Viewing entries tagged
Teamwork

The Agile PM—Please Sir, May I have some help?

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The Agile PM—Please Sir, May I have some help?

A Sad Story

A seasoned Director of Software Development was championing agile adoption at their company. It was a moderately scaled initiative, including perhaps 100 developers, testers, project managers, BA’s and the functional management surrounding them. They received some initial agile training, seemed to be energized and aligned with the methods, and were “good to go” as they started sprinting.  

Six months later things were a shambles. Managers were micro-managing the sprints and adjusting team estimates and plans. The teams were distrustful, opaque and misleading their management. There was virtually no honest and open collaboration—nor trust. They’d (re)established a very dysfunctional dance.

Funny thing is…

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The Agile Project Manager—There Can Be Only One!

I hope I’m not the only reader who remembers the Highlander movie & television series. Duncan McLeod was an immortal amongst others who was fighting to be the last remaining immortal. In each episode, there was inevitably a decapitation or two as the immortal population was reduced to the final one.

I use the symbolism of the Highlander to remind myself of several aspects of agile project management. The first relates to focused teams and our earnest effort to reduce all levels of multi-tasking. The second reminder is the subject of what I want to explore in this article—the notion of investing in a single team to create a working model for your agile adoption efforts.

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The Agile Project Manager—There is no ‘I’ in Team

A couple of weeks ago I was teaching a group new to agile some of the basics surrounding Scrum and related agile practices. It was going well. And, as is sometimes the case, I was getting full of myself and feeling over confident. Things were going smoothly, the attendees were “getting agile”, and life was very good.

Then it happened—from left field and without warning.

We were talking about the nature of a self-directed agile team. I was trying to paint the picture of group-based accountability and responsibility. How empowering it was and how it led to the best results. How teamwork, well basically ‘Rocked’, and how agile teams truly collaborated around the customer to deliver creative and high-quality solutions.

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