agile project leader

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How to Reach Success in Agile with Small Habits

For experienced project management professionals, the transition to Agile can be one of the hardest things to do. I would sometimes explain it to people by saying: “It’s like learning to brush your teeth with the left hand, if you’re right-handed.”

It does not come naturally; it takes time and practice. There are a number of habits to unlearn, like the need to have all things under your control and being the center of coordination.

What I want to share with you today, is how to be successful in Agile, by creating new, small habits. You want to become an Agile Project Leader which is a journey that does not come overnight. What if I told you that you could succeed with small habits?

When you choose to go into a new direction, like following an Agile approach when delivering projects, instead of the traditional, waterfall approach, you can do that by using small habits. Take charge in tiny bit-size chunks. This will make change possible and help you to become that person you desire to be, and you know you could be, namely an Agile Project Leader.

How do you create a small habit successfully?

1. Don’t try to change the world overnight. Start with just one new habit and then go from there. Practice to let go of the need to be in control of everything.

2. Make a commitment. Not every habit is created equal, and some take longer to embed in your mind than others. However, one thing is true. The longer you perform the same activity day after day, the more success you will have in creating that habit.

Take the mindset change for example, to adopt a new culture of Agile values. Start with the 4 Values and 12 Principles of the Agile Manifesto, study each one until you properly understand their meaning and the implications of the impact on the way you work. Decide right now that you are going to give this new habit of living the Agile values and principles at least 4 to 8 weeks to give it a proper start.

3. Link the habit to something that already works. If you have a successful habit already in place, ask yourself what small thing you can attach to that habit. For example, if you are already communicating with your team members daily, to add a daily standup would not be that hard, right?

4. Keep it small. Knowing that most habit formation fails because you are trying to do too much too soon, then make a point to keep the changes very small. That will give you a much higher rate of success than trying to create a great big change. For example, keep asking yourself, what is the least documentation we need to do in order to communicate enough detail for the work to continue.

5. Have a disaster plan in place. Knowing that things are going to go wrong from the start helps you to be ready when they do. If you want to step in and tell people what to do to solve a problem (so that you can stay in control), rather take a step back and ask a few questions that will lead the team to find a solution to a problem themselves.

6. Grab a friend. The only way to keep on track, especially when building habits, is to use your network. Have an accountability partner to keep you honest. This is one of the most important success criteria when adopting new habits.

Do it with friends / colleagues who are on the same journey than you, as well as with Agile coaches. They will give you answers and examples of doing things in diverse ways; different from what you thought would be the right way. Often, there is not only one right way. Be open to possibilities and become more creative in your thinking.

7. Reward yourself. Celebrate every little milestone with a reward, something that makes sense and will encourage you to keep going when motivation becomes low.

I used to belong to what is called “Agile Coaching Circles.” They consisted of a group of people who come together every second week at a time that is convenient for all, to discuss Agile topics of their choice. The knowledge sharing and learning that took place, was hugely rewarding and kept me motivated to come back for more.

8. Redefine yourself. Accept that this is the new you. The habits you are building are going to change who you are and how you do thing. Embrace the new identity. Enjoy the experience of doing things in a new way that will make you a good Agile Project Leader and will help you to be successful in delivering value to customers, just like you have been doing before.

By following these steps, you not only will succeed when applying small habits to your life, but over time you will see amazing growth and development as a person. That is pretty exciting, especially when you consider how little you had to do to get there.

Agile Project Leader Online Training

If you want results, and you want to fast-track your learning about Agile, the Agile Project Leader Online training course is just what you need. It will solve the transition challenge for existing project managers and give you the exact strategies, mindset, process and practices to move the needle on successfully implementing the strategic initiatives following an Agile approach. It provides much guidance on various Agile roles, frameworks and different certifications available to help you select the best one. You will find multiple Guides to download for immediate use.

Agile Project Leader
Linky

How to become a credible Agile Project Leader

By Linky van der Merwe

When I first transitioned to Agile, coming from a traditional project management background, I quickly realised that one of the keystones to become successful in Agile, would be to change my mindset. The mindset that needs to be adopted, is the Agile mindset, based on a set of key values and principles designed to better enable collaborative work and deliver continuous value through a “people-first” orientation. This means a huge move away from being very process driven and a focus on output (PMI’s PMBOK has 10 knowledge areas and 49 processes after all); to becoming more people focused and outcome driven. What a shift to make for any experienced professional project manager! Many project professionals rightfully ask how do they become credible Agile Project Leaders? This article aims to answer that question.

Read this article on the challenges and what it takes to be successful as Agile Project Managers.

Shift to Organisational Agility

For the past few years many organisations have been on a mission to improve their Organizational Agility, meaning their capability to quickly sense and adapt to external and internal changes to deliver relevant results in a productive and cost-effective manner. The need to become more agile, has been fast-tracked by the world-wide COVID epidemic.

According to the PMI Report: Achieving greater agility, 2017, companies will be successful if they build a culture of Agility. Culture is a critical enabler.  It needs to be a culture of readiness that supports flexible processes and employee training in support of agile practices. Those who succeed gain considerable efficiencies.

The Report goes further to state that 88% of organisations with high agility realise significant benefits including more efficient and effective processes and higher customer and employee satisfaction. These organisations are more likely to align their projects with strategic objectives which is critical to benefits realisation and success.

The Role of Project Leaders and the PMO

PMO in Agile

In addition to executives to advocate agility, project leaders could become evangelists for greater agility. In organisations with high agility, it is noted that 77% have an agile PMO or agile working group who are leading Agile Transformation. Successful transformation commonly requires new approaches in fundamental areas of business. Those include budget cycles, hiring practices, procurement practices, and role delineation.

An agile oriented PMO has a customer-collaboration mindset. In many cases, this means the PMO operates as an internal consultant, tailoring project delivery approaches to accommodate resources, timelines, and overall business needs, even as they change. Based on a documented case study in the PMI report, of TD Bank, the PMO can continue to perform similar functions than before, like:

  • Establishing standards
  • Serving as the Centre of Excellence  
  • Educating the organization
  • Training and building talent

To achieve the above there are practical ways for a PMO to support and lead an organisation’s agile transformation. The PMO leaders need to become subject matter experts in agile. Develop and/or acquire the expertise to help guide agile practitioners, develop training, and establish a community of practice that provides coaching services. They need to define the value proposition of agile and the PMO’s role in agile delivery. Help the organization define the agile target state and a roadmap to get there. Drive the change beginning with successes in project delivery and extending it beyond projects to business agility. Build the capacity by acquiring and/or retooling the workforce with the necessary agile skills, build a culture of agile within the project delivery organization, apply agile concepts to all projects regardless of delivery method.

The Agile Project Manager

Where does the Project Manager fit in and continue delivering value in the agile context? Project Managers need more than technical skills. To sense change they need to be well informed about an organization’s strategic objectives and how their projects align. They need to forge strong relationships with business owners who request projects as well as with the functions that support them (e.g., finance, legal, risk management, and HR). Those with leadership skills and strong business acumen, can lead strategic initiatives and play a role to ensure projects stay aligned with strategic goals. Agile Project Managers will help to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of how work gets done, including identifying unnecessary steps in work processes, as well as to share essential information broadly with all stakeholders.

The PMI Report: What’s next? Identifying new ways of working, Dom Price, a Futurist and Head of R&D at Atlassian is of the opinion that Project Managers will take on a more strategic role by managing for complexity, ambiguity, agility, and communication. As knowledge workers they will continue to learn and grow their strategic value. Project, Program and Portfolio Management will drive innovation and change by playing their role to enable the organisation to navigate change every day.

In a case study from AstraZeneca, they have evolved their PMO and Project Management capabilities by demonstrating the value of project management to build trust across the organisation, by:

  • involving project managers to identify smart and efficient processes,
  • improve ways of working,
  • streamline key areas such as risk management, planning, and control.

Enterprise-wide agility really requires everyone to understand what agility means—that it’s the capability to quickly sense and adapt to external and internal changes to deliver relevant results in a productive and cost-effective manner. Everyone also needs to adopt agile practices. The PMI Report conclude how project leadership can facilitate and advocate organisational agility by supporting the following:

  • Understand technical project management activities
  • Remove impediments and streamline processes when working with other areas of the business, such as HR and finance
  • Expose and communicate bottlenecks
  • Align stakeholder needs
  • Advocate for training in agile practices

How to be a credible Agile Project Leader

Agile Project Leader

How do Project Managers become credible experts in Agile? To answer this question, I’m going to use guidance shared by Jo Ann Sweeney, a transformational change consultant based in the UK.

“To be viewed as a credible expert, you need to know the subject inside out, but expertise is not just about our knowledge on the topic. Substance does come first; close behind comes sincerity and passion.”

She explains that you don’t need to know everything about a topic. You need to be honest about the gaps in your knowledge, respect expertise in others and have a passion for your topic aligned with a passion for sharing. Credibility comes from three things:

  • your confidence – how you view and present yourself
  • your character – the innate qualities that make us unique based on your trustworthiness, respectfulness, responsibility, fairness, caring and social responsibility
  • your capabilities – your knowledge, skills and aptitudes; the natural talents you’re born with and develop throughout your life when you interact with others as well as learning through academia, training, mentoring and coaching

What’s next

I would say that experienced project managers (often PMP’s) have confidence based on their past experiences and ability to lead projects. They are able to display character, based on upholding the ‘Code of Ethics’ and professional conduct expected of project professionals. And any gap in capability can be addressed by training and coaching. There are various good certifications to consider for Agile, see this article for more information.

In a Techrepublic.com article, Allen Barnard stated that tech-savvy project professionals with business skills are highly valued for their ability to understand and facilitate change. The trend is to solve problems by using a design-thinking perspective. This means you view challenges from different stakeholders’ point of view and generate ideas to address them with clients. To facilitate these types of problem-solving approaches, project managers will need to develop leadership and technical skills, as well as empathy to build the strong relationships that are required to support organizational change.

There is a massive contribution to be made while helping organisations to build their Agile culture. An Agile Project Leader can help with establishing standards, to educate, to train and to align stakeholder needs. Do use your strengths of improving processes and enabling teams towards high performance. In a world with so much change, Agile Project Leaders are ideally positioned to help executives to turn their ideas into reality.

Sources

  1. PMI report: Pulse of the Profession 2021 Beyond Agility
  2. What’s next? Identifying new ways of working, 2018
  3. Forbes.com: Agility, not efficiency, is the key to business success In 2021, by Sherry Suski. December, 2020.
  4. TechRepublic.com: Project managers playing larger role in organizational agility. February, 2020.
  5. PMI Thought Leadership Report – Achieving greater agility, the critical need for cross-functional support, 2017
Linky

How to Start an Agile Project following a Hybrid Approach

By Linky van der Merwe

How to start an Agile project following a Hybrid approach

As a Project Management Professional and Agile Practitioner, the startup of a new project is one of the most important activities to lead. There is a good chance that if you start well, you will also finish well.

How do you start an Agile project if you are working in an enterprise organization with a mix of projects ranging from the traditional plan-driven (waterfall) projects to agile projects to a more hybrid agile approach?

The purpose of this article is to provide you with guidelines for starting an agile project as an Agile Project Leader. It is based on my own experience as a professional project manager who has made the transition to following an agile approach.

Hybrid Agile

Let’s first clarify what I mean by a hybrid agile approach.  Hybrid agile approaches typically combine traditional (predictive) and agile elements.  Whereas a blended approach combine two (or more) similar approaches. So, using a combination of Scrum and XP is a blended agile approach since they are both agile to begin with.

According to Mike Griffiths, in his article on Projectmanagement.com, called “Flavors of Hybrid Agile”, he explains that the goal of combining project approaches is to create something better suited for our current environment than using either a pure agile or pure traditional (predictive) approach. He promotes the argument of being smart about the tools we use and to choose the best approaches for the circumstances we face. I have to agree with being pragmatic about this and to apply our efforts where we have the most influence. In the end it’s about the results.

Agile Project Lifecycle

One example of such a hybrid agile approach that I have worked with before, is below.

Agile project lifecycle hybrid

You start with a phase called Inception and in the case of a really large program, there will be pre-work, sometimes called the Pre-Inception. As expected you will do analysis, developing, testing and deploying in every iteration during Development . You still do development, testing and test automation in every sprint, but instead of releasing to production, you will release to a test environment (sometimes called Acceptance).

You then have a phase for testing that a new solution will work end-to-end, called Stabilization. This is usually applicable in an IT environment where the new solution (system) needs to integrate with multiple existing applications. In normal Agile, a test iteration at then end, is also called a ‘hardening sprint’.

Once the end-to-end testing has been completed, it will be followed by user acceptance testing, also known as UAT, where end-users will test actual business like scenarios to ensure that the new solution is performing as expected. Only when UAT is signed off, the solution is deployed to production during the Deployment phase.

During the Inception phase, you will review the Business Case (in the case of a formal strategic project), confirm the scope, plan for the project (sprints), ensure team members are trained, elaborate the requirements and establish the infrastructure plan, including hardware, software and various environments to work within (development, testing and production environments).

Startup

Typically, there needs to be a Project Kick-off workshop where the Product Vision and Scope of Work is shared with all the stakeholders. On a high level the business requirements, the in scope work, the key stakeholders as well as the agile approach are presented.

Agile Release Planning

Next is the Release Planning where the conditions of satisfaction are agreed, for example the expected timeline for the project, the scope including the Product vision and roadmap, the epics (and user stories), as well as the budget.

The release plan activities will include agreement on the scope, in other words which epics and user stories will deliver the scope. Next you want to gain consensus on user story estimates. Then you need to determine the team’s capacity for completing the work. The activities are explained very well in this picture, adapted from ‘Mike Cohn – Agile Estimation and Planning’

If you are used to looking at a project planning as a process, it will look something like this.

Agile project planning as a process

The Team

Another important step in the startup process, is the Team Formation which will consist of several onboarding activities.

With each team that will be part of the project, you want to develop a Team Charter in which the project team’s vision, the objectives, and the team member roles and responsibilities are covered. The team also needs to develop a Working Agreement to agree aspects like:

  • Rules of communication 
  • Capacity of team
  • Calendar
  • respond times for mails, questions   
  • Decision making methods      
  • Interpersonal relationships, & conflict management approaches
  • How Change Control will be dealt with
  • Other relevant topics

The Process

Whatever agile approach has been decided on by the Management and Development teams, as fit for purpose based on the context of the organization, it needs to be documented as a process and explained and agreed with the overall team members.

The Tools

One thing that my experience has taught me, is that you need sufficient tools to support your agile process. Many people love Excel, but it certainly won’t be enough. Although it could be a good starting point, there are people who like to export data from electronic systems and use Excel to track the progress of the work. Try to stick to one system that will be the single source of truth, especially if coordination is required among multiple Development teams.

The tools can be as simple as physical white boards with stickies, so that the work in every sprint is visible and the stickies can be moved during daily standups. Impediments can also be clearly indicated so that action can be taken.

The tools can also be electronic task management systems with ‘whiteboards’ that allow for backlog refinement and boards that will make the work visible for teams to share and discuss. There are multiple good tools available in the market today and it’s up to the organization to find a tool suitable for their needs.

Ready, steady, go

At the end of Inception phase, the backlog will be ready and in a healthy state. This means that User Stories are adhering to the INVEST principle (Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable), they have acceptance criteria, estimates and meet the Definition of Ready (DOR), based on what was agreed for them to be ready.

The Product Owner(s) will work with the teams to prioritise the work and it will be an ongoing refinement process before every sprint.  Feedback will be provided and based on the inspect and adapt principle of agile, there will be continuous improvement in every sprint.

This is a very short synopsis of what it entails to start an agile project successfully. The aim is to give guidance and to provide a logical sequence of steps to be taken. As always, every project is unique, every organization is different, and as an Agile project leader you need to take your context into consideration to decide on the best approach for your situation.

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