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Five Secrets to Successfully Implementing Agile Project Management

November 17, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Agile Project Management, Project Management Best Practices

Five Secrets to Successfully Implementing Agile Project Management
By Brian M. Rabon

With Agile Project Management garnering headlines on an almost a daily basis now, many project managers may be wondering what the secrets of successfully implementing the practice are. Read on to discover the top five secrets for successfully implementing Agile Project Management.

  1. Ease Your Way Into It – You have completed your first Agile Project Management book and now you are ready to give it a shot. You get the team together and layout every possible procedure and exception path for the new Agile approach. A few days later, to your chagrin, the team has reverted back to their old way of tackling projects. “What happened?” you ask. Simple, it is human nature to resist change, especially large amounts of change at one time. Take a few fundamental Agile concepts, such as iterations and a product backlog and implement them first. Let the project team ease into the transition. At the end of your sprint hold a lessons learned meeting, suggest other Agile practices as ways to counter the challenges that the team faced. Before long you will have implemented a full Agile lifecycle within your enterprise.

  2. Be pragmatic in your approach – Dictionary.com defines pragmatic as “of or pertaining to a practical point of view or practical considerations.” Simply put, not every methodology should be rigidly implemented without careful consideration as to whether each and every practice is applicable to your environment. As a project manager we all know that we need to consider the company culture and operating environment before planning a project. The same holds true for implementing a new methodology such as Agile. Carefully consider the major facets of Agile and determine whether or not the practice will work within your environment before you roll it out to your team. Also, don’t be afraid to modify practices to fit your organizations needs as well. You can still be true to the intent of Agile even if you implement a modified approach.

  3. Embrace Change – There is a common misnomer when it comes to Agile Project Management that the scope is completely out of control. When people hear the term “embrace change” they incorrectly assume that it means do whatever the customer asks without question or regard to impact to the project. “Embracing change” is a fundamental principal of Agile Project Management. However, it is key that the project manager recognize that there still exists a change control process. The main difference is the level of formality associated with the process. In Agile the customer is allowed to add scope, or project backlog, at any time. Your job as an Agile Project Manager is to track the scope and then work with the customer to prioritize it. During sprint planning meetings the team jointly decides what to implement in the upcoming iteration. Because the customer will eventually run out of time or money, there will inevitably be scope left un-implemented. In this case the customer will be satisfied because their most import features will have been delivered and your project will be deemed a success.

  4. Practice Servant Leadership – One of the first things that you have to realize about Agile Project Management is that it is not about you, it’s about your team. Too many project managers today practice the “Command and Control” or “Theory X” management style. They go about their day dictating what the project team should be doing and regularly checking “status”. Agile Project Management requires a mindset shift for the project manager. You must focus on leading and developing your team into a group of self-directed individuals. “But if the team is self-directed what will they need me for?” you may be thinking. In my opinion the role of the project manager is even more challenging within Agile. It takes great skill to develop a cohesive group of individuals who can function on their own. In addition, the most important role the project manager can play is that of clearing roadblocks for the team. It is absolutely key that the project manager remove impediments to forward progress (i.e. roadblocks) for the team; whether they be lack of key hardware resources, personnel shortages, or competing priorities just to name a few.

  5. Find the right customer for a pilot – No matter whether you’re a project manager serving internal or external customers, selecting the right one to begin your Agile experience with is key. This is due to one of the fundaments of Agile; having constant customer involvement throughout the entire lifecycle. It is essential that you find a customer that is willing to make themselves readily available to your team. Even better if they would consider co-locating with your team for the duration of the project. What if your customer absolutely refuses to participate or you don’t even know who your customer is? In this case it is important to find a customer surrogate. Perhaps you have a product manager or an in-house subject matter expert, either of these individuals could stand in for your customer. Fundamentally, with strong customer involvement your chances for success with Agile Project Management increase dramatically.

By carefully considering and implementing these five secrets you will greatly increase your chances of success with Agile Project Management in your environment.

© Copyright 2008 Braintrust Software, LLC All Rights Reserved

Brian M. Rabon, MSEE, PMP is an IT professional with over 12 years of industry experience. In his current role as Director of Project Management at XSP, Brian leads the companies’ PMO, a 32 person IT organization including 7 internal and external project managers. Outside of his day job Brian is owner of Braintrust Software a software engineering and project management consulting company. In addition Brian loves teaching and is an Adjunct Instructor at University of Alabama at Birmingham where he leads clients of the Information Engineering and Management Masters Degree Program on an exciting journey through the world of Technical Project Management. Feel free to contact Brian by calling 205.329.3794 or via e-mail at brian.rabon@braintrusoftware.com. For more great articles on project management checkout Brian’s new Blog at http://blog.braintrustsoftware.com.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 and is filed under Agile Project Management, Project Management Best Practices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1 person has left a comment

Thanks for providing true tips for agile managers. Embracing changes and leading the team in a true leader way are basic skills you need to know.

Agile Project Management Tips

Agile Project Management wrote on January 3, 2009 - 11:52 am | Visit Link

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