Scrum Guide Update

Kirilka Petrova

   The latest version of The Disciplined Agile (DA) tool kit was released in May 2020, with an update of the book Choose Your WoW!. The DA tool kit aims at providing straightforward guidance to help organizations streamline their processes in a context-sensitive manner, providing a solid foundation for business agility. As PMI states it the DA will help you “choose the right agile approach for your situation”, and will also set you free from “prescriptive agile frameworks like SAFe® or Scrum.”

   In this edition of the recommended read we decided to take a look into the updated version of the Scrum guide for a few reasons: in order to understand how different is the DA you need to know what the popular agile framework are and what they are standing for; many of us work in a Scrum environment, and last but not least one of the most important updates of the Scrum guide is that is it is not that prescriptive any more.

An Actionable PM Perspective on the Pandemic

Lili Kaneva

   If you’re anything like me (and let’s face it we’re all Planning Monsters here) you are bearing the personal yearly goal setting in a special place in your spreadsheet-heart. How we make those is a matter of taste but I’d say that there is a hard-coded step in this exercise, namely the trend check. When I evaluate my future path I need to know the terrain I will encounter because...you know - you may end up with flip-flops on boulders and you don’t want that.

   The list of articles I am offering here is aimed to give you a flavour of the impact the pandemic had on our profession and the prospects for all those practicing project management, regardless of their formal title. Please scroll through the articles, while I still offer a digest of my after-toughts in a few sentences as well.

PMBOK® Guide - Seventh Edition

Kirilka Petrova

   Since the PMP certification exam is changing on 2 January 2021 and PMBOK Guide 7th edition s expected to be released soon, we will take a look at what's changing, and share quality content on the topic.

   In 2020 PMI was adaptive to the people, and to the environment. First, PMI postponed the exam changes that were initially planned for July 2020. Then, PMI allowed a fully online PMP exam from the comfort of your home. It is not surprising that the Institute is now moving from processes to principles. As shared in a the official PMI blog “our ultimate goal with the Seventh Edition, of course, is to make your job easier - to give project management professionals like you greater flexibility to be proactive, innovative, and nimble in response to change - whether it’s disruption from a new technology, competitors, or from a health crisis like COVID-19.”

Recommended Read: Reimagine Agile with Disciplined Agile

Ivelina Petkova

Vice President for Communications & Social Media

   In case you haven’t met it, it is time to do so - here goes the new kid on the block or as it would be more appropriate to say (as it’s not actually new) - the hybrid kid on the block - Disciplined Agile. Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) is a people-first, learning-oriented hybrid agile approach to IT solution delivery. It has a risk-value delivery life cycle, is goal-driven, is enterprise aware, and is scalable.

   If you’re wondering why it’s not new, then let’s take a quick look back: the DA website was launched back in 2011 and the first book published on it came out in 2012. The founders and thought leaders behind Disciplined Agile are Scott Ambler and Mark Lines.

The battle of two Yokozuna: ITIL vs PMBoK

Roman Reznikov

Program Manager, Agile & Lean Coach at SoftServe

   Hi everyone, I am Roman Reznikov, I work at Project Management Office at SoftServe. One of my focus areas is the development of the Service Manager competence and company’s approaches to working with service projects (SLA-projects, support, etc.). In this article, I will make a brief comparative overview of two sources of the best practices. It will help you to gain an understanding of what is worthwhile to be added to your own PM toolkit.

The nature of the problem

   For the majority of Project Managers (even Agile), PMBoK is the classic source of the best project management practices. Those, who at least once looked up in PMBoK, remember that project is limited in time, is unique, and has a defined scope. However, if you look at a greater part of IT projects, especially in the field of IT-outsourcing – in most cases it is whether the T&M or Dedicated Team, you will see that this form of cooperation is more like a service.