For experienced project management professionals, the transition to Agile can be one of the hardest things to do. I would sometimes explain it to people by saying: “It’s like learning to brush your teeth with the left hand, if you’re right-handed.”
It does not come naturally; it takes time and practice. There are a number of habits to unlearn, like the need to have all things under your control and being the center of coordination.
What I want to share with you today, is how to be successful in Agile, by creating new, small habits. You want to become an Agile Project Leader which is a journey that does not come overnight. What if I told you that you could succeed with small habits?
When you choose to go into a new direction, like following an Agile approach when delivering projects, instead of the traditional, waterfall approach, you can do that by using small habits. Take charge in tiny bit-size chunks. This will make change possible and help you to become that person you desire to be, and you know you could be, namely an Agile Project Leader.
How do you create a small habit successfully?
1. Don’t try to change the world overnight. Start with just one new habit and then go from there. Practice to let go of the need to be in control of everything.
2. Make a commitment. Not every habit is created equal, and some take longer to embed in your mind than others. However, one thing is true. The longer you perform the same activity day after day, the more success you will have in creating that habit.
Take the mindset change for example, to adopt a new culture of Agile values. Start with the 4 Values and 12 Principles of the Agile Manifesto, study each one until you properly understand their meaning and the implications of the impact on the way you work. Decide right now that you are going to give this new habit of living the Agile values and principles at least 4 to 8 weeks to give it a proper start.
3. Link the habit to something that already works. If you have a successful habit already in place, ask yourself what small thing you can attach to that habit. For example, if you are already communicating with your team members daily, to add a daily standup would not be that hard, right?
4. Keep it small. Knowing that most habit formation fails because you are trying to do too much too soon, then make a point to keep the changes very small. That will give you a much higher rate of success than trying to create a great big change. For example, keep asking yourself, what is the least documentation we need to do in order to communicate enough detail for the work to continue.
5. Have a disaster plan in place. Knowing that things are going to go wrong from the start helps you to be ready when they do. If you want to step in and tell people what to do to solve a problem (so that you can stay in control), rather take a step back and ask a few questions that will lead the team to find a solution to a problem themselves.
6. Grab a friend. The only way to keep on track, especially when building habits, is to use your network. Have an accountability partner to keep you honest. This is one of the most important success criteria when adopting new habits.
Do it with friends / colleagues who are on the same journey than you, as well as with Agile coaches. They will give you answers and examples of doing things in diverse ways; different from what you thought would be the right way. Often, there is not only one right way. Be open to possibilities and become more creative in your thinking.
7. Reward yourself. Celebrate every little milestone with a reward, something that makes sense and will encourage you to keep going when motivation becomes low.
I used to belong to what is called “Agile Coaching Circles.” They consisted of a group of people who come together every second week at a time that is convenient for all, to discuss Agile topics of their choice. The knowledge sharing and learning that took place, was hugely rewarding and kept me motivated to come back for more.
8. Redefine yourself. Accept that this is the new you. The habits you are building are going to change who you are and how you do thing. Embrace the new identity. Enjoy the experience of doing things in a new way that will make you a good Agile Project Leader and will help you to be successful in delivering value to customers, just like you have been doing before.
By following these steps, you not only will succeed when applying small habits to your life, but over time you will see amazing growth and development as a person. That is pretty exciting, especially when you consider how little you had to do to get there.
Agile Project Leader Online Training
If you want results, and you want to fast-track your learning about Agile, the Agile Project Leader Online training course is just what you need. It will solve the transition challenge for existing project managers and give you the exact strategies, mindset, process and practices to move the needle on successfully implementing the strategic initiatives following an Agile approach. It provides much guidance on various Agile roles, frameworks and different certifications available to help you select the best one. You will find multiple Guides to download for immediate use.
Most project managers use multiple methods and tools to keep organized. We’re tracking people, tasks, files, updates, and changes while trying to make sure the quality of work is up to standard and that deadlines are met. Many companies use Project Management software for collaborative task tracking and communication, and then we supplement with spreadsheets, notebooks, to-do lists, calendar reminders, and, for those of us who are visually minded, bulletin boards.
Task Board
If you need an easy way to keep track of your projects, you may find that a revamped bulletin board, called a task board, can help you maintain a bird’s-eye view of what you’re working on. It also helps when we need backup: the internet goes down, the PM platform is unavailable due to maintenance, or some other issue means you need a physical (not virtual) means of managing of your project.
Depending on how you use it, a task board can tell you what you’ve committed to, what you’re working on, what you’ve accomplished, and whether or not everyone on the project is collaborating well.
Poster Board
One example of a task board is a large piece of poster board divided into three sections: to do, doing, and done. You can color-coordinate sticky notes and place them on the board depending on your needs, whether it’s by the person doing the task, the project, or another system you’ve created that works for you.
Window Board
Another option is to use a window. This takes a little more time to set up, but it can look more elegant since it uses a clear background (glass) instead of paper or brown corkboard. Once you’ve decorated your window and created sections, you use this version of a task board the same way you would the Poster Board.
Corkboard
On a corkboard you can use icons representing the work to be done. Use different paint colours to indicate the To Do and Done sections on the board.
Magnetic Board
Beyond the poster board, window, and cork board, you can also use a magnetic board. Each of these options have their own pros and cons, and then you have more than a few options for how to organize your projects on each.
Whatever you end up doing, if you use the task board in your office, it may help your team if you hang it in an area with high traffic so they can see at a glance where a project stands. In Agile this concept is known as an Information Radiator.
Benefits of a Task Board
Furthermore, to make it more interesting for everyone, try using photos of each team member instead of just their name: This can reduce confusion and make the board and its tasks feel even more important. For PMs who work remotely, task boards can serve as a colourful way to decorate your home office space, with the added benefit of making the work visible. If you can, put the board on the wall behind you so that it’s visible on video calls and during online meetings.
Task boards are excellent tools for any kind of project, especially Agile projects. Your team will appreciate a task board because it’s easy to update and shows valuable information in a visually appealing, easy-to-understand way.
If you’d like to learn more about task boards, check out this infographic, with compliments from Quill. It goes into detail about each type of task board and different ways of organizing the information on your board. You can also, of course, make your own completely unique task board that suits your project and flow of work. This infographic will give you a great place to start.
When I first transitioned to Agile, coming from a traditional project management background, I quickly realised that one of the keystones to become successful in Agile, would be to change my mindset. The mindset that needs to be adopted, is the Agile mindset, based on a set of key values and principles designed to better enable collaborative work and deliver continuous value through a “people-first” orientation. This means a huge move away from being very process driven and a focus on output (PMI’s PMBOK has 10 knowledge areas and 49 processes after all); to becoming more people focused and outcome driven. What a shift to make for any experienced professional project manager! Many project professionals rightfully ask how do they become credible Agile Project Leaders? This article aims to answer that question.
For the past few years many organisations have been on a mission to improve their Organizational Agility, meaning their capability to quickly sense and adapt to external and internal changes to deliver relevant results in a productive and cost-effective manner. The need to become more agile, has been fast-tracked by the world-wide COVID epidemic.
According to the PMI Report: Achieving greater agility, 2017, companies will be successful if they build a culture of Agility. Culture is a critical enabler. It needs to be a culture of readiness that supports flexible processes and employee training in support of agile practices. Those who succeed gain considerable efficiencies.
The Report goes further to state that 88% of organisations with high agility realise significant benefits including more efficient and effective processes and higher customer and employee satisfaction. These organisations are more likely to align their projects with strategic objectives which is critical to benefits realisation and success.
The Role of Project Leaders and the PMO
In addition to executives to advocate agility, project leaders could become evangelists for greater agility. In organisations with high agility, it is noted that 77% have an agile PMO or agile working group who are leading Agile Transformation. Successful transformation commonly requires new approaches in fundamental areas of business. Those include budget cycles, hiring practices, procurement practices, and role delineation.
An agile oriented PMO has a customer-collaboration mindset. In many cases, this means the PMO operates as an internal consultant, tailoring project delivery approaches to accommodate resources, timelines, and overall business needs, even as they change. Based on a documented case study in the PMI report, of TD Bank, the PMO can continue to perform similar functions than before, like:
Establishing standards
Serving as the Centre of Excellence
Educating the organization
Training and building talent
To achieve the above there are practical ways for a PMO to support and lead an organisation’s agile transformation. The PMO leaders need to become subject matter experts in agile. Develop and/or acquire the expertise to help guide agile practitioners, develop training, and establish a community of practice that provides coaching services. They need to define the value proposition of agile and the PMO’s role in agile delivery. Help the organization define the agile target state and a roadmap to get there. Drive the change beginning with successes in project delivery and extending it beyond projects to business agility. Build the capacity by acquiring and/or retooling the workforce with the necessary agile skills, build a culture of agile within the project delivery organization, apply agile concepts to all projects regardless of delivery method.
The Agile Project Manager
Where does the Project Manager fit in and continue delivering value in the agile context? Project Managers need more than technical skills. To sense change they need to be well informed about an organization’s strategic objectives and how their projects align. They need to forge strong relationships with business owners who request projects as well as with the functions that support them (e.g., finance, legal, risk management, and HR). Those with leadership skills and strong business acumen, can lead strategic initiatives and play a role to ensure projects stay aligned with strategic goals. Agile Project Managers will help to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of how work gets done, including identifying unnecessary steps in work processes, as well as to share essential information broadly with all stakeholders.
The PMI Report: What’s next? Identifying new ways of working, Dom Price, a Futurist and Head of R&D at Atlassian is of the opinion that Project Managers will take on a more strategic role by managing for complexity, ambiguity, agility, and communication. As knowledge workers they will continue to learn and grow their strategic value. Project, Program and Portfolio Management will drive innovation and change by playing their role to enable the organisation to navigate change every day.
In a case study from AstraZeneca, they have evolved their PMO and Project Management capabilities by demonstrating the value of project management to build trust across the organisation, by:
involving project managers to identify smart and efficient processes,
improve ways of working,
streamline key areas such as risk management, planning, and control.
Enterprise-wide agility really requires everyone to understand what agility means—that it’s the capability to quickly sense and adapt to external and internal changes to deliver relevant results in a productive and cost-effective manner. Everyone also needs to adopt agile practices. The PMI Report conclude how project leadership can facilitate and advocate organisational agility by supporting the following:
Remove impediments and streamline processes when working with other areas of the business, such as HR and finance
Expose and communicate bottlenecks
Align stakeholder needs
Advocate for training in agile practices
How to be a credible Agile Project Leader
How do Project Managers become credible experts in Agile? To answer this question, I’m going to use guidance shared by Jo Ann Sweeney, a transformational change consultant based in the UK.
“To be viewed as a credible expert, you need to know the subject inside out, but expertise is not just about our knowledge on the topic. Substance does come first; close behind comes sincerity and passion.”
She explains that you don’t need to know everything about a topic. You need to be honest about the gaps in your knowledge, respect expertise in others and have a passion for your topic aligned with a passion for sharing. Credibility comes from three things:
your confidence – how you view and present yourself
your character – the innate qualities that make us unique based on your trustworthiness, respectfulness, responsibility, fairness, caring and social responsibility
your capabilities – your knowledge, skills and aptitudes; the natural talents you’re born with and develop throughout your life when you interact with others as well as learning through academia, training, mentoring and coaching
What’s next
I would say that experienced project managers (often PMP’s) have confidence based on their past experiences and ability to lead projects. They are able to display character, based on upholding the ‘Code of Ethics’ and professional conduct expected of project professionals. And any gap in capability can be addressed by training and coaching. There are various good certifications to consider for Agile, see this article for more information.
In a Techrepublic.com article, Allen Barnard stated that tech-savvy project professionals with business skills are highly valued for their ability to understand and facilitate change. The trend is to solve problems by using a design-thinking perspective. This means you view challenges from different stakeholders’ point of view and generate ideas to address them with clients. To facilitate these types of problem-solving approaches, project managers will need to develop leadership and technical skills, as well as empathy to build the strong relationships that are required to support organizational change.
There is a massive contribution to be made while helping organisations to build their Agile culture. An Agile Project Leader can help with establishing standards, to educate, to train and to align stakeholder needs. Do use your strengths of improving processes and enabling teams towards high performance. In a world with so much change, Agile Project Leaders are ideally positioned to help executives to turn their ideas into reality.
Sources
PMI report: Pulse of the Profession 2021 Beyond Agility
What’s next? Identifying new ways of working, 2018
Forbes.com: Agility, not efficiency, is the key to business success In 2021, by Sherry Suski. December, 2020.
TechRepublic.com: Project managers playing larger role in organizational agility. February, 2020.
PMI Thought Leadership Report – Achieving greater agility, the critical need for cross-functional support, 2017
The purpose of this article is to give you a summary of the changes in The Scrum Guide 2020 that was released on 18 November 2020 by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. These changes were made with input from the community of Scrum users around the globe. This updated version helps bring Scrum to all industries and organizations. The 2020 Scrum Guide also includes updates to several major elements of the Scrum framework.
What hasn’t changed
Scrum is still a lightweight framework to solve complex problems and deliver value. Scrum is still about a cross-functional team of people collaborating closely with one another and their stakeholders. as a team, they create valuable and useful increments every sprint.
What has changed
There are a number of changes in the Scrum Guide.
It’s less prescriptive, simpler language is used and software-specific terminology has been removed
changes to some definitions, e.g., scrum definition, empiricism, product backlog, sprint goal, sprint backlog, increment, definition of done
elements added or their relationships clarified, e.g., the “commitments” product goal (new), sprint goal and definition of done
the concept of a development team within a scrum team was removed to reduce the potential for dysfunctions between the product owner and the development team (“us vs. them”) and focus the entire scrum team on the same objective
a scrum team now consists of the product owner, developers, and the scrum master. the people doing the work of creating a usable increment are called developers
the “entire scrum team is accountable for creating a valuable, useful increment every sprint. The developers are accountable for all aspects of creating the usable increment
the terms “accountable” and “responsible” are used more consistently, and “roles” is replaced by “accountabilities”
the scrum guide now uses the terms “self-managing” and “self-management” to emphasize that scrum teams choose “who, how and what to work on” whereas the scrum guide 2017 used the terms “self-organizing” and “self-organization” to describe that development teams chose “who and how to do work”
the term servant-leader was removed, and scrum masters are now described as “true leaders who serve the scrum team and the larger organization”
sprint planning now has three topics: “why is this sprint valuable?”, is the new first topic
the purpose of events is clarified and the description how to conduct them is less prescriptive
a “product goal” is introduced, serving as a target and describing a future state of the product
it is clarified that multiple increments can be delivered within a sprint, even prior to the end of a sprint. sprint review is not a gate to releasing value.
Get your copy today
To download the latest copy of the Scrum Guide 2020, click here. You will also find a series of articles, blogs, videos and more that pertain to the 2020 version of the Scrum Guide released on November 18, 2020.
Recently I was involved with setting up the Governance guidelines for our Agile Delivery Framework at work. I realized that many Agile Project Leaders would benefit from a break-down of the what, the why and the how of governance on Agile projects, especially in an enterprise organization.
Definition of Governance
There are a few good definitions for governance in an agile context. I liked the following ones.
“Governance is the alignment of an initiative (project, programme or product development) with organisational goals to create value. Governance defines how the initiative is set up, managed and controlled. Agile governance is the application of Lean-Agile values, principles and practices to the task of governance.”
Disciplined Agile (DA)
“Agile governance is a process that projects or programs apply to ensure that projects are aligned with the needs or expectations of their stakeholders as well as ensuring that delivery of such projects while adhering to the existing protocols consisting of lean-based agile principles and practices that are applicable in agile-focused projects or programs.”
“Governance establishes chains of responsibility, authority and communication in support of the overall enterprise’s goals and strategy. It also establishes measurements, policies, standards and control mechanisms to enable people to carry out their roles and responsibilities effectively.”
The following principles are recommended by Disciplined Agile for effective governance in agile:
Collaboration with delivery teams is more effective than trying to force them to conform. IT professionals are intellectual workers, the type of people whom are more likely to do what you want when you work with them to do so rather than tell them to do so.
Enabling teams to do the “right thing” is more effective than trying to inspect it in. One examples would be when you want developers to follow common coding conventions. Instead of doing code inspections, it would be easier to adopt a code analysis tool such as CheckStyle and include it in your continuous integration (CI) strategy.
Continuous monitoring provides more timely insight than quality gate reviews. Team dashboards that use business intelligence (BI) technology to display real-time measures generated by the use of your development tools have become very common in the past few years. This enables both the team and their stakeholders to monitor the team’s progress in a continuous real-time manner. This is much more effective than traditional “quality gate” reviews of artifacts because the information displayed on the dashboards is automatically generated.
Transparency into teams provides better insight than status reports. Through application of strategies such as information radiators, team dashboards and active stakeholder participation, the work of a disciplined agile delivery team is effectively transparent.
Axelos.com also provides four guiding principles to enable successful governance of Agile delivery
Governance should mirror the Agile manifesto principles, particularly the art of simplicity – maximizing the work not done is essential
Agile delivery teams decide on the empirical performance metrics they will use and self-monitor. Teams quantify their performance and use the data to improve. Teams display progress status information visually, updating it frequently. This makes progress transparent to everyone including senior management.
Collaboration is an essential change in mindset. As drivers of strategy and direction, senior leadership champion the implementation of an agile culture for the whole organization. A transparent culture surfaces issues or blockers without fear of blame. Good agile governance and by extension successful organizations share knowledge, collaborate and remove barriers that foster organizational silos. Delivery teams are therefore given an environment, workspace and tools to collaborate, self-organize and deliver.
Independent reviews of Agile delivery should focus on the teams’ behaviours and practices and not just processes and documentation. When using Agile, the mindset for the organization is to adapt the governance, assurance and approval processes, and to consider different indicators of success. The usual principles of assurance remain but assessment relies more on observation and engagement with the delivery team and stakeholders, rather than reporting and information reviews.
In conclusion Axelos is saying that agile governance is about defining the fastest route that brings the most value.
Why Agile Delivery Governance?
A good agile delivery governance strategy will enable and motivate IT delivery teams to do the following.
Fulfill your organization’s strategies and objectives
Regularly and consistently create real business value
Provide appropriate return on investment (ROI)
Deliver consumable solutions in a timely and relevant manner
Work effectively with their project stakeholders
Adopt processes and organizational structure that encourage successful IT solution delivery
Present accurate and timely information to project stakeholders
Mitigate the risks they face.
How Disciplined Agile Teams Are Governed
DA recommends strategies that enable delivery governance. These strategies are: (my summarized view)
Enterprise awareness. Agile teams need to realize that they work within your organization’s enterprise ecosystem, as do all other teams. There are often existing systems in production that should not be negatively impacted by the release of the solution they are working on. They will work with other teams in parallel, striving to leverage each other’s work. They will work towards your organization’s business and technical visions. Enterprise awareness is the underpinning of effective governance.
Release planning. High-level release planning happens early on when you identify and think through any dependencies on other teams and try to identify a reasonable cost and time estimate for the current release that they are working on. The high-level plan is kept up-to-date as development progresses, and shared with stakeholders. Release planning enables the team to answer critical governance questions regarding projected schedule and cost.
Team dashboard. The tools used by your team should be instrumented to record important events when they occur. For example, your team management tool could record when a work item is defined, when work begins on it, when the work is validated (if appropriate), and when it is marked done. This sort of information can be recorded in a data warehouse and later reported on using business intelligence (BI) tooling via a project or portfolio dashboard. The real-time, accurate information radiated by a team dashboard enables the team to make better decisions and provides better transparency to stakeholders (including governance people).
Information radiators. An information radiator is a visible display that shows something of interest to a team or their stakeholders like a whiteboard with an architecture sketch on it, or a wall-mounted monitor showing the team’s dashboard. Information radiators enable better governance by increasing transparency.
Active stakeholder participation. Active stakeholder participation is the practice of having on-site access to stakeholders, or at least their proxies (i.e. Product Owners). Active stakeholders have the authority and ability to provide information and make timely decisions regarding the prioritization and scope of requirements. This enables more effective governance through improving the team’s access to decision makers.
Demos. Typically, at the end of each iteration, teams which follow Scrum, will demonstrate the solution to key stakeholders and invite feedback. This practice is also called stakeholder demonstration or sprint demonstration. This enables effective governance by increasing transparency and providing better opportunities for stakeholders to steer the team.
Coordination meetings. The team meets daily, to coordinate their activities. This practice is often called a scrum meeting or daily stand up meeting. This enables tactical governance within the team itself through increasing internal transparency and reducing the feedback cycle within the team.
Light-weight, risk-based milestones. Effective reviews are as simple and short as possible. A small co-located team will spend an hour walking the PO and business stakeholders through whatever is to be reviewed. For larger efforts this could be up to half a day in regulatory environments more time and effort need to be invested, particularly around creation and baselining of artifacts to be reviewed and recording of action items from the review.
Retrospectives. A retrospective is a facilitated reflection meeting performed by the team, with the goal of identifying potential areas of improvement, supporting your overall governance goal of continuous improvement.
These strategies support a light weight approach to governance while improving the overall effectiveness of the team.
Governance Practices and Principles
Finally, an International Journal article published in sciencedirect.com summarised Agile practices and principles to be followed for Governance as follows.
Ensure value driven delivery – use end solution orientation
Ensure stakeholder engagement
Boost team performance practices
Establish a transparent collaborative work environment
Utilise adaptive planning
Welcome changes throughout the project
Employ problem detection and resolution
Employ continuous improvements in products, people and processes
Conduct Value Measurements by considering strategic objectives, metrics, targets and savings.
Agree Agile metrics to be used on Portfolio level as well as on Program and Team level
The focus is on delivering outputs and results, rather than tasks and milestones. Strive for simplicity – bring just enough process and documentation, while keeping a constant balance between rigidity and responsiveness of methods, processes and tools.
In conclusion it seems that agile teams are significantly easier to govern than traditional teams as a result of greater transparency and accurate and timely development data.
Most project management professionals are aware of the project management trend of the accelerated shift from Waterfall to Agile Project Management as the only way to deliver on benefits in a dynamic and complex environment in order to learn and adapt quickly.
When project managers find themselves moving into agile due to this shift, what does it mean for the careers of these professionals?
For one thing, project managers will have to transition from following the typical traditional life cycle on projects to an agile approach like Scrum as an example of one of the most popular approaches.
Furthermore, on agile project the triple constraint changes from having a fixed scope with time or cost being variable/ negotiable, to scope/feature being the variable part that will be negotiated, based on the needs of the customer.
Daunting Journey
This can be quite a daunting journey and puzzling to highly experienced project professionals to position themselves as an Agile Project Manager or an Agile Project Leader. There are a multitude of agile frameworks in the new paradigm to increase organsiations’ agility. Most project management professionals will find it challenging to get into that space where people can follow your lead, like they have been for years.
Quite often people will feel like they are starting from scratch. There is this long journey of having to adopt an Agile mindset, to go for Agile training and possibly become certified in a new role, and then to become completely familiar and competent with the Agile principles and practices that need to be followed daily.
How the Project Manager role is changing
Project Managers need a different mindset and be practicing the values and principles of agile. PM’s need a working knowledge of agile frameworks and how to best apply them in your organisational context. They need to apply new tools and techniques and let go of being centre of coordination.
As a facilitator and coach they need to build collaborative decision-making environment. And in the Leadership space, they should focus on people rather than process.
Challenges during the transition
As part of the change there are things that we need to stop doing and start doing. Both are equally hard to do.
Agile is fast paced, disciplined and demanding. In high-change projects, there’s more complexity than one person can manage. Instead, cross-functional teams coordinate their own work and collaborate with the business representative PO. PM are accustomed to being at the centre of coordination for a project, while tracking and representing a project’s status to the rest of the organization. This will need to shift from being the center to serving the team and management.
As agile project leaders there is a change in emphasis to coaching people who want help, to foster greater collaboration on team, and to encourage improved team performance due to the inspect and adapt approach.
The agile project leader needs to align stakeholder needs. Ensure appropriate engagement of all stakeholders, as the Product Owner (PO) is not always correctly positioned or skilled to do so. It’s really important to be very effective in stakeholder engagement to remain valuable. It doesn’t matter what you are called as long as you are clear about how you fit into the totality of project responsibilities.
Focus on the outcome (rather than output) and on what needs to be done to achieve client acceptance. Use judgment in aligning your approaches to the demands of the project. It undoubtedly means that project managers, must adapt our roles to the context.
Other Research Perspectives
Based on agile guidance from the Project Management Institute (PMI), it is said that each project is unique and that project success is based on adapting to the unique context of the project. Determine the most appropriate method to produce the desired outcomes.
Tailoring the approach is iterative and it will be a constant process throughout the project lifecycle. Depending on the project, objectives and stakeholders, use just enough process to achieve the desired outcome, while maximising value, managing costs and enhancing the speed. Tailor with a holistic perspective of the business environment, the team size, the degree of uncertainty and the complexity of the project. Then discuss and agree as a team on the best delivery approach and resources required.
Furthermore, it is good to remember that a Certified Project Manager (PMP) or other qualified project management professional is one of the most highly trained and skilled knowledge workers in the organization. Reducing the available pool of knowledge workers as an asset is highly questionable. Smart organizational leaders find ways to include everyone who can contribute to the overall success of developing products and services that meet customer demands.
Trained Project Management professionals are equipped with key characteristics:
Leadership,
Influencing
Team building
Motivation
Communication
Facilitation
Decision making
Political and cultural awareness
Negotiation
Trust building
Conflict management
Coaching
You can be confident about what it is that you bring to the table with your skills and experience.
Options in Agile
There are multiple agile frameworks to choose from, but one of the most popular is the Scrum approach and in an enterprise organization, it will need to be scaled.
Scrum has very defined roles like the Product Owner (PO) and Scrum Master (SM). You will find an overlap between PO and PM:
Both concerned about projects meeting their objectives
Negotiating work with teams
Managing scope, time and budget
Managing stakeholder communications
Similarly, there is an overlap between the roles of the SM and the PM, namely:
Leadership
Excellent communicator, facilitator
Conflict Manager
Analyst & lateral thinker
Content knowledge
People’s person
Enabler
In the corporate enterprise environment where all three roles are often present on strategic Programmes, you’ll see a distinct difference in terms of the focus areas and responsibilities.
A Product Owner
The PO is concerned about the overall scope and he’s responsible for the product backlog prioritization
The PO is responsible for the quality of delivery from a User Story acceptance, Definition of Done (DoD), sprint and release perspective.
The PO needs to know about the Release status and is involved with Scrum events like backlog refinement, end-of-sprint review and demo as well as sprint planning (what is required).
From a financial perspective, the PO is part of the Cost management and responsible for benefit realization.
Scrum Master
The SM’s concerns are the sprint goal and sprint backlog, as well as sprint prioritization.
The SM looks at the velocity of the team, driving delivery.
The SM is responsible for scrum events like the Daily standup, sprint planning and retrospective.
For status the SM looks at daily status (updates on tool), sprint status
Risks and issues management from the perspective of helping to remove impediments, blockers.
Project Manager
The PM will look at the overall agile project life cycle and is responsible for compiling a Conceptual Sprint Plan (CSP) view of the project.
The PM will look at Release planning and integration aspects within the project, as well as with external projects and vendors or stakeholders.
PM is still involved in many meetings like Steercom, Scrum of Scrum (SoS) and Change Control
The PM is concerned about overall status feedback to the Steercom and the Project Management Office (PMO).
The PM is responsible for risk and issue management and escalations.
The PM does Cost management – planned/forecasts and actuals.
Project Manager & SM combined
Another option is where people have combined the role of a PM with that of a SM in the context of a consulting company serving customers, while fulfilling both roles on some projects or just the PM role on other projects.
Source: Shama Bole – plastergroup.com
Project Manager in SAFe
Based on another source: PMI Conference Paper by D Cornelius, PMI Global Congress, Oct 2014, the Paper evaluated the PM role using the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) practice. Since SAFe includes portfolio, program, and project levels, it provides the best opportunity for the PM to use the skills obtained from PM training. It will fulfill the role as Release Train Engineer (RTE). In this context the PM is also seen as a coach and facilitator.
The same Paper describes a trend where the PM practice is accepted as a key desired management skill and it moves project leadership from a specialized role back to the functional managers responsible for day-to-day operations. Project management is also one of the key courses required of students in MBA programs to ensure future business leaders obtain the knowledge to plan and execute projects. The elevation of project management as a key knowledge area for business leaders also will play a role in the reduction of the PM a specialized role.
The Paper concluded that the certified PM is a highly skilled knowledge worker that is capable of adding value in a lean and agile world, some-one who will participate effectively in enterprise agile organizations.
When a PM is deployed in a Scrum-only environment it limits the PM’s choices to participate as the Product Owner, a Scrum Master or a Scrum of Scrum Master (scaled).
The SAFe landscape provides the best opportunity for the professional PM to use their skills obtained from PM training. In Scrum @Scale, there is a Scrum of Scrum Master which could also be a good match for PM skills.
The PM is expected to lead by influence without authority. In the lean and agile world, the PM must become a servant leader which is only difficult when previous experience has been a command-and-control model, but In my opinion not so much if your leadership style was more facilitative and adaptive based on the context of the project. An agile PM provides a value that enables continual learning and improvement to members in the organization.
What Agile Project Leaders need for success
You need to work on growing skillsets beyond your area of expertise.
You need to tailor delivery approach based on the context.
It will be very valuable if you can coordinate between different systems, methodologies while coaching the teams in a singular direction.
You need to delegate control of detailed product planning and delivery to the team.
Focus on building a collaborative decision-making environment.
Ensure teams have the ability to respond to changes.
In an adaptive environment, you will use adaptive planning.
High emotional Intelligence with a focus on people rather than process.
Stakeholder engagement continuously and appropriately for the project needs.
Changed Leadership styles calling for situational and servant leadership.
You can transform yourself to become an agile project leader by knowing what your options are and by deciding where is the best fit based on your strengths, experience and value-add. Commit to continuous learning.
You will enjoy a stimulating work environment while your needs for variety, being autonomous and a change-maker are met.
Let us know what you think about the transitioning of project managers to agile?
As a Project Management Professional and Agile Practitioner, the startup of a new project is one of the most important activities to lead. There is a good chance that if you start well, you will also finish well.
How do you start an Agile project if you are working in an enterprise organization with a mix of projects ranging from the traditional plan-driven (waterfall) projects to agile projects to a more hybrid agile approach?
The purpose of this article is to provide you with guidelines for starting an agile project as an Agile Project Leader. It is based on my own experience as a professional project manager who has made the transition to following an agile approach.
Hybrid Agile
Let’s first clarify what I mean by a hybrid agile approach. Hybrid agile approaches typically combine traditional (predictive) and agile elements. Whereas a blended approach combine two (or more) similar approaches. So, using a combination of Scrum and XP is a blended agile approach since they are both agile to begin with.
According to Mike Griffiths, in his article on Projectmanagement.com, called “Flavors of Hybrid Agile”, he explains that the goal of combining project approaches is to create something better suited for our current environment than using either a pure agile or pure traditional (predictive) approach. He promotes the argument of being smart about the tools we use and to choose the best approaches for the circumstances we face. I have to agree with being pragmatic about this and to apply our efforts where we have the most influence. In the end it’s about the results.
Agile Project Lifecycle
One example of such a hybrid agile approach that I have worked with before, is below.
You start with a phase called Inception and in the case of a really large program, there will be pre-work, sometimes called the Pre-Inception. As expected you will do analysis, developing, testing and deploying in every iteration during Development . You still do development, testing and test automation in every sprint, but instead of releasing to production, you will release to a test environment (sometimes called Acceptance).
You then have a phase for testing that a new solution will work end-to-end, called Stabilization. This is usually applicable in an IT environment where the new solution (system) needs to integrate with multiple existing applications. In normal Agile, a test iteration at then end, is also called a ‘hardening sprint’.
Once the end-to-end testing has been completed, it will be followed by user acceptance testing, also known as UAT, where end-users will test actual business like scenarios to ensure that the new solution is performing as expected. Only when UAT is signed off, the solution is deployed to production during the Deployment phase.
During the Inception phase, you will review the Business Case (in the case of a formal strategic project), confirm the scope, plan for the project (sprints), ensure team members are trained, elaborate the requirements and establish the infrastructure plan, including hardware, software and various environments to work within (development, testing and production environments).
Startup
Typically, there needs to be a Project Kick-off workshop where the Product Vision and Scope of Work is shared with all the stakeholders. On a high level the business requirements, the in scope work, the key stakeholders as well as the agile approach are presented.
Next is the Release Planning where the conditions of satisfaction are agreed, for example the expected timeline for the project, the scope including the Product vision and roadmap, the epics (and user stories), as well as the budget.
The release plan activities will include agreement on the scope, in other words which epics and user stories will deliver the scope. Next you want to gain consensus on user story estimates. Then you need to determine the team’s capacity for completing the work. The activities are explained very well in this picture, adapted from ‘Mike Cohn – Agile Estimation and Planning’
If you are used to looking at a project planning as a process, it will look something like this.
The Team
Another important step in the startup process, is the Team Formation which will consist of several onboarding activities.
With each team that will be part of the project, you want to develop a Team Charter in which the project team’s vision, the objectives, and the team member roles and responsibilities are covered. The team also needs to develop a Working Agreement to agree aspects like:
Whatever agile approach has been decided on by the Management and Development teams, as fit for purpose based on the context of the organization, it needs to be documented as a process and explained and agreed with the overall team members.
The Tools
One thing that my experience has taught me, is that you need sufficient tools to support your agile process. Many people love Excel, but it certainly won’t be enough. Although it could be a good starting point, there are people who like to export data from electronic systems and use Excel to track the progress of the work. Try to stick to one system that will be the single source of truth, especially if coordination is required among multiple Development teams.
The tools can be as simple as physical white boards with stickies, so that the work in every sprint is visible and the stickies can be moved during daily standups. Impediments can also be clearly indicated so that action can be taken.
The tools can also be electronic task management systems with ‘whiteboards’ that allow for backlog refinement and boards that will make the work visible for teams to share and discuss. There are multiple good tools available in the market today and it’s up to the organization to find a tool suitable for their needs.
Ready, steady, go
At the end of Inception phase, the backlog will be ready and in a healthy state. This means that User Stories are adhering to the INVEST principle (Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable), they have acceptance criteria, estimates and meet the Definition of Ready (DOR), based on what was agreed for them to be ready.
The Product Owner(s) will work with the teams to prioritise the work and it will be an ongoing refinement process before every sprint. Feedback will be provided and based on the inspect and adapt principle of agile, there will be continuous improvement in every sprint.
This is a very short synopsis of what it entails to start an agile project successfully. The aim is to give guidance and to provide a logical sequence of steps to be taken. As always, every project is unique, every organization is different, and as an Agile project leader you need to take your context into consideration to decide on the best approach for your situation.
The 14th annual State of Agile report has been published by Digital.ai, formerly known as CollabNet VersionOne. The report documents the experiences of more than 1,100 IT and business professionals across a range of industries and roles worldwide. With 40,000 participants contributing over 14 years, the State of Agile report is the longest running and most widely cited Agile survey in the world and provides global enterprises with comprehensive data to benchmark and guide their Agile practices.
Key findings
Notable findings from the 14th annual State of Agile report, completed in December 2019, include:
60 percent of respondents have increased speed to market
Risk and compliance continue to trend upward, as the value of identifying and measuring technical risk prior to deployment increased by 54 percent and the importance of automated audit compliance and governance across control points increased by 10 percent over last year.
A significant shift in Agile techniques occurred, as product road-mapping increased nine percent while release planning decreased 11 percent. Drivers for this change may include a general increase in continuous integration/continuous deployment and better-defined program increment planning.
The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) continues to be the most popular scaling method cited by respondents, increasing 5 percent over last year and outpacing the number two choice, Scrum@Scale, by 19 percent.
55 percent are planning to implement Value Stream Management (VSM) a combination of people, process, and technology that maps, optimizes, visualizes, measures, and governs business value flow from idea through development and into production.
Interesting demographic analysis is showing that companies with more than 20,000 people were more likely to be practicing Agile for at least five years. While companies with less than 1,000 people continue to mature quickly and are increasingly embracing a broader view of business agility by applying Agile principles to areas of the business outside development, IT, and operations.
How COVID-19 affected Agile adoption
In mid-May 2020, Digital.ai conducted a brief supplemental survey of respondents to learn how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected their Agile adoption. The findings reveal:
55% say their company plans to increase the use of Agile in the next 12-14 months. This is an increase of 13 percent over the original survey completed just five months ago.
43% of organizations say their momentum for Agile adoption has increased over the past 90 days, with 15 percent saying it has increased significantly.
33% say they increased or expanded Agile adoption in the last 90 days to help manage distributed teams.
To find out what the survey reveals about Agile methods and practices, Agile benefits, scaling Agile, Agile Project Management tools, success and metrics as well as Devops and Value Stream Management, please download the 14thState of Agile Report here.
As a Project Management Professional, one of the best ways to keep learning, is by attending Conferences. You get access to the latest industry trends, research, key note speakers and best of all, the connection and engagement with fellow practitioners, is priceless.
Here you will find a list of excellent project management conferences as well as agile gatherings that are planned for 2020 and will take place in different parts of the world. Most of them offer early bird discounts; so it’s a good idea to plan ahead and to register as early as possible.
Project managers can learn how to create a technical project management environment covering different project management frameworks, life cycle, terminology and how to successfully lead teams. It will provide you networking opportunities so you can get in touch with hundreds of project management professionals.
Click here for more information.
International Conference on Lean Six Sigma and Project Management
Date: 21 – 22 February 2020
Location: Paris, France
The International Conference on Lean Six Sigma and Project Management is another event from the International Research Conference organization aiming to connect scientists from all over the world to consider Lean Six Sigma and PM challenges and suggest brand-new solutions and ideas.
Click here for more information.
MARCH 2020
PMI Sweden Passion for Projects Conference
Date: 9 – 10 March 2020
Location: The Clarion Hotel and Congress in Malmö Live, Sweden
PMI Sweden is an event with inspiring speakers, professional colleagues, and companies in different sectors gathered with the goal of sharing their knowledge and experience in project, portfolio, and programme management. The theme: “Orchestrating projects in a transformative world”.
This Baltic States conference’s theme is “Project Management Development – Practice and Perspectives.” Its focus is on discussing scientific research related to project management issues and to encourage networking between professionals in the industry.
The Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP) is hosting their annual conference this year with the theme: “The Future of Work”.
It is your chance to network with other professionals who are spearheading change. The opening keynote speaker is Jacob Morgan, author and founder of the Future of Work University. It is being hosted at the Anaheim Marriott within walking distance of Disneyland making this a great conference to combine business with a vacation.
The focus of this conference, hosted by Scrum Alliance, will be on taking Agile to the next level in your organization. There is a good mix of presentations, hands-on workshops and coaching. #SGNYC20 has a number of themes.
Agile & Beyond is a grassroots, volunteer run conference that helps people learn about agile principles and practices as well as covers topics that help make people and companies awesome. With pre-conference workshops and over 130 conference sessions, there is a wide variety of topics for the agile newbie all the way to the agile expert.
This year’s theme is “Power of Projects.” It is one in a series of three conferences, with other events happening in Edinburgh and Manchester. You don’t need to be a member of APM to attend.
The PMO event, focused on portfolio, program, and project offices, suggests you to discover innovative approaches to your work. Join to get informed about the latest PMO research, next-generation solutions, and exchange insights with your peers.
The EMEA Congress 2020 will teach you the concepts, skills and behaviours to help shape the future. Attend for professional development with hundreds of Project, Programme and Portfolio managers from around the world.
Click here for more information.
OCTOBER 2020
PMI GLOBAL CONFERENCE 2020
Date: 17 – 19 October 2020
Location: Seattle, Washington
The Project Management Institute (PMI) is the largest association of project management professionals. PMI global conference is one of the largest gatherings of the year and the details are being finalised.
Project management as a profession has evolved over the years. Many practitioners who have chosen to become professionals did the Project Management Professional certification exam or PMP, offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI).
PMI Exam
For project management practitioners who are considering doing the PMP exams this year, there was an important announcement by PMIthat the PMP exam will change and that June 30th 2020, is the last date you can take the exam in it’s current format. It is to accommodate the evolving nature of the profession. The exam is based on the Project Management Body of Knowledge or find out more about the current PMBOK here: PMBOK.
Every 3 – 5 years, the PMI conducts research to understand how the profession has progressed, the impact of emerging trends, and how the responsibilities of project managers have changed. The last research was conducted in 2015 and resulted in the current PMP® Exam Content Outline .
The changes on the future exam will focus on three new domains:
PEOPLE – emphasizing the skills and activities associated with effectively leading a project team
PROCESS – reinforcing the technical aspects of managing a project
BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT – highlighting the connection between projects and organization strategy
Content that spans the value spectrum, including predictive, agile and hybrid approaches, will be included across the three exam domains. The best way to understand what is included in the exam is to review the updatedExam Content Outline.
Something important that is highlight in the Exam outline:
Where the current PMBOK versions used to be very process based, but aligned to the PMI Talent Triangle – find previous announcement here – the latest outline is more people focused with tasks supporting that. Here you will find the 2020 PMP Exam Content Crossover Map to show where new content is added.
New PMBOK Guide
The current, 6th Edition of the PMBOK Guide has been released 2 year ago: September 2017. We expect that the 7th Edition will reflect some of the changes to the PMP exam that we’ll see from 16 December 2019.
PMI has named Mike Griffiths as co-lead for the 7th Edition of the PMBOK Guide. Mike was involved in the creation of the Agile method, DSDM, and has over 20 years of experience in Agile methods. He’s an Agilist through and through. It seems that the 7th Edition will be a BIG change from recent editions. That is confirmed by this short article on his website. In his own words:
“This will not be just an update, instead a radical departure from all previous editions aligned with PMI’s new digital transformation strategy.
Mike Griffiths
One of the 12 Core Development Team members, Nader Rad, has written about his perspective of the new PMBOK as a shift to a principles based approach.
Reason for PMP exam change
PMI has a commitment to a world class standard of certification. The implication of that is they must base their examinations on a formal Role Delineation Study (RDS) or Job Task Analysis (JTA).
PMI carried out a survey of the trends in our profession that the current PMP exam fails to address. These then fed into their Job Task Analysis to produce a more relevant PMP exam for the coming period. Here, ‘relevant’ means the things project managers do in their real work settings. We all know that the work of project management professionals has been changing; therefore, the PMP exam must change to reflect this.
Conclusion
In my opinion, the changes are reflecting the current PM trends and seem to be addressing some gaps in existing certifications around Team Leadership, Governance and soft skills.
Here is another PMI announcement summary of the changes: Certification changes overview.
One of the Training Partners, OSP International, headed by Cornelius Fichtner, who I recommend as an affiliate, had the following comments on the coming changes:
““As a PMP® trainer, I have always focused not only on teaching my students how to pass their exam but also on how to become better project managers. That is why I think the change in the ECO is a step in the right direction.
With this change, PMI is moving away from the five current and somewhat ‘technical’ domains and shifts the focus of the exam to test a candidate’s knowledge of, and experience, in the skills necessary to actually lead and manage a project.
This is not to say that the knowledge of project management methods, concepts, and techniques, is any less important, but a candidate will now also need to show that they truly know how to lead a project and how to bring it to successful completion.”
Cornelius Fichtner
It is positive to see that PMI seems to have their members and associated professional PM practitioners’ best interests at heart in making these changes to ensure that people are equipped for the challenging and changing business world we are finding ourselves in.
Look at any successful project and you’ll likely find a great team behind it. In addition, another important factor would be that the right project management methodology was selected to deliver the project.
Much like building a house on unstable ground, a project is doomed to fall apart if the wrong management method is chosen. Fortunately, there are several common methods to explore, each one suited for various types of projects or environments.
Common Project Management Methods
There are numerous project management methodologies, with new ones being developed all the time. Keep in mind this list isn’t exhaustive, and that there could be a project management method out there that’s an even better fit. That being said, here are the seven most common project management methodologies.
Waterfall Project Management
When it comes to project management, waterfall is considered to be pretty oldschool by many. This method involves completing projects in stages that are reliant upon the previous step.
This allows a team to dedicate all their attention on one thing at a time, but it also results in other teams waiting on the previous step to be completed. This can create a backlog or cause huge holdups, especially when it comes to software development.
Agile Management
Agile is about as far from waterfall management as it gets, as it emphasizes speed above all. While agile management isn’t an exact methodology, it is a guiding ethos for several other popular methods. Each of these agile offshoots focuses on speed and the ability to quickly pivot when necessary.
Kanban
Kanban is a type of agile management that focuses on efficiency. This efficiency is accomplished by looking at tasks and figuring out ways to streamline them. That, or if the task is necessary at all. This method is often used in factories or other consistent output-based environments, as you can easily streamline a process in these settings.
Scrum
Scrum is another agile project management method. Unlike Kanban, Scrum’s all about speed and adaptability. To make this happen, Scrum often involves breaking projects into chunks, each tackled by small teams. These teams tackle their microprojects in short cycles known as sprints. After a sprint the teams all come together to see what worked, what didn’t, and decide if anything needs to be changed.
The speed and adaptability of Scrum makes it great for software development.
Lean management
Lean is a lot like Kanban in that it emphasizes efficiency. Where it differs is that it’s concerned more with the customer, not what happens behind the scenes. Kanban is used to figure out how a process can be made more efficient for the customer without hurting the overall experience. This makes it a great choice for retail outlets or other customer-facing businesses.
Six Sigma Management
The Six Sigma method, while usable on its own, is often used after other methods. Six Sigma examines how the quality of the output can be improved, not how things can be faster and more efficient. This emphasis on quality makes Six Sigma a natural followup to a Lean or Kanban session, as those two styles can sometimes result in a less than satisfactory output.
PRINCE2 Management
PRINCE2 management is a detail-oriented style that looks at risk and efficiency over everything else. This incredibly scrutinous style is commonly used by private sector groups and governments, as it places safety and risk mitigation at the top of the priority list.
Finding a Project Management Style that Fits
The pressure to pick the right project management methodology can be large, especially in the early stages of planning. Because so much of a project’s success rides on the method chosen, it’s important that you take your time and carefully research and evaluate your options.
To help you make the right choice, Fundera has created this helpful animation on project management methodologies. With the information of this guide and some additional careful research, your next project can be started on the right foot and find success!
Animated Infographic with compliments from Fundera
About Fundera:
Fundera is the go-to financial resource for small business—helping you to achieve your financial goals, and grow your business.
There are a number of considerations to take into account before you decide on the best education in order to transition to agile.
Do some research to find out which qualifications are in demand. Also look at what the job market has to offer.
Some certifications have pre-requisites for taking exams to obtain the certification, for example, the fact that you need a number of project management hours experience.
There are costs involved for studying and taking the exam, consider what will your budget allow, or will your employer be willing to pay for this education?
You also need to consider what interests you? Where are you now on your career journey and what will be stimulating and fulfilling in the long run?
Another important factor that people might forget, is the perceptions of your peer group. Some people have preferences for one type of training/certification above another. Take the time and talk to colleagues and friends in the industry to find out what they think and recommend.
All the above considerations will inform your choice of which education to pursue and whether you want to take an exam to become certified or not.
In my experience, I have found that certification carries weight with employers and recruiters, because it gives an indication of knowledge and proven experience, as well as a willingness and commitment to invest in self-development, subsequently adding more value in the workplace.
Agile Certification options
Should you decide on any of the following certifications, remember that the companies offering the certifications, also have training that will prepare you for each type of certification. This is a summarized view of the popular, well-known certifications today, but not necessarily all inclusive.
Scrum Alliance:
Certified Scrum Master (CSM)
Advanced Certified Scrum Master (A-CSM)
Certified Scrum Professional – Scrum Master (CSP-SM)
Certified Product Owner (CPO)
Developers certifications
Scrum.org (Ken Schwaber in 2009):
PSM – Professional SM level I, II, III;
PSPO level I, II;
Prof Scrum Developer (PSD)
Prof Agile Leadership (PAL)
Prof Scrum with Kanban (PSK)
Scaled Professional Scrum (SPS)
APMG: Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) oldest full-project agile approach
AgilePM Foundation
AgilePM Practitioner
DSDM Agile Professional
PMI: PMI-ACP (Agile Certified Professional)
PMI-ACP for project managers who need to apply agile principles and practices in your projects. The qualification needs a combination of training, experience, and an exam. It covers a range of agile approaches such as Scrum, extreme programming (XP), Test-drive Development (TTD), Lean and Kanban. You will have PMI recognition and a very broad-based understanding of agile methods.
The pre-requisites are challenging:
2,000 hours of experience in project teams.
A current PMP® or PgMP® will satisfy this requirement but is not required to apply for the PMI-ACP.
1,500 hours working on agile project teams or with agile methodologies.
This requirement is additional to the 2,000 hours above.
21 contact hours of training in agile practices.
It is one of the more demanding examinations and also one of the more expensive.
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