Join BigVisible and coaches Brian Bozzuto and Bob Fischer at this agile-focused PMI Mass Bay Chapter meeting.

Session One: Claiming Agile for Project Managers with Brian Bozzuto
With the increasing prevalence of agile principles and practices within numerous organizations, project managers are finding themselves trying to align the realities of corporate budgets and schedules with the innovative and adaptive practices of agile projects. While some may argue that project managers are not necessary – or even counter productive – in agile projects, this session will explore the real value they can offer to these projects. As more and more professionals embrace agile, its time for project managers to claim their own value within this space and demonstrate how agility and project management can complement one another quite effectively.

The session will discuss:

• The critical role project managers can play in helping Agile project success
• Growing popularity of Agile within the PMI including the Agile Certified Practitioner and the Community of Practice
• The impact Agile is having upon organizations as they embrace agile practices across the enterprise

About Brian Bozzuto
Brian Bozzuto is a principal Agile Coach at BigVisible Solutions. With an extensive background in health insurance and financial service companies, his current focus is supporting teams as they adopt Agile and lean practices and deal with the challenges of organizational change. Brian is an expert helping foster better relations between business and technology to achieve more response projects and better business results. He has a broad range of experience using applying various process improvement frameworks including Scrum, Six Sigma, Lean, and CMMi in large organizations.

Brian has been certified as a Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Scrum Practitioner (CSP). He is one of the founding members of the PMI Agile Virtual Community of Practice and the creator of the annual “Agile Games” conference in Boston.

Session 2: How Can Managers Support a Move Towards Agility?
Companies often choose to adopt agile because they want to respond more effectively to the rapidly changing circumstances in today’s turbulent marketplace. As teams self-organize, managers frequently find themselves in a position where they are no longer playing the same hands on role they did. In this session you’ll learn how you, as a manager, can become an integral part of this adoption and how your support can make the transition more rapid and more effective.

Specifically, the presentation will cover:

• The role of a manager in an agile organization
• The role of a transition team supporting the transition to agile

Bring your questions. This will be an interactive session where you’ll get the chance to address your specific concerns.

About Bob Fischer
Bob Fischer is an Agile trainer, Agile coach, facilitator and change agent, with BigVisible Solutions. He has specialized expertise in the cultural change required to deploy Agile at an enterprise level. His work is shaped by a core belief that a trained, empowered and engaged workforce provides an organization with a strong competitive advantage. Bob has been with BigVisible since May 2008.

Prior to joining BigVisible, Bob was a Vice President at Fidelity Investments, which included responsibility for the deployment of Agile to over 400 people, including both coaching at the team and program level as well as working with functional groups not directly involved in Agile such as Finance, HR, and Process Ownership. The cultural change included getting agreement between the Business Unit President, CIO, CFO, and the head of Product Development on a common strategy for deploying Agile.