Is PMP still relevant in software development gone the way of Agile Scrum?

Question

What are the top things you have found to be still very relevant from the PMI world for the Agile Scrum way of managing projects?

Do you think PMP will be almost useless except in organizations which develop software in waterfall or waterfall v-methodology (practices in Telecoms, Industrial control software domains etc?)

Answer 1

I think too often people confuse SDLCs and Project Management Methodolgies. PMI provides a framework for managing and controlling a project while SDLCs and Quality Frameworks provide a series of processes for delivering a product. You could be an ace at Agile or CMMi, but if you're unable to establish effective Stakeholder Management and Communication while leading the delivery of an IT Project you're bound to run into a series of misteps during delivery.

If your role is to manage the delivery of IT Projects you should certainly seek a PMP or CAPM.

The key things that you should know from PMI as an IT Project Manager delivering under SCRUM or other SDLCs:

1. Communications
2. Risks
3. Procurement

Everything else in Agile lends itself into the components of the remaining Knowledge Areas.

Answer 2

There is actually nowhere in the PMBOK which forces waterfall processes. I found that scrum fits perfectly as a lean implementation of large parts of the PMBoK, including the dreaded Earned-Value technique : the burndown chart is an implementation of that under the assumptions made by scrum (and turned upside down).

One problem with scrum is that it makes a LOT of assumptions, all of which are not always present. It happily ignores getting funding for your project for example.

Also not all projects are best done using agile methodologies, when your team members have somthing like less that 10% of their time for your project for example, or when you are faced with 12 week hardware delivery schedules. Also not all teams in an organisation want to work agile, but still need to work together, in those cases it pays to at least be able to communicate in a lingua franca and report your progress as the stakeholders expect it.

Well my point is that it is useful to have more tools in your toolbelt and a PMP comes with well filled toolbelt which complements the SCRUM tools very well.