Traditional Project Management Role on a Scrum Project

A “good read” article on Agile Journal, An Agile PM Isn’t What You Think Sub-Head: Where Does Traditional Project Management Fit in an Agile Project Using Scrum

There is always considerable discussion about the role of the Traditional Project Manager on an Agile Scrum Project and this article describes it very well.

In the end, Scrum does not prescribe where the individual currently serving as project manager should go in a Scrum project, only with whom the project management responsibilities lie and, as such, organizations should not assume that project managers always belong in a particular Scrum role.

[Edit 16 Nov 2009]

In another article 10 things a PM needs to know about Agile, the authors go as far as stating

There is no PM role in Agile

Whilst there is no single person performing the role of a PM, the elements and responsibilities of the traditional PM are performed by all the people on an Agile team.

I thought the following statement is quite true

“but who is going to chase them up if they don’t get their work done on time!?” In reality, this is more a fear than a real risk.

Ultimately, organisations and management need to trust individuals and teams to do their work – that’s why they hired them in the first place.