Review By: Ronald R. Goodwin, PMP ITIL/ITSM
07/27/2010Normally, project managers (PM) who practice their craft using PMI, Prince, Ten-Step, or any other PM methodology run their projects using “command and control” methods. (It's not as harsh as it sounds, because it usually works with only a little nudging.) As more and more software development lifecycles move to agile development, more and more "old-hat" PMs ("plan-driven" managers) struggle to adapt.

Sliger and Broderick have taken their expertise in project management and agile development and created a roadmap for the rest of us who struggle with the growing pains of moving from plan-driven development to agile. And they do it in a well-constructed, neatly organized, and fun way.
They start with an intelligent definition of agile that spans several chapters. Then they map the PMI Knowledge Areas (PMI KA) processes and terminology to agile processes and terminology. They take each PMI KA process individually and provide a nearly "one-for-one" guide. For example, they say, "I used to do this PMI KA process" and follow up with "I now do this agile process."

Each chapter's summary alone is worth the price of the book. The summaries take the points made in a chapter and provide them in bullet format.

The areas covered in PMI to agile mapping follow the PMI KAs, as spelled out in the third edition of the PMBOK:

• Integration management
• Scope management
• Time management
• Cost management
• Quality management
• Human resource management
• Communications management
• Risk management
• Procurement management

The authors finish by using the final third of the book to spell out how to cross the bridge to agile. For those PMs who have been hesitant to accept agile methods, the authors offer how responsibilities will change, how to work with other teams who are not agile, how a PMO can support agile, and selling the benefits of agile. The final chapter offers eleven common mistakes made by PMs and project teams in accepting agile methodology and how to avoid these pitfalls, i.e., how to keep your first agile project from failing.

There are appendices for agile methodologies and artifacts, and there is a glossary to help learn the "new" terminology. I found the authors’ liberal use of quotes (some serious and some just hilarious) to start each chapter and the abundance of illustrations as useful as the content itself.

For those who just don't want to read this book, you can visit Michele Sliger's Web site at http://www.sligerconsulting.com/ and watch the Web seminar titled the same as the book. But believe me, the book is a lot better.