® |
PgMP® | PMI-RMP® | PMI-SP® | PMI-ACPSM)
• Professional and Market Research
−Academic Accreditation Program and Market Research
• Advocate for Project Management excellence to
−Business, government, NGOs, C-level executives
−Local and regional audiences: chapter outreach
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3. PMI’s History with Agile
• Congress presentations since 2004
– Dedicated Agile track North America Congress
2011
• SeminarsWorld® sessions since 2005
• PMBOK® Guide 3rd & 4th edition references to
iterative development
• Agile reference sources in PMI Marketplace
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4. PMI’s History with Agile
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5. PMI’s History with Agile
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6. PMI’s History with Agile
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7. PMI’s History with Agile
• February 2011: PMI Agile Certified Practitioner
(PMI-ACP) certification announced
• May 2011: PMI-ACP launched
• January 2012: First class of 515 PMI-ACP
credential holders awarded (59 from India)
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8. PMI’s History with Agile
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9. PMI’s History with Agile
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10. Usefulness of Agile project
management to the organization
• 71% of the respondents said Agile project
management is valuable to their organization.
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11. How valuable is Agile project
management in managing your
projects?
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12. PMI’s Agile Community of
Practice
Webinars Discussions
• Open to all
PMI
members
Ask the
Community
• Has over
13,000
subscribers
Wikis Blogs
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13. Project Management Body of
Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)
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14. Project Management Body of
Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)
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15. Traditional vs. Agile PM
Traditional: Agile:
• Plan what you expect to Plan what you expect to
happen happen with detail
appropriate to the horizon
• Enforce that what “Control” is through
happens is the same as inspection and adaptation
what is planned – Reviews and Retrospectives
– Directive management – Self-Organizing Teams
– Control, control, control Use Agile practices to
• Use change control to manage change:
manage change – Continuous feedback loops
– Change Control Board – Iterative and incremental
– Defect Management development
– Prioritized backlogs
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16. The mapping of PMBOK Guide
practice to Agile practices courtesy of
Michelle Sliger (Sliger Consulting) and
her text Bridge to Agility
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17. Integration Management
Traditional Agile
Project Plan Development
≈ Release and Iteration Planning
Project Plan Execution
≈ Iteration Work
Direct, Manage, Monitor, Control
≈ Facilitate, Serve, Lead, Collaborate
Integrated Change Control
≈ Constant Feedback and a Ranked
Backlog
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18. Scope Management
Traditional Agile
Scope Definition ≈ Backlog and Planning
Meetings
Create WBS ≈ Release and Iteration
Plans (FBS)
Scope Verification
≈ Feature Acceptance
Scope Change Control
≈ Constant Feedback and
the Ranked Backlog
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19. Scope Management
Acceptance
criteria for the
feature is
written on the
back of the
card. This is the
basis for the
test cases.
Passing test
cases aren’t
enough to
indicate
acceptance – the
Product Owner
must accept
each story.
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20. Scope Management
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21. Quality Management
Traditional Agile
Quality Planning ≈ Definition of “Done”
Quality Assurance ≈ QA involved from the
beginning, and…
Reviews and
Retrospectives
Quality Control ≈ Test early and often;
feature acceptance
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22. Risk Management
Traditional Agile
Risk
Identification, Qualitative Iteration Planning, Daily
& Quantitative
Analysis, Response ≈ Stand-ups, Metrics, and
Retrospectives
Planning
Daily Stand-ups and Highly
Monitoring & Controlling ≈ Visible Information
Radiators
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23. Agile Framework Addresses
Core Risks
• Intrinsic schedule flaw (estimates that are wrong and undoable
from day one, often based on wishful thinking)
 Detailed estimation is done at the beginning of each iteration
• Specification breakdown (failure to achieve stakeholder consensus
on what to build)
 Assignment of a product owner who owns the backlog of work
• Scope creep (additional requirements that inflate the initially
accepted set)
 Change is expected and welcome, at the beginning of each iteration
• Personnel loss
 Self-organizing teams experience greater job satisfaction
• Productivity variation (difference between assumed and actual
performance)
 Demos of working code every iteration
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24. Summary
• Scope is defined at a granularity that is
appropriate for the time horizon
• Scope is verified by the acceptance of each
feature by the customer
• Work Breakdown Structures become Feature
Breakdown Structures
• Gantt charts are not typically used; instead
progress charts help us to track progress
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25. Summary
• Test-driven development and cross-functional
teams help to bring quality assurance and
planning activities forward to the beginning of the
project, and continue throughout the project
• Bugs are found and fixed in the iteration; features
are then accepted by the customer
• The nature of agile framework allows core risks to
be addressed by the team throughout the project
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26. Questions?
rory.mccorkle@pmi.org
priya.sethuraman@pmi.org
www.pmi.org/agile
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