PMP Studying: The Agile Practice Guide (Chap 1-5)

I’ve been studying for the PMP but got stuck on what the best study method is for situational exam questions. Of course, I went straight to the source of learning – Dr. Barbara Oakley who taught “Learning How To Learn” at Stanford. She recommended retrieval practice as the best overall learning/memory technique for questions like “what the project manager do if/when XYZ happens?”

That’s what this series (hopefully) will be about: me retrieving what I’ve learned. But, because I am who I am, there will be a fair bit of critique and criticism.

GOING THROUGH AGILE
I’m reading “Agile Practice Guide” and I’ve got a lot, a lot, a lot of problems with it. As a woman, as a Person of the Global Majority, as a person with a disability…the whole philosophy and manifesto plus its peculiar techniques give plenty of space to discrimination, bullying, and harassment. Shocking given that the whole purpose is to be less authoritarian and give more power to the people, right? Thing is, if there aren’t any anti-X policies, you’re liable to get a host of pro-X.

The proof is kind of in the pudding, too. Something like 40%+ of workers in the tech industry believe it’s a toxic environment. Women only make up 30% of tech workers. My brain is too foggy right now to look up other numbers, but in general…it’s an industry dominated by white men.

Granted, I haven’t read the whole thing yet so – no spoilers! – I could be wrong about there not being any safeguards built into the system. Looking at the Agile Alliance website, there aren’t any resources or pages dedicated to diversity…a couple articles and interviews, but I’m not seeing anything that amounts to actual recommendations on how to combat discrimination.

Thus far, here are things that are concerning to me.

Self-Organizing Teams. According to the Practice Guide, a team made up of members with a diverse skill set would assign themselves and each other to different parts of a project or sprint, or whatever. I’ve not found anywhere in the guide any techniques to ensure team members are heard, given equal opportunity to grow and learn, addressing parity when workers have disabilities, and that loud personalities don’t dominate quieter ones.

Fishbowl Windows / Remote Pairing. If you’re a woman, the last thing you want is more opportunity for people to ogle you. We get ogled in the street, in open offices, in stores, in every place that we take up space, someone is ogling us. Why had no one thought about this when suggesting workers be broadcasted live to all locations??? Maybe I’m interpreting this incorrectly, but search results are hazy about the details:

“Create a fishbowl window by setting up long-lived video conferencing links between the various locations in which the team is dispersed. People start the link at the beginning of a workday, and close it at the end. In this way, people can see and engage spontaneously with each other, reducing the collaboration lag otherwise inherent in the geographical separation.” (57)

Again, my main criticism isn’t in the principles of Agile but in how they’re used and why there aren’t safeguard recommendations in place. It’s good that Agile started a conversation about Diversity & Inclusion, I have yet to see anything regarding actual implementation or updating the manifesto. Maybe it’s sacrosanct?