Episode 151 – Maximizing Value: From PMO to Agile VMO

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Hear how teams can use agile methods and orient them towards business outcomes, which deliver business agility and build resilience. In this episode 'Maximizing Value: From PMO to Agile VMO' - you’ll also hear ideas and strategies for transforming the Project Management Office into an Agile Value Management Office. 

 Table of Contents

01:24 … Sanjiv’s Background Story02:41 … Current Trends with Enterprise Agile Transformations06:00 … Measuring Success07:33 … How to Tell When Groups are Struggling09:33 … Organizations Eliminating Project Management Function12:23 … The Value-Adding Role of the Project Manager14:59 … Lessons Learned and Retrospectives18:26 … Compare and Contrast Agile and Traditional20:37 … Defining the Agile VMO25:10 … Organizations Embracing Agile VMO26:43 … Resistance to Flexible Funding28:22 … Get in Touch with Sanjiv29:41 … Closing

SANJIV AUGUSTINE: We need middle managers, including project managers, because close to 90% of successful organizational change initiatives are driven by middle management.  And that includes project managers.  So what we need to do is to find a way to more clearly define what people with that skill, that project management skill, add within the agile context.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers. My name is Wendy Grounds, and with me in the studio is Bill Yates.  This podcast is about project management.  Join us to be motivated and inspired by project stories, leadership lessons, and wise advice from industry experts from all across the world. One of those leadership experts is who we’re talking to today.  Sanjiv Augustine is the founder and CEO of LitheSpeed LLC and the Agile Leadership Academy.  Sanjiv is the author of the books “From PMO to VMO,” “Managing Agile Projects,” and “Scaling Agile.”  He’s been an in-the-trenches practitioner.  He’s also managed many agile projects, and he has trained thousands of agile practitioners.

BILL YATES:  Sanjiv is the chair of the Agile Alliance’s Agile Executive Forum and the founder and moderator of the Lean Startup in the Enterprise Meetup.  He was also a founding member of the Project Management Institute’s agile community of practice.  So not only is he a well-versed practitioner, but he’s had a lot of influence in shaping how many of these organizations have addressed and scaled agile.

WENDY GROUNDS:  Sanjiv, welcome to Manage This.  Thank you so much for being our guest.

SANJIV AUGUSTINE:  Thank you very much, Wendy.  I really appreciate being here with both Bill and you.

Sanjiv’s Background Story

WENDY GROUNDS:  Yeah, we’re looking forward to tackling this topic and getting your expertise.  But before we get into that, can you tell us about your background working with organizations and those in the trenches who want to adopt agile practices, and just a little bit about what you do.

SANJIV AUGUSTINE:  Thanks for this opportunity, once again.  And I want to start with about 20 years ago, believe it or not.  I’ve been in the industry for about 30 years.  But 20 years ago I started my agile journey.  This is with an organization that you might know.  It’s the Capital One Bank.  And the CIO at that time was looking for a way to cut their time to market by 50%.  And so he went to his CTO and said, “Please find a way to do this with agile methods.”  And in those days nobody was crazy enough to sign up for that.

But we ended up partnering with the CTO of Capital One and ending up rolling out agile methods, more specifically scrum, in three countries, with 5,000 people.  So it was a massive enterprise adoption.  We made mistakes along the way, learned lots of great lessons along the way, and here we are 20 years later.

BILL YATES:  Yeah, you were on the cutting edge 20 years ago.  That’s amazing that you guys were kind of in the lab of, okay, we think this works for scrum.