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Wouldn't it make more sense to have a distinct Agile group?

What do you think are the benefits of having questions and answers from this two different worlds in this one group?

Here are some disadvantages that I see: - "project" management keeps many senior agile people out of this channel. Project is something with a foreseeable end... - here questions are asked and advice is given on both kinds of systems (where classic project management makes sense and where complexity kills any classic project management), but we don't make this difference bluntly obvious to everyone. I expect this is a source for a lot of misunderstandings of people reading

I guess my main message is, we are not serving classic pm nor Agile much good by mixing both topics.

What do you think?

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  • How to Ask specifically discourages questions like "I think X, amiright?" - I suspect this question belongs either in meta or in Area 51.
    – MCW
    Apr 25, 2016 at 10:47
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    what is the "meta"?
    – Anton
    Apr 25, 2016 at 10:54
  • 4
    What is "meta"? How does it work?
    – Aziz Shaikh
    Apr 25, 2016 at 10:58
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    What is Area51? Area 51 is the Stack Exchange Network staging zone. It's where groups of experts come together to build new Q&A sites
    – Aziz Shaikh
    Apr 25, 2016 at 10:59
  • Well my question is related to this group. Since Scrum/Agile are the most frequently used tags here, I believe concentrating on these topics and being open about the difference to the classic pm could be a real voost to engagement and much better onboarding for this group.
    – Anton
    Apr 25, 2016 at 11:00
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    Thank you Aziz, now I understand the situation much better. It feels quite frustrating. And still I wonder whether we could do something to new commers of this group to make agilists clear that they can expect their questions to be discussed and make sure people understand how to see what applies to them...
    – Anton
    Apr 25, 2016 at 11:19
  • Just to add another point, depending on the question's context some users post their agile questions on Programmers.SE site as well.
    – Aziz Shaikh
    Apr 25, 2016 at 13:48

5 Answers 5

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While there is merit in your suggestion but such efforts have failed to gather traction in the past. New Stack Exchange sites thrive on traffic and good content. There were such proposals on Area51 but got closed due to low activity. Here are four examples:

  1. http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/7794/scrum
  2. http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/15585/lean-agile-software-development
  3. http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/16601/agile-software-development
  4. http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/76461/agile

These proposals got deleted because:

Inactive proposals that do not receive any activity for one month are subject to deletion.

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    Heck, I didn't even know those were there. Certainly never saw anything posted here.
    – Joel Bancroft-Connors
    Apr 25, 2016 at 13:56
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I find it helpful that the site embraces both classic and agile approaches. I'm relatively new to project management and to agile, and I work in an environment in which classic PM is still expected once we hit a certain point up the management chain. It is helpful to have both discussed so as to learn both languages, compare&contrast strengths & weaknesses, and as a one-stop shop for whichever type of question people want to ask.

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TL;DR

Use tags such as , , or to tag questions and filter your searches for a more optimal experience on PMSE. Questions here cover a wide range of frameworks, and represent a broad cross-section of industry experience.

Analysis

Scrum, Kanban, and Lean are examples of project management frameworks and methodologies, but there are certainly others such as RUP, Six Sigma, Prince2, and many more. This site has tags to help users filter out areas that they're interested in, but having separate stacks for each methodology would simply fragment the user base to no particular purpose.

While questions and answers here do lean towards agile frameworks, that's generally because:

  1. Agile practices are relatively newer, and are less of a "solved problem" within the field of project management.
  2. Agile practices, being somewhat less established than older frameworks, often generate more questions and have less historical data, published studies, or other resources for independent research by practitioners.
  3. The use of newer media like Stack Exchange to discuss newer frameworks like Scrum may represent a self-selection bias.

Despite the foregoing, there's nothing in the stack's charter or implementation that prevents questions about Lean Manufacturing, the Toyota Method, the PMBOK, or any other system practiced by project management professionals. If you want to ask questions about project management in the construction business, or in textiles, there's nothing at all stopping you!

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I guess my main message is, we are not serving classic pm nor Agile much good by mixing both topics.

Questions and answers should be addressing real-life PM problems, regardless of being waterfall / agile (or lean, or Kanban) projects... maybe, a problem faced in a waterfall project could have its solution in a agile methodology. The other way round is also possible.

Assuming we had a specific Agile community, would we be throwing posts back and forth? Wouldn't we have several questions that could fit both?

Besides, the PMSE community is growing, but we haven't make it to the amount of daily questions to leave meta yet (we are amongst the longest betas in SE)... so splitting up the community wouldn't add up much value nor boost the community growth to make it beyond beta.

Lastly, I second CG - tags are available to help identifying contexts. If OPs aren't using it properly, it's up to the community to help them on its usage; If answers are not taking tags into account, it's up to the community to guide them as well.

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  • s/meta/beta =;)-
    – RubberDuck
    May 8, 2016 at 11:49
  • Dear Tiago, I believe the underlining assumption that there is Project management perse and that sometimes classic PM answer are helpful and sometimes agile answers is wrong. This is the main reason for my original concern. You need to know what kind of system you are dealing with complex (agile tools) or complicated (classic tools). If you try to be a "little agile" in an environment that is otherwise shaped by defined process control of a classical PM you are going to make a lot of people unhappy and spoil the term "Agile" for many people (how it is done too often).
    – Anton
    May 8, 2016 at 18:20
  • Hi mate, any specific question + answer you identified here that suggests what you mentioned? I might have not understand what you meant, so an example would explain your point better than an explanation. Cheers!
    – Tiago Cardoso Mod
    May 8, 2016 at 18:28
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Since there is a too small limit to comments here is my reply to Tiagos answer, since I beliebe his remarks helped me get to the core of my argument. (Thank you Tiago):

Dear Tiago, I believe the underlining assumption that there is Project management perse and that sometimes classic PM answers are helpful and sometimes agile answers are helpful, this assumption is wrong. And it can be harmful.

This is the main reason for my original concern. You need to know what kind of system you are dealing with complex (agile tools) or complicated (classic tools). If you try to be a "little agile" in an environment that is otherwise shaped by defined process control of a classical PM you are going to make a lot of people unhappy and spoil the term "Agile" for many people (how it is done too often). E.g. typically dec teams are asked to be more transparent upfront without management having earned any trust for not abusing that, leading to dyfunctions that are then attributes to "Agile".

This I believe is the main reason many senior agile guys would feel comfortable discussing here in the just "Project Management group". And this leads me to my first argument.

I dont think that by having a too wide perspective of questions we are serving the interests of people who join this community best. This is may be the reason its so long in beta mode?

Its like with startups, each community needs its own product market fit. When people say "yeah! I would recommend that to a colleague or a friend." Me as an agile guy I couldnt do that for many of senior agile people I know. And may be its the same for classic pm guys here, I dont know.

I just believe all of this great discussion mechanics that Stack Exchange has developed could be of a great use for the Agile community, but it cant be used now that this group is Project Management, and at the same time discussing mostly agile stuff. Kind of stuck in the middle.

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