Blog of a Boston-based IT Consultant

The classic model of inputs and outputs (as taught by PMI and just about every other PM school of thought in regard to larger project phases as opposed to a description of the environment of an SDLC) can be extended and simplified to allow for:

• initial assessment (There are unique and very different artifacts and such available at project “Initiation”.)
• followed by work (This is when people on the team start doing stuff; they can be PMs, BAs, or Developers.)
• followed by recursive directives (”What do we do now, from where we are?”) and stay close to the Agile model of rapid change. This not only allows for iterations (an uninformed iteration is useless,) but also the inclusion of discovery, User Acceptance Testing, or simple change (for instance, someone is hit by a bus). This model asks the PM to not just push forward but to look at what new evidence or information exists and make informed decisions.

Seems a lot like Scrum, I know, but in this scenario the Scrum Master would be better off with a PM background. At least, I can imagine that very useful… and I imagine that in practice, more than a few development shops have transitioned a PM into role of Scrum Master, and that the individual in question just just what is being detailed here.

Ambler’s Agile Unified Process absorbs this quite nicely. A quick glance will show that is is really just structured from a project level, just down to business at a day to day level. It provides the niceties like projected due dates, yet allows for malleability.

Ambler’s AUP:

So what is a directive? A dev task? A POC trial? A call to clarify requirements? Yep. All of those things.

You always have the ability to and should be thinking about what will be useful next in regard to the overall project, but you should also be thinking about recursive directives. We can codify and abstract all day long, but especially in small team environments, this all comes down to people doing stuff.

Best

Josh

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