-
When Reality Hits - Project Managers Roll With It
February 11, 2012
-
When IT Is Your Company’s “Piggy Bank”
February 10, 2012
-
4 Key Things a Project Manager Must Do
February 10, 2012
-
Essential Project Management
February 10, 2012
-
8 Traits of Top Project Managers - Part 1
February 9, 2012
-
Agile Project Management - Engaging Your Customer!
February 9, 2012
-
9 Tips to Avoid Traps in Project Planning
February 9, 2012
-
Why Projects Succeed - Executive Sponsorship
February 8, 2012
-
On Customer Participation in Agile Projects
February 8, 2012
-
A Project Charter for Lazy Teams
February 8, 2012
How Can Project Managers Promote Agility in Their Organization?
May 8, 2010 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Agile Project Management, Project Management Guides
How Can Project Managers Promote Agility in Their Organization?
By Bruce McGraw
According to the Agile Manifesto, projects and project managers must emphasize:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
Not all developers work well under the expectations of agile development. Because of the short cycle times, there is a much greater need for constant communication, cooperative work relationships, and strong technical skills.
Here’s a 15 point guide on how Project Managers can promote agility in their organization:
- Get people working together into close physical proximity. This is not always possible- just preferred.
-
Discourage formal communications such as reports and emails and encourage face-to-face meetings or video conferencing if players are not co-located.
-
Build individual competencies.
-
Use tools to support interaction.
-
Select team members who enjoy working collaboratively rather than alone.
-
Have frequent—even daily—quick team meetings (10 to 15 minutes) to discuss what was done yesterday and planned for today.
-
Integrate testing into development and consider using automatic testing tools—this is as opposed to the process of finishing a build and then turning it over to QA or test.
-
Ensure active user participation.
-
Keep teams small. Not tiny- just small.
-
Select team members with diversity of experience and approaches to solving problems.
-
Monitor the development and the work environment frequently to detect unexpected occurrences before they become problems.
-
Create empathetic management—people respond more positively and recover from all kinds of trauma when they encounter empathy. Changing methodology from traditional development process to agile development is a big change to a project or an organization—it can be traumatic. In addition to leading people through this with resilience, management must also be empathetic to the impact of the change.
-
Leverage human complexity—support learning about the people on your team—not just their technical prowess, but also their interests, personality types/characteristics. Promote self-knowledge, creative expression, and shared knowledge with teammates. Deep understanding enhances creativity, which is essential for acting when there is little time to prepare.
-
Encourage mentoring—constant change and shifting priorities can render even professionals less effective. Mentoring provides guidance and support and helps build relationships. Readiness for change and adaptability can be improved by mentoring.
-
Tap into community building efforts, such as communities of practice.
Do you see differences in the capability and personality needs of agile projects? Please share your experiences, comments, and suggestions. And what about the new concept being proposed called “Agile Project Management”? Do you think this will take hold? What is agile project management?
Bruce A. McGraw is COO/EVP for Cognitive Technologies, a WBE/DBE consulting firm delivering project /program management, collaborative processes, and organizational effectiveness to commercial and government clients (www.cognitive-technologies.com). Bruce has been a program manager for over 25 years and has experience across multiple industries. His ability to craft pragmatic solutions to meet project goals, coupled with experience in all aspects of project management, enables him to meet customer expectations with on-time, within-budget deliveries. Bruce is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and is an active member of the Project Management Institute. Bruce authors a project management blog at Fear No Project and can be contacted at (512) 380-1204 or Bruce.McGraw@cogtechinc.com.
No comments yet.
feel free to leave a comment
Comment Guidelines: Basic XHTML is allowed (a href, strong, em, code). All line breaks and paragraphs are automatically generated. Off-topic or inappropriate comments will be edited or deleted. Email addresses will never be published. Keep it PG-13 people!
XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
All fields marked with " * " are required.
- Agile Project Management
- Ask the Hut
- Certification
- Change Management
- Communications Management
- Computer Based Information Systems
- Concepts
- Corporate Transformation
- Cost Management
- Critical Chain Project Management
- Delegation
- History
- HR Management
- Implementing Project Management
- Integration Management
- Lessons Learned
- Management
- Miscellaneous
- People Issues
- PMBOK
- PRINCE2
- Procurement Management
- Program Management
- Project Lifecycle Phases
- Project Management Advantages
- Project Management Advantages
- Project Management as a Career
- Project Management Best Practices
- Project Management Charts
- Project Management Definitions
- Project Management Ethics
- Project Management for Beginners
- Project Management Guides
- Project Management Musings
- Project Management Office
- Project Management Proposals
- Project Management Templates
- Project Portfolio Management
- Project Workforce Management
- Quality Management
- Requirements Management
- Risk Management
- Scheduling
- Scope Management
- SCRUM
- Soft Management
- Time Management
- Training
- Uncategorized