1. Agile Management Agile Project Management – The New Avatar A brief thought surf by Mahadevan L P (Dev)
2. The Project Management function Manage the delivery of shippable quality value (scope) given a budget (by the business) and timeline (by business, if not, definitely by the market and competition !) So what ? Is Agile Project Management any different ??? ….
3. The Agile Project An Agile entity that creates rhythmic value through collaboration of closely related value streams The value streams map to one or more teams which are agile entities themselves Refer thought surf on Agile Management for definition of Agile entity
4. What is so different about Agile Project Management ? Manage the delivery of shippable quality value (scope) given a budget and timeline… … by creating and supporting a system of collaboratingAgile entities
5. What are the Agile entities in an Agile Project ? Every member on the team running many PDSA cycles per day. … at the first level of abstraction The project team as a whole running PDSA cycles as sprints ... at the second level of abstraction
6. Creating Project Agile entities - 1 Of course, the Agile Project Manager has no control in creating team members from scratch !! …. But definitely has a say in picking them for the project team Creating the Agile project entity is a key responsibility of the Project Manager
7. Creating Agile entities in Project - 2 It is all about seeding and structuring Attitude, Knowledge and Skills around the Agile PDSA Σ Attitude + Σ Knowledge + Σ Skills Project Management is responsible for defining and ensuring the minimum hygiene expectations for Attitude, Knowledge and Skills required for Agile delivery – THIS IS THE MOST CRUCIAL STEP often ignored, sometimes naively assumed and always realized very late !!! No denying the adage “well begun is half done !”
8. Supporting Agile entities in Project Once the seeding and structuring is done with care the PM ensures that the Agile Project entity is capable of sustained Agile delivery by actively supporting it to meet project goals. The Project Manager becomes an orchestra conductor, a coach, an investor or a gardener (Management 3.0 by JurgenAppello) Is that all ??? Is it so easy ??? …… well not quite
9. So, what are the key challenges for the Agile project Manager ? Business will still hold project Management accountable for money burnt versus timely value realization – the beautiful roses are not just a cute spectacle, they have to be sold before they wither ! The PM should take that leap of faith and trust that the team will deliver value – this is perhaps the most difficult and may tempt (re)surfacing of command-control paradigms
10. So what are the odds in favor of Agile project Management ? Very High. As systems evolve towards increasingly complex systems of systems it is humanly impossible for one person/ function to control it effectively. Nor can it be done by “creating” loads of Project Management documentation and artifacts in a traditional sense !
11. So what is the new avatar of Project Management ? A paradigm of Project Management that seeks to create value through trust, collaboration, self organization, empowerment, distributed control, servant leadership… … by focusing on the fact that good software is best created by a collaborating group of happy human beings !!
