PMI going Agile and PRINCE2 going Lite

Here’s some interesting news. PMI, is going Agile. Yes you heard that right. According to their recent announcement (http://www.pmi.org/Agile.aspx) PMI acknowledges that “Agile is a topic of growing importance in project management (and) the marketplace shows this trend, as project management practitioners embrace Agile as a technique for managing successful projects”. So as they mention in their announcement “Because of these changes in the project management environment, PMI is developing an Agile certification”. At the same time there have been initiatives to introduce Agility to PRINCE2 as well

The PMI’s announcement goes on to state that by earning the Agile certification, practitioners can:

• Demonstrate to employers their level of professionalism in Agile practices of project management
• Increase their professional versatility in both project management tools and techniques
• Show they have the capacity to lead basic Agile project teams by holding a certification that is more credible than existing training-only or exam-only based offerings

In my opinion all of the above is another evidence that we are going through a turning point whereby the controls that traditional methodologies offer, are gradually combined with more efficient processes which are focusing on flexibility and reducing delivery time.

This specific certification is actually a pilot and open to the public and any project management practitioner who meets certain eligibility requirements.

I could not agree more with this move from PMI. Recently there have been similar motions in the PRINCE2 arena. Lite PRINCE2 accoding to its author “is a tailored version of PRINCE2. In other words a lite version of Prince2 with a lite business case and lite documentation. PRINCE2 Lite is a simplified adaptation for private sector businesses”. This is not endorsed by the official PRINCE2 body but I think it undelines the trend further. I will come back to Lite PRINCE2 and other PINO (PRINCE2 In Name Only) methodologies in a separate article

Till next time.