PMBOK and Agile

Let me first say that I am looking forward to writing more on project management, software development and my experiences with both on this blog. That being said…

It so happens that I have been pondering Agile management and PMBOK based project management. The group I am working with now is working toward implementing Agile features to their software development cycle. I have been interested in and read considerably on the ideas of Agile for a while, but this has brought it, obviously, more to mind.

As an aside, seems others have been thinking about Agile and PMBOK recently as well. From the LinkedIn Agile Project Management group, I stumbled on a a great series of posts over at Chad Albrecht’s blog on the similarities between PMI theories of project management as outlined in the PMBOK and Agile management theory. I recommend them. They’re a good read.

There have also been several posts on GanttHead.com on the topic as well discussing how to merge Agile ideas into more traditional project management. 

I had been thinking about where the overlap is between PMI project management ideas and Agile. Traditionally, the two ideologies have been seen as at odds with one another mostly because of vocal advocates on both sides. Obviously, you get zealots on either side. You have PMP’s that insist that protocol be followed to the letter. The PMBOK to these folks is the spoken word. These are the folks that love ISO, CMMI and any other acronym they can pull out to provide forced structure.

Then you have Agile zealots that see management as the key constraint to any progress and efficiency. Frankly, they sometimes are right, unfortunately. Management not executed well becomes overbearing and hinders the team’s innovation, progress and efficiency. More on that, though, in another post.

However, are the PMBOK and Agile at odds with one another? Not really.

The PMBOK really illustrates an iterative approach to project management. First, projects are temporary endeavors. If circumstances change in a project—new scope, unforeseen constraints, etc.— it’s the project manager’s job to work with the team to cycle back through the first four steps of a project—initiation, planning, executing, controlling—until the team has what it needs to work and all stakeholders are clear on the work being executed.

What about Agile? First, please pardon my over simplification of Agile ideas.

Rather than projects, Agile teams have releases or builds. They start with some initial planning, take the input of the planning and move into development then testing. All along, scope, load on the team and other impediments are controlled so that the team can operate as efficiently and effectively as possible. Just enough documentation is created to get development going.  Obviously there are differences in the ways that Scrum, XP or Feature Driven Development implement these ideas, but the base is the same.

So what’s the role of the project manager in Agile? Measure the costs; manage budget and stakeholders; evaluate project viability; communicate with the team… all the things a PMI project manager would do.

Sounds vaguely familiar, huh?

I am looking forward to digging into this more in Agile Project Management with SCRUM by Ken Schwaber (Microsoft Press). First I have to get through Making It All Work by David Allen then I will try to get my grubby paws on Schwaber’s book.

Evernote and Launchy Integration

So, as of version 3.0.0.842 for Windows and 1.18 for Mac, Evernote has had scripting capabilities that allow for the automation of, among other things, the addition of notes. You can get notes on the scripting here: http://www.evernote.com/about/developer/.

Well, since this post is about Launchy and Evernote, obviously I am writing about the Windows scripting. There is Mac scripting ability via AppleScript, but I don’t have a Mac, so if anyone cares to share the same thing in AppleScript, please send me an email and I will add a link to this post.

To start with, I really love Evernote because it’s the first app out there that allows me to sync seamlessly between machines. I used to use OneNote, but it was tied to one machine or the other and without Live Mesh or another syncing program, there was no sync. Also, I have a Blackberry, so no mobile notes.

So now, I use Evernote for my GTD implementation and can capture home items and work items anywhere—including on my Blackberry. Great OCR on photos, too. I won’t get into my GTD system here as that’s for another post.

I use Evernote to capture tasks and reference material for just about everything and wanted a quick way to do this at my desk. I ended up using the command line scripting from Evernote to integrate into Launchy.

Setup

Obviously, first you need to have Evernote and Launchy installed. If you don’t have them, go get them.

Environment Variables

Next, you need to find the enscript.exe directory for Evernote and put it in your Windows Path Environment Variable. Typically, the Evernote directory will be
C:\Program Files\Evernote\Evernote3.” Go to Computer in Win 7 or Vista or My Computer in Win XP and right click and select Properties.

From there in Win 7 or Vista, find Change Properties

Then Environment Variables on the Advanced tab

Find the Path variable and add the path to enscript.exe.

Scripting Overview

Let’s look at the scripting, now. One thing to do first is to put a text file in the Evernote directory that simply has a space in it. To add a note to a notebook, you need to pass a text file. I haven’t found a way around this or a way to pass text in through the command line.

The basic format for my note adding script is:

enscript createnote /n NOTEBOOK-NAME /i TITLE /s PATH-TO-TEXT-FILE

So, a script to add a new action to my inbox would be:

enscript createnote /n @inbox /i “Title” /s "C:\Program Files\Evernote\Evernote3\blank.txt"

You can try this out in your command line, but make sure you put that blank.txt file in place first. If you don’t have an @inbox notebook, it will automatically get created.

Launchy Setup

Next, you are ready to setup Launchy. What you are going to do is add to the Runner plugin that Launchy comes with by default. I will show you how to set up a Next Actions list, but this can be repeated for any other notebook or list.

Personally, I set up a new notebook for different lists. You can take a look at the documentation on Evernote scripting to look into using tags to do something similar. I just populate a subject line with a new list item that I can add notes to later if I choose.

To implement in Launchy, first hit Right-Alt and Space to bring up Launchy and click the little gear to get to the Options panel:

Next, go to the Plugins tab and go to Runner. Click the plus sign button at the bottom of the tab to add a new option for runner.

There are three sections you will need to create:

1. The shortcut name that you will type to add a note
2. The script that is being run
3. The parameters

For my inbox, I just call it “in.” For the script, put in enscript. Since this is added to the Windows path, there is no need to give the full path.

Next come the parameters. This was the script that works in the command line:

enscript createnote /n @inbox /i “Title” /s "C:\Program Files\Evernote\Evernote3\blank.txt"

To make it work with Launchy to pass in text for the title, though, you need to replace the word Title with $$. This will then put in any text you enter into Launchy into the title of the note.

Your entry should look something like this:

Setup is done now.

Using It!

Now, just hit Right-Alt and Space to get Launchy. Type in and hit tab. It should look like this:

After the arrow, enter the text for the title and hit Enter.

Open up Evernote and you should see your note.

  

Feel free to leave comments if you have any questions!