When we take a look at software development and the many different views on the subject, we tend to make the mistake that those cannot be combined. Either we try to have the ultimate control over our project en implement project management based on PRINCE2. Or we want to develop Agile, using steering mechanisms like Scrum. What a lot of us forget that the combination might possibly bring us a best of breeds situation where we are able to create results swiftly and still maintain control over our development project. (While we don’t create overhead and unnecessary, costly document trails).
PRINCE2 has the name of being pricy and a very official and constrained project management method. Generating document and supporting a bureaucratic manner of managing projects PRINCE2 has a bad name in the eyes of some. Despite these false accusations, PRINCE2 is very popular. Nearly every self respecting project manager works in one form of the PRINCE2 method. This isn’t very strange. PRINCE2 has given us the controls to learn from our mistakes and to monitor and support change in the ongoing process. Too bad this method is sometimes not implemented in the right way.
Agile Software Development. Entire libraries has been written about the subject (although I assume not as many books as there are on PRINCE2), but most of us are still struggling with the matter. What exactly is Agile Software Development? What is Scrum and how do I implement it in my current software development strategies? All these questions about a simple principle and an even simpler solution. When we take a further look at the assumptions there are about Agile, and the assumptions there are about PRINCE2 (PINO: PRINCE2 In Name Only, ring a bell?) we know that a lot of us think that the combination is not to be done.
This is a common mistake, but don’t worry, most of us tend to make it. When we take a look at the new definition of PRINCE2, in the PRINCE2 2009 manual, we learn that the combination of Scrum and PRINCE2 isn’t that strange at all. The jargon might be a bit different between the two approaches, but the need and result are the same. So we want to do Agile project, while keeping the control over our projects as we are used to in PRINCE2 projects.
About this subject we are organizing a knowledge session at our offices in Nieuwegein, The Netherlands, on the 26th of November. We will learn, from actual situations, that this combination is doable and how this is done. During some interactive sessions we show that this combination is a best of breeds and we will tell you how you can achieve this. Look on the Whitehorses website for more information and registration for this event.
