If you do, you're probably better off than you think.
In case you're a client or partner of mine and were wondering--- I'm alive and well. I just completed a two-day training on agile project management given by Sanjiv Augustine of LitheSpeed. I have to admit it, I'm kind of a sucker for information organization and process theory.
Even though I may be a process junky, I'm generally pretty skeptical about any type of training. Am I going to learn anything? Will I be able to apply this to what I do? What is the point?
Turns out that agile methods (with their roots in lean production and thus lean thinking) isn't too far a departure from the way that we currently do work. I was amazed at how applicable agile methods are to all types of processes - even the training facilitation. Specifically, we spent a lot of time studying the scrum method.
Agile project management takes the project planning phase and blows it into pieces. Instead of doing all the planning in the beginning and limiting the scope changes throughout the process (and creating huge gantt charts and critical paths and all the other documentation that we know from waterfall/SDLC methods of project management), APM breaks down the requirements and forces a prioritization of those requirements. I think that's probably the scariest part of it all. You then go through an iterative process where you complete a certain amount of functionality within a predetermined time frame and re-evaluate requirements and process at the end of each time frame. Agile methods can really be applied to anything that's iterative.
I won't bore you with the all the details (if you haven't quit reading this far), but it's pretty exciting and could really add a substantial amount of value to the work we're doing for our clients - and in turn, hopefully impact the social change that we are able to facilitate.
