breakout session overview
It often seems that a lean, agile development environment will always be at odds with the structure and constraints of the PMO. Yet it doesn’t have to be this way. The agile PMO can bridge the gap between these two important groups and help organizations to execute projects more successfully. There are skills and strengths that each team brings to the table. Agile development encourages constant communication with customers throughout the development process, which helps to minimize scope creep. Likewise, the PMO brings significant advantages to the organization. Its primary focus is on metrics and progress tracking, which are crucial components of successful project execution. It can also help facilitate communication between developers, project managers and executives. Combining the strengths of these two groups is a strategic move that will help organizations reach new heights of profitability that they never thought possible. Project risk can be more effectively managed when the PMO is keeping an eye on things, and agile teams can achieve greater levels of transparency than before. In addition, the PMO can benefit from increased flexibility and dialogue with the customer, not to mention the fact that they will have more time to focus on their leadership role. Organizations will benefit from the agile PMO if they are willing to put in a little effort to make it succeed. The right management processes such as open discussion and compromise will enable managers to capitalize on the strengths of each group, resulting in successful project execution and increased ROI.
Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx. Since 1996, Journyx has remained
committed to helping customers intelligently invest their time and resources
to achieve per-person, per-project profitability. Curt earned a Bachelor of
Science degree in Computer Science from Virginia Tech in 1987. As a
software programmer fixing bugs for IBM in the early ‘90’s, Curt Finch found
that tracking the time it took to fix each bug revealed the per-bug
profitability. Curt knew that this concept of using time-tracking data to
determine project profitability was a winning idea and something that
companies were not doing – yet… Curt created the world's first web-based
timesheet application and the foundation for the current Journyx product
offerings in 1997. Curt is an avid speaker and writer.
