People ... People ... People! Does anything else matter?

In the past two weeks I attended the 'Agile Tour Toronto 2010' conference, and the PMI-CTT symposium (local PMI chapter).   I have been a member of the PMI group for approximately 8 years, and the symposium appears to still offer good value to the local members.    This is the first year I've attended the Toronto Agile Tour, and it's value far exceeded my expectations.   Both of these conferences also provided me the opportunity to present my thoughts on the value of project management on Agile projects (more on that topic in my next blog entry).

It's interesting despite the fact the two conferences have different primary focuses, the messages I heard at both were very similar.    The one similarity which really struck me is the people aspect of our profession, as it is a key ingredient to successful software development.  Of course that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone in software development as our domain is knowledge work.  Needless to say it would be difficult to do knowledge work without great people!  I've seen and heard of too many companies that view software development as an industrial process.   Many project managers (including my former self) have made the mistake of applying PMI processes as an industrial process, which is where the origins of PMI is rooted ... oops!

I attended a session at the Agile Tour Toronto conference, facilitated by Derek Wade who stated the position "Agile isn't what you do (it's how you think)".   I thought Derek did a great job of getting his audience to reflect on what they believed Agile represented to them.   The most obvious was a question Derek asked in which he asked for our input on how we characterized Agile.   There were around 10 answers provided, and it struck me that all of them revolved around the people aspect of software development.   Derek didn't guide this result, it just happened.

The focus of the PMI symposium was on the future of project management.   The three keynote speakers of the day focused on where they believed the future of project management lay.   All three focused on the people aspects of the profession, rather than the process.   Again no big surprise as I think as a profession we're learning the greatest value provided comes from our leadership and not the process.

Mary Poppendieck will tell her students "the results are not the point".   I've come to internalize this statement and know the future of software is very dependent on great people!  (actually it always was but I think some lost sight of that)

Make your team the greatest thing going, and they will produce great results!   Find out what makes them tick, and what will inspires them to do their best!    Then help them rise up and be great!    It's amazing what this will do for your software products and the value it delivers.

So back to my title "People ... people ... people!  Does anything else matter?" ... of course there are lots of important things we need to pay attention to.  Just don't miss this important one (because too many people do miss it!)
Next week my blog will touch on the content of the presentation I've been using the past few weeks.   Project management has been my chosen path for 10 years, and now Agile is the perfect compliment which increases the value and I believe is the future!   Project managers have a very important and strategic role in delivering value, but only if it is executed in an agile fashion itself.

Until then ... be Agile!

Mike