By Linky van der Merwe

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

1. The PO is concerned about the overall scope and he’s responsible for the product backlog prioritization 
2. The PO is responsible for the quality of delivery from a User Story acceptance, Definition of Done (DoD), sprint and release perspective.
3. 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).
4. From a financial perspective, the PO is part of the Cost management and responsible for benefit realization.

Scrum Master

1. The SM’s concerns are the sprint goal and sprint backlog, as well as sprint prioritization.
2. The SM looks at the velocity of the team, driving delivery.
3. The SM is responsible for scrum events like the Daily standup, sprint planning and retrospective.
4. For status the SM looks at daily status (updates on tool), sprint status
5. Risks and issues management from the perspective of helping to remove impediments, blockers.

Project Manager

1. 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.
2. The PM will look at Release planning and integration aspects within the project, as well as with external projects and vendors or stakeholders.
3. PM is still involved in many meetings like Steercom, Scrum of Scrum (SoS) and Change Control
4. The PM is concerned about overall status feedback to the Steercom and the Project Management Office (PMO).
5. The PM is responsible for risk and issue management and escalations.
6. 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?