Summary: Play Now: This episode is sponsored by The Agile PrepCast for The PMI-ACP Exam: This interview with Jesse Fewell was recorded at the PMI Global Congress 2013 North America in New Orleans. One of the stereotypes for agile approaches is that they only work for small projects. Ten or 15 years ago, that might have been the case, but things are vastly different today. In this interview with Jesse Fewell (http://jessefewell.com/) we discuss how Agile techniques now are used as part of day-to-day project operations, from the largest telecom in Europe to the largest DotCom in the United Kingdom. But how does self-organization work for a thousand people? How can you possibly run a large program without any documentation or architecture? Jesse Fewell gives us the answers by looking at recent trends as well as actionable tips for growing out of small agile to big agile. Below are the first few pages of the transcript. The complete transcript is available to Premium subscribers only. Podcast Introduction Cornelius Fichtner: Welcome back everybody to the PMI Global Congress 2013 here in New Orleans. Jesse Fewell is with me. Podcast Interview Cornelius Fichtner: Hello Jesse! Jesse Fewell: Hello! Cornelius Fichtner: And you will be speaking tomorrow on the topic of "Big Agile: It's Not Just for Small Projects Anymore". Why is it not just for small projects anymore? Jesse Fewell: Well, it's becoming mainstream. I would say that in the 12 years since the formalization of the Agile movement with the Agile manifesto, what was originally considered to be a group of rebellious trend buckers developing a set of practices for their own niche situations has moved from the innovator stage to the early adapter stage and now very deeply into the early majority where the vast majority of global 1000 companies are absolutely using Agile methods somewhere within their organization. I would say, just about single one of the large organizations that I've talked to whether they're based in the US, the UK or in the east are very much using some of these methods in a variety of different capacities including what's most interesting is the trend for larger programs, larger projects, larger initiatives that are trying to use these methods to achieve results. Cornelius Fichtner: Okay! I'm a small company. We use Agile internally because we're a small company. Of course our projects are small in size so my experience with large Agile projects is absolutely zero. You're going to have to guide me through this. Jesse Fewell: Okay. Cornelius Fichtner: The first thought that I have is: 'Wait a minute.' We're talking about it's not just for small projects anymore. Usually Agile teams are small and nimble. So we're talking 5, 7, 10 people maximum, right? Jesse Fewell: That's correct! Cornelius Fichtner: How am I going to have a large project with 5 to 10 people? Jesse Fewell: By having more teams. The sweet spot for teams based on management science and research is that magic number of 7 plus or minus 2. That's the number of nodes in the system where you have the subtle point between too many nodes in the system, too many arts of communication versus not enough skills that you bring to the table in order to get something meaningful done out of a team. So if I have a project of 700 people and the sweet spot is 7 plus or minus 2 people on each team, then I'm going to have a hundred teams. Cornelius Fichtner: Oh okay! Sounds like an administrative nightmare! Jesse Fewell: It absolutely is and it's for that reason that we find that the larger the program, the larger the organization that tries to implement methods, the harder it is. Interestingly enough, the harder it is, the more important it is because the larger the organization, the more difficult it is to turn on a dime, to pivot - to borrow the Lean Startup terminology. What we're seeing in the modern global economy, companies like Microsoft for example are they're complacent. They are ready to move forward witho
