I’ve enjoyed my relationship with my brother-in-law for a long time. We’ve often talked about business and career, sharing where we are at, and the directions we are taking.

Over the past few years Paul has been doing a great job as a project manager in Canberra, in particular his involvement with the Department of Defence in the successful and ambitious e-voting project (Remote Electronic Voting Federal Election 2007). It has been great hearing about his work, and some of the stories around it. He has also been sharing his growing understanding of project management, and some of the courses and information he has been collecting, and applying. I have been listening with interest, and a degree of skepticism, thinking that much of what he has been learning would not apply directly to me, as it seems to be focused on heavyweight/rigorous methods, and I very much prefer working in Agile environments, where good smart people are encouraged to do great work.

So it was with great interest that I was recently listening to him discussing and presenting some of his recent thinking and work around scrum. Paul has been looking at how to apply scrum to government projects, and has some great ideas about this. I was particularly interested to hear what he saw as the strengths that scrum would bring, and the advantages he saw in outcome based results (delivery of working software that meets outcomes) versus delivery based results (traditional waterfall delivery of documentation is part of the results).

I look forward to seeing Paul’s work going forward, and to seeing how he continues to apply agile techniques to his work. If you are in Canberra, and are looking for a great contract or consultant project management, it is well worth talking to Paul and the team at Barton Institute of Management.