foreigngirl

As above. Thank you.

cjones

Yes, as is Prince1 and the rest of the family.

Scribble

should also look up PMI, PMBOK, Agile although I don't know if Agile really has a qualification yet, it's strictly for IT.

dbd33

I saw a resume which included the claim that the person described was a "certified scrum master" (I expect it was capitalised in some trade marked fashion). I viewed that as one would a claim to a Zumba qualification; something that relegates the holder to management positions.

Tangram

I also have my 50m breast stoke badge and can make a float from pyjama bottoms.

dbd33

Breast stroke you say? A position as Corporate Vice President of Intergroup Interfacing Strategy awaits you.

Animal

Prince 2 does not seem as recognised as in the UK. Definitely look at PMI & PMBOK as they are recognised globally in the Project/program management sector.

PMI

Former Lancastrian

Is this the guy who was known as Prince but then changed his name to the artist formerly known as Prince and is now back to Prince.
Purple Rain anybody.

Animal

Sure your not thinking of Prince Harry wishing he could change his name after being caught naked playing pool whilst in Vegas.

Atlantic Xpat

I was going to ask whether the latest project management tool was now called Symbol but I see FL got there first. The software development types that inhabit the cube farm in our office use something called KAN BAN. Confused the crap out of me at first, coming from a manufacturing background and having a different understanding of what KAN BAN means. It all seems to be built around not actually having enough resource to get the project done and finding a methodoloy to rationalise this. Keeps them happy I suppose.

dbd33

Whereas Agile rationalises the lack of planning that predates its invention. "Oh, you don't want what we agreed to last week? We'll Agilely bin that idea and do something else this week."

If one is to work on an Agile project one wants to be paid time and materials.

Alan2005

They have certificates in box ticking now-a-days? Blimey.

foreigngirl

Thank you everyone. Some really useful info here that I will look into.

Scribble

Yes and no.
It all depends on how you implement it, it's not necessarily about the customer changing what they want, it's about handling unforeseen events or technical probelms that you didn't know you would encounter. It involves everyone from the beginning rather than the chinese whisper type of waterfall project.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development

They both have their good and bad points.
In big projects, you simply can't avoid having some sort of iterative approach.

dbd33

Yes and no? ****ing 'ell, it's yes! mate.

An Agile project will take longer and involve many more unscheduled late nights and weekends than a project conducted without using this methodology. A typical project nears the end, the customer realises it's going to deliver what they asked for but not what they wanted and there's a huge scramble to rework the system. Something neither wanted nor requested is delivered.

An Agile project repeats this cycle weekly so week 2 of a Sprint produces something for Thursday, it's reviewed on Friday, the weekend it spent making it something else, often similar to the resullts from week 1, the process is repeated in week 3, perhaps creating something similar to that from week 2. At the end of the project there's a scramble as above. Changing tack week by week causes endless grief, not least because its impossible to develop a testing or deployment strategy for a system which is deliberately ill defined.

If you're working t&m it probably pisses you off to spend a couple of hours a day listening to people muttering "in the past 24 I was roadblocked but reached out proactively", as if they were at an Ex-lax convention, but, it's all money in the pocket. If the job is fixed priced then a goal driven approach lacking in sporting metaphors* is preferable.


*why "roadblocked" btw? Every other term seems to be derived from games, scrum, sprint, etc. You don't see police cars on lawn bowling greens or rugby pitches, why not a more consistent jargon?