When you come from a traditional project management background to Agile, there are a few guidelines for becoming a successful Agile Project Leader. Enjoy the tips in the video below.
10 Tips to Success as an Agile Project Leader
Author: Linky
The Scrum Guide 2020 Changes
The purpose of this article is to give you a summary of the changes in The Scrum Guide 2020 that was released on 18 November 2020 by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. These changes were made with input from the community of Scrum users around the globe. This updated version helps bring Scrum to all industries and organizations. The 2020 Scrum Guide also includes updates to several major elements of the Scrum framework.
What hasn’t changed
Scrum is still a lightweight framework to solve complex problems and deliver value. Scrum is still about a cross-functional team of people collaborating closely with one another and their stakeholders. as a team, they create valuable and useful increments every sprint.
What has changed
There are a number of changes in the Scrum Guide.
- It’s less prescriptive, simpler language is used and software-specific terminology has been removed
- changes to some definitions, e.g., scrum definition, empiricism, product backlog, sprint goal, sprint backlog, increment, definition of done
- removed (e.g., “scrum uses”) or reorganized content (e.g., “measuring progress toward goals”)
- elements added or their relationships clarified, e.g., the “commitments” product goal (new), sprint goal and definition of done
- the concept of a development team within a scrum team was removed to reduce the potential for dysfunctions between the product owner and the development team (“us vs. them”) and focus the entire scrum team on the same objective
- a scrum team now consists of the product owner, developers, and the scrum master. the people doing the work of creating a usable increment are called developers
- the “entire scrum team is accountable for creating a valuable, useful increment every sprint. The developers are accountable for all aspects of creating the usable increment
- the terms “accountable” and “responsible” are used more consistently, and “roles” is replaced by “accountabilities”
- the scrum guide now uses the terms “self-managing” and “self-management” to emphasize that scrum teams choose “who, how and what to work on” whereas the scrum guide 2017 used the terms “self-organizing” and “self-organization” to describe that development teams chose “who and how to do work”
- the term servant-leader was removed, and scrum masters are now described as “true leaders who serve the scrum team and the larger organization”
- sprint planning now has three topics: “why is this sprint valuable?”, is the new first topic
- the purpose of events is clarified and the description how to conduct them is less prescriptive
- a “product goal” is introduced, serving as a target and describing a future state of the product
- it is clarified that multiple increments can be delivered within a sprint, even prior to the end of a sprint. sprint review is not a gate to releasing value.
Get your copy today
To download the latest copy of the Scrum Guide 2020, click here. You will also find a series of articles, blogs, videos and more that pertain to the 2020 version of the Scrum Guide released on November 18, 2020.
The What, Why and How of Agile Governance
By Linky van der Merwe
Recently I was involved with setting up the Governance guidelines for our Agile Delivery Framework at work. I realized that many Agile Project Leaders would benefit from a break-down of the what, the why and the how of governance on Agile projects, especially in an enterprise organization.
Definition of Governance
There are a few good definitions for governance in an agile context. I liked the following ones.
“Governance is the alignment of an initiative (project, programme or product development) with organisational goals to create value. Governance defines how the initiative is set up, managed and controlled. Agile governance is the application of Lean-Agile values, principles and practices to the task of governance.”
Disciplined Agile (DA)
“Agile governance is a process that projects or programs apply to ensure that projects are aligned with the needs or expectations of their stakeholders as well as ensuring that delivery of such projects while adhering to the existing protocols consisting of lean-based agile principles and practices that are applicable in agile-focused projects or programs.”
Project-management.pm
Disciplined Agile (DA) goes further in this article to explain governance: https://www.pmi.org/disciplined-agile/people/governing-agile-teams
“Governance establishes chains of responsibility, authority and communication in support of the overall enterprise’s goals and strategy. It also establishes measurements, policies, standards and control mechanisms to enable people to carry out their roles and responsibilities effectively.”
Disciplined Agile
Principles for effective agile governance
https://www.pmi.org/disciplined-agile/people/governing-agile-teams
The following principles are recommended by Disciplined Agile for effective governance in agile:
- Collaboration with delivery teams is more effective than trying to force them to conform. IT professionals are intellectual workers, the type of people whom are more likely to do what you want when you work with them to do so rather than tell them to do so.
- Enabling teams to do the “right thing” is more effective than trying to inspect it in. One examples would be when you want developers to follow common coding conventions. Instead of doing code inspections, it would be easier to adopt a code analysis tool such as CheckStyle and include it in your continuous integration (CI) strategy.
- Continuous monitoring provides more timely insight than quality gate reviews. Team dashboards that use business intelligence (BI) technology to display real-time measures generated by the use of your development tools have become very common in the past few years. This enables both the team and their stakeholders to monitor the team’s progress in a continuous real-time manner. This is much more effective than traditional “quality gate” reviews of artifacts because the information displayed on the dashboards is automatically generated.
- Transparency into teams provides better insight than status reports. Through application of strategies such as information radiators, team dashboards and active stakeholder participation, the work of a disciplined agile delivery team is effectively transparent.
Axelos.com also provides four guiding principles to enable successful governance of Agile delivery
- Governance should mirror the Agile manifesto principles, particularly the art of simplicity – maximizing the work not done is essential
- Agile delivery teams decide on the empirical performance metrics they will use and self-monitor. Teams quantify their performance and use the data to improve. Teams display progress status information visually, updating it frequently. This makes progress transparent to everyone including senior management.
- Collaboration is an essential change in mindset. As drivers of strategy and direction, senior leadership champion the implementation of an agile culture for the whole organization. A transparent culture surfaces issues or blockers without fear of blame. Good agile governance and by extension successful organizations share knowledge, collaborate and remove barriers that foster organizational silos. Delivery teams are therefore given an environment, workspace and tools to collaborate, self-organize and deliver.
- Independent reviews of Agile delivery should focus on the teams’ behaviours and practices and not just processes and documentation. When using Agile, the mindset for the organization is to adapt the governance, assurance and approval processes, and to consider different indicators of success. The usual principles of assurance remain but assessment relies more on observation and engagement with the delivery team and stakeholders, rather than reporting and information reviews.
In conclusion Axelos is saying that agile governance is about defining the fastest route that brings the most value.
Why Agile Delivery Governance?
A good agile delivery governance strategy will enable and motivate IT delivery teams to do the following.
- Fulfill your organization’s strategies and objectives
- Regularly and consistently create real business value
- Provide appropriate return on investment (ROI)
- Deliver consumable solutions in a timely and relevant manner
- Work effectively with their project stakeholders
- Adopt processes and organizational structure that encourage successful IT solution delivery
- Present accurate and timely information to project stakeholders
- Mitigate the risks they face.
How Disciplined Agile Teams Are Governed
DA recommends strategies that enable delivery governance. These strategies are: (my summarized view)
- Enterprise awareness. Agile teams need to realize that they work within your organization’s enterprise ecosystem, as do all other teams. There are often existing systems in production that should not be negatively impacted by the release of the solution they are working on. They will work with other teams in parallel, striving to leverage each other’s work. They will work towards your organization’s business and technical visions. Enterprise awareness is the underpinning of effective governance.
- Release planning. High-level release planning happens early on when you identify and think through any dependencies on other teams and try to identify a reasonable cost and time estimate for the current release that they are working on. The high-level plan is kept up-to-date as development progresses, and shared with stakeholders. Release planning enables the team to answer critical governance questions regarding projected schedule and cost.
- Team dashboard. The tools used by your team should be instrumented to record important events when they occur. For example, your team management tool could record when a work item is defined, when work begins on it, when the work is validated (if appropriate), and when it is marked done. This sort of information can be recorded in a data warehouse and later reported on using business intelligence (BI) tooling via a project or portfolio dashboard. The real-time, accurate information radiated by a team dashboard enables the team to make better decisions and provides better transparency to stakeholders (including governance people).
- Information radiators. An information radiator is a visible display that shows something of interest to a team or their stakeholders like a whiteboard with an architecture sketch on it, or a wall-mounted monitor showing the team’s dashboard. Information radiators enable better governance by increasing transparency.
- Active stakeholder participation. Active stakeholder participation is the practice of having on-site access to stakeholders, or at least their proxies (i.e. Product Owners). Active stakeholders have the authority and ability to provide information and make timely decisions regarding the prioritization and scope of requirements. This enables more effective governance through improving the team’s access to decision makers.
- Demos. Typically, at the end of each iteration, teams which follow Scrum, will demonstrate the solution to key stakeholders and invite feedback. This practice is also called stakeholder demonstration or sprint demonstration. This enables effective governance by increasing transparency and providing better opportunities for stakeholders to steer the team.
- Coordination meetings. The team meets daily, to coordinate their activities. This practice is often called a scrum meeting or daily stand up meeting. This enables tactical governance within the team itself through increasing internal transparency and reducing the feedback cycle within the team.
- Light-weight, risk-based milestones. Effective reviews are as simple and short as possible. A small co-located team will spend an hour walking the PO and business stakeholders through whatever is to be reviewed. For larger efforts this could be up to half a day in regulatory environments more time and effort need to be invested, particularly around creation and baselining of artifacts to be reviewed and recording of action items from the review.
- Retrospectives. A retrospective is a facilitated reflection meeting performed by the team, with the goal of identifying potential areas of improvement, supporting your overall governance goal of continuous improvement.
These strategies support a light weight approach to governance while improving the overall effectiveness of the team.
Governance Practices and Principles
Finally, an International Journal article published in sciencedirect.com summarised Agile practices and principles to be followed for Governance as follows.
- Ensure value driven delivery – use end solution orientation
- Ensure stakeholder engagement
- Boost team performance practices
- Establish a transparent collaborative work environment
- Utilise adaptive planning
- Welcome changes throughout the project
- Employ problem detection and resolution
- Employ continuous improvements in products, people and processes
- Conduct Value Measurements by considering strategic objectives, metrics, targets and savings.
- Agree Agile metrics to be used on Portfolio level as well as on Program and Team level
The focus is on delivering outputs and results, rather than tasks and milestones. Strive for simplicity – bring just enough process and documentation, while keeping a constant balance between rigidity and responsiveness of methods, processes and tools.
In conclusion it seems that agile teams are significantly easier to govern than traditional teams as a result of greater transparency and accurate and timely development data.
Click here to download a Guide to effective Agile Governance
The Remote Working Experiment
By Michael Morris
This year, the world has undergone a vast remote working experiment. Although some companies had already introduced this option for their workers, COVID-19 drastically accelerated the levels of remote working out of necessity.
So has the experiment been a success? What are the pros and cons of remote working?
The Advantages of Remote Working
Let’s start with the advantages of remote working.
For the employee, there are wide range of benefits that include:
- Greater work-life balance. Rather than working rigid 9-5 office hours, with a potentially punishing commute further consuming the day, remote workers can work from a location of their choosing. With less time spent commuting, they can fill their day with more personally rewarding activities – whether that’s spending time with the family, going to the gym, or simply relaxing at home.
- Saving money. Whether it’s a rail ticket or fuel for the car, commuting can also cost a lot of money.
- Improved focus. For many workers, a noisy office is not the most conducive working environment. In one survey of UK workers, 68% felt they were more productive or equally productive at home.
There are also benefits for employers, with some of the most significant being:
- Greater productivity and a more engaged workforce. Happy and healthy workers are also more productive workers. It’s not surprising that remote workers’ enhanced levels of wellbeing can lead them to work more effectively too.
- Lower costs. The cost of running an office for five days a week can be substantial. Whether businesses implement remote working full-time or part-time, they will end up saving some money.
- New talent. A remote working setup allows businesses to seek talent from further afield.
The Disadvantages of Remote Working
Although remote working undoubtedly has many benefits, there are naturally some downsides that need to be considered too. Although video conferencing with colleagues is great for work purposes, it’s far from ideal for socialising. It’s difficult for more than one person to talk at the same time, and so group chats can descend into incoherent chaos. Face-to-face communication is important for the social culture and togetherness of a company, and remote communication is not quite able to fill the gap – yet. In future, of course, it could be that new virtual reality technology will improve matters here.
For the individual remote worker, too, this isolation can become depressing. It’s important to guard remote workers’ mental health, and ensure that they still feel involved as much as possible. Although remote working has some definite upsides for mental health, the potential downsides should not be ignored.
Has the experiment been a success?
Many businesses have been historically wary of introducing remote working, but the experiment during the pandemic has dispelled some of the misconceptions they might have had. Remote workers do not slack off, but continue to work productively – and some studies even suggest those who work at home are actually more productive.
For the workers themselves, working from home can be something of a mixed blessing. Many have celebrated the improved work-life balance and wellbeing that remote working has brought them, but there are signs that remote working full-time can start to take its toll. Others have experienced increasing isolation – craving the social atmosphere of the office.
It may be, of course, that the right balance lies in the middle ground – remote working a few days a week to improve wellbeing, but also benefiting from office socialising. In general, however, it’s clear that the remote working experiment has been largely successful: opening up new horizons of possibility for employers and employees alike.
More great resources
Working from Home Guide
Please find below an in-depth guide on creating a healthy and productive workplace for people working from home. This is very useful since many are still under COVID-19 lockdowns. It will help you gain an understanding of the biggest challenges faced by remote workers dealing with stress, anxiety, and maintaining work-life balance at home.
Working from Home: A Guide to Creating a Healthy and Productive Workspace
Guide to Remote Working and Mental Health
This guide offers a lot of great information, such as:
- Why remote working has become the new normal due to lockdowns – An estimated 30% of the workforce could be home-based by the end of 2021.
- How remote working can significantly affect physical and mental health.
- Different ways you can alleviate stress when working from home, such as creating a comfortable work environment and taking regular breaks.
How employers can help to make working from home healthier and less stressful for their employees. Click below for the full Guide.
Remote Working & Mental Health: A Young Professional’s Guide
Your home and your wellbeing: how to achieve a work-life balance while working from home
This guide offers helpful insights:
- 65% of people value a good work-life balance as the most important factor when looking for work.
- As of April 2021, 31% of workers still worked remotely for the majority of the time.
- The proportion of people working remotely varies hugely between sectors. In the Information and Communication industry, 81% of the workforce is remote. In contrast, just 8% of Accommodation and Food Service employees work remotely.
- As of December 2020, there were 22% more people who worked from home in rural areas than in urban areas.
For more helpful information about:
- Changing attitudes and behaviours to work-life balance
- Tips on how to adjust and be more productive when working from home
- Red flags that you’re not managing work-life balance well
- How working from home affects your mortgage
How to achieve a work-life balance while working from home
The Changing Role of the Project Manager in Agile
By Linky van der Merwe
Most project management professionals are aware of the project management trend of the accelerated shift from Waterfall to Agile Project Management as the only way to deliver on benefits in a dynamic and complex environment in order to learn and adapt quickly.
When project managers find themselves moving into agile due to this shift, what does it mean for the careers of these professionals?
For one thing, project managers will have to transition from following the typical traditional life cycle on projects to an agile approach like Scrum as an example of one of the most popular approaches.
Furthermore, on agile project the triple constraint changes from having a fixed scope with time or cost being variable/ negotiable, to scope/feature being the variable part that will be negotiated, based on the needs of the customer.
Daunting Journey
This can be quite a daunting journey and puzzling to highly experienced project professionals to position themselves as an Agile Project Manager or an Agile Project Leader. There are a multitude of agile frameworks in the new paradigm to increase organsiations’ agility. Most project management professionals will find it challenging to get into that space where people can follow your lead, like they have been for years.
Quite often people will feel like they are starting from scratch. There is this long journey of having to adopt an Agile mindset, to go for Agile training and possibly become certified in a new role, and then to become completely familiar and competent with the Agile principles and practices that need to be followed daily.
How the Project Manager role is changing
Project Managers need a different mindset and be practicing the values and principles of agile. PM’s need a working knowledge of agile frameworks and how to best apply them in your organisational context. They need to apply new tools and techniques and let go of being centre of coordination.
As a facilitator and coach they need to build collaborative decision-making environment. And in the Leadership space, they should focus on people rather than process.
Challenges during the transition
As part of the change there are things that we need to stop doing and start doing. Both are equally hard to do.
Agile is fast paced, disciplined and demanding. In high-change projects, there’s more complexity than one person can manage. Instead, cross-functional teams coordinate their own work and collaborate with the business representative PO. PM are accustomed to being at the centre of coordination for a project, while tracking and representing a project’s status to the rest of the organization. This will need to shift from being the center to serving the team and management.
As agile project leaders there is a change in emphasis to coaching people who want help, to foster greater collaboration on team, and to encourage improved team performance due to the inspect and adapt approach.
The agile project leader needs to align stakeholder needs. Ensure appropriate engagement of all stakeholders, as the Product Owner (PO) is not always correctly positioned or skilled to do so. It’s really important to be very effective in stakeholder engagement to remain valuable. It doesn’t matter what you are called as long as you are clear about how you fit into the totality of project responsibilities.
Focus on the outcome (rather than output) and on what needs to be done to achieve client acceptance. Use judgment in aligning your approaches to the demands of the project. It undoubtedly means that project managers, must adapt our roles to the context.
Other Research Perspectives
Based on agile guidance from the Project Management Institute (PMI), it is said that each project is unique and that project success is based on adapting to the unique context of the project. Determine the most appropriate method to produce the desired outcomes.
Tailoring the approach is iterative and it will be a constant process throughout the project lifecycle. Depending on the project, objectives and stakeholders, use just enough process to achieve the desired outcome, while maximising value, managing costs and enhancing the speed. Tailor with a holistic perspective of the business environment, the team size, the degree of uncertainty and the complexity of the project. Then discuss and agree as a team on the best delivery approach and resources required.
Furthermore, it is good to remember that a Certified Project Manager (PMP) or other qualified project management professional is one of the most highly trained and skilled knowledge workers in the organization. Reducing the available pool of knowledge workers as an asset is highly questionable. Smart organizational leaders find ways to include everyone who can contribute to the overall success of developing products and services that meet customer demands.
Trained Project Management professionals are equipped with key characteristics:
- Leadership,
- Influencing
- Team building
- Motivation
- Communication
- Facilitation
- Decision making
- Political and cultural awareness
- Negotiation
- Trust building
- Conflict management
- Coaching
You can be confident about what it is that you bring to the table with your skills and experience.
Options in Agile
There are multiple agile frameworks to choose from, but one of the most popular is the Scrum approach and in an enterprise organization, it will need to be scaled.
Scrum has very defined roles like the Product Owner (PO) and Scrum Master (SM). You will find an overlap between PO and PM:
- Both concerned about projects meeting their objectives
- Negotiating work with teams
- Managing scope, time and budget
- Managing stakeholder communications
Similarly, there is an overlap between the roles of the SM and the PM, namely:
- Leadership
- Excellent communicator, facilitator
- Conflict Manager
- Analyst & lateral thinker
- Content knowledge
- People’s person
- Enabler
In the corporate enterprise environment where all three roles are often present on strategic Programmes, you’ll see a distinct difference in terms of the focus areas and responsibilities.
A Product Owner
- The PO is concerned about the overall scope and he’s responsible for the product backlog prioritization
- The PO is responsible for the quality of delivery from a User Story acceptance, Definition of Done (DoD), sprint and release perspective.
- The PO needs to know about the Release status and is involved with Scrum events like backlog refinement, end-of-sprint review and demo as well as sprint planning (what is required).
- From a financial perspective, the PO is part of the Cost management and responsible for benefit realization.
Scrum Master
- The SM’s concerns are the sprint goal and sprint backlog, as well as sprint prioritization.
- The SM looks at the velocity of the team, driving delivery.
- The SM is responsible for scrum events like the Daily standup, sprint planning and retrospective.
- For status the SM looks at daily status (updates on tool), sprint status
- Risks and issues management from the perspective of helping to remove impediments, blockers.
Project Manager
- The PM will look at the overall agile project life cycle and is responsible for compiling a Conceptual Sprint Plan (CSP) view of the project.
- The PM will look at Release planning and integration aspects within the project, as well as with external projects and vendors or stakeholders.
- PM is still involved in many meetings like Steercom, Scrum of Scrum (SoS) and Change Control
- The PM is concerned about overall status feedback to the Steercom and the Project Management Office (PMO).
- The PM is responsible for risk and issue management and escalations.
- The PM does Cost management – planned/forecasts and actuals.
Project Manager & SM combined
Another option is where people have combined the role of a PM with that of a SM in the context of a consulting company serving customers, while fulfilling both roles on some projects or just the PM role on other projects.
Source: Shama Bole – plastergroup.com
Project Manager in SAFe
Based on another source: PMI Conference Paper by D Cornelius, PMI Global Congress, Oct 2014, the Paper evaluated the PM role using the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) practice. Since SAFe includes portfolio, program, and project levels, it provides the best opportunity for the PM to use the skills obtained from PM training. It will fulfill the role as Release Train Engineer (RTE). In this context the PM is also seen as a coach and facilitator.
The same Paper describes a trend where the PM practice is accepted as a key desired management skill and it moves project leadership from a specialized role back to the functional managers responsible for day-to-day operations. Project management is also one of the key courses required of students in MBA programs to ensure future business leaders obtain the knowledge to plan and execute projects. The elevation of project management as a key knowledge area for business leaders also will play a role in the reduction of the PM a specialized role.
The Paper concluded that the certified PM is a highly skilled knowledge worker that is capable of adding value in a lean and agile world, some-one who will participate effectively in enterprise agile organizations.
When a PM is deployed in a Scrum-only environment it limits the PM’s choices to participate as the Product Owner, a Scrum Master or a Scrum of Scrum Master (scaled).
The SAFe landscape provides the best opportunity for the professional PM to use their skills obtained from PM training. In Scrum @Scale, there is a Scrum of Scrum Master which could also be a good match for PM skills.
The PM is expected to lead by influence without authority. In the lean and agile world, the PM must become a servant leader which is only difficult when previous experience has been a command-and-control model, but In my opinion not so much if your leadership style was more facilitative and adaptive based on the context of the project. An agile PM provides a value that enables continual learning and improvement to members in the organization.
What Agile Project Leaders need for success
- You need to work on growing skillsets beyond your area of expertise.
- You need to tailor delivery approach based on the context.
- It will be very valuable if you can coordinate between different systems, methodologies while coaching the teams in a singular direction.
- You need to delegate control of detailed product planning and delivery to the team.
- Focus on building a collaborative decision-making environment.
- Ensure teams have the ability to respond to changes.
- In an adaptive environment, you will use adaptive planning.
- High emotional Intelligence with a focus on people rather than process.
- Stakeholder engagement continuously and appropriately for the project needs.
- Changed Leadership styles calling for situational and servant leadership.
You can transform yourself to become an agile project leader by knowing what your options are and by deciding where is the best fit based on your strengths, experience and value-add. Commit to continuous learning.
You will enjoy a stimulating work environment while your needs for variety, being autonomous and a change-maker are met.
Let us know what you think about the transitioning of project managers to agile?
How to Start an Agile Project following a Hybrid Approach
By Linky van der Merwe
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.
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.
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.
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.
5 Online Courses for Project Managers
By Raj Vardhman
Most Project Managers will testify that their work can be tough. No two projects or teams are the same. One of the most challenging aspects for project management practitioners is the amount of training needed to stay up-to-date in the face of changing practices.
Fortunately, training is easier now than ever before, thanks to online courses for project managers. The e-learning market has become large enough to provide a slew of materials for your professional improvement. It’s projected to reach $325 billion according to Mark in Style.co.uk by 2021.
Top Online Courses
But which courses are worth your time? There are plenty of them out there, but you can’t take them all. Should you take a free or a paid course? Another question that is often asked when looking for good online courses is:
“What are the top 5 online courses for project managers?”
So, here’s a list of online courses guaranteed to bring value to you and your company.
1. Alison: Diploma in Project Management
2. Coursera: Project Management: The Basics for Success
3. Master of Project Academy: Bundled Course
4. PMI – The Complete Agile Project Manager
5. Brain Sensei: PMP Exam Prep Course
Let’s take a closer look at what each course has to offer.
1. Alison Diploma in Project Management
If you’re looking for a course that suits both those with experience in project management and those without, Alison’s course is a great choice. Alison is a platform for free learning with over a thousand online courses. From diploma courses to certificate courses, it’s excellent for online learning.
The course contains 27 modules, and it takes anywhere between six and ten hours to complete it. It teaches you about various useful facets of project management. These include methodologies like Agile and Scrum, working with PERT and Gantt charts, using the project life cycle, planning, evaluation, and analysis, in addition to electronic, specialist user documentation, and more.
A completion rate of 80% or more on every module is enough to earn the course diploma. While you can get certificates from Alison’s shop, you can also opt to have one in electronic form.
2. Coursera’s Project Management: The Basics for Success
Project Management: The Basics for Success is a great solution for learners looking for knowledge on a budget. You can complete it without paying a dime, although you will miss out on getting the final grade or the actual certificate.
The University of California is in charge of this course, so you’ll be in safe hands throughout the whole thing. You’ll need somewhere around seven hours to complete it, and you’ll have flexibility regarding deadlines.
That said, the course has a live instructor, meaning that you can’t log in and start learning whenever you want. Instead, you’ll need to wait for when it’s available.
That inconvenience aside, you’ll learn plenty of things during this course. You’ll gain an understanding of the project life cycle, the work breakdown structure (WBS), as well as how to deal with different kinds of people in your team, among other things. For a free course, that’s more than enough.
3. Master of Project Academy: Bundled Course
Master of Project Academy is a pretty large e-learning platform, having around 500,000 enrollments around the globe. Its course bundle gives you a wide range of relevant course materials for already skilled and inexperienced project managers. Keep in mind that it’s designed for more skilled project managers than for novices.
If you need to know more about Microsoft Project, Agile and Scrum, PMP,and other topics, Master of Project Academy: Bundled Course will be perfect for you. Additionally, you’ll find courses that cover ITIL and CAPM, too.
The bundle features tons of content, so you can choose to pay for the parts you’re interested in. It’s also self-paced so that you can take your time. You can also take advantage of moderated forums, round-the-clock assistance, and comprehensive guidance for your PMP exam.
It will likely take you some 35 hours to complete the courses. You can choose to pay for them in three ways. There’s the $37 per month option, but you can also get it for $185 per year or $370 for lifetime access.
4. The Complete Agile Project Manager (From the Project Management Institute)
Those who aspire to gain invaluable insight into the Agile methodology can benefit from PMI’s Agile course. It’s especially beneficial if you’re already a PMI member since you’ll be entitled to pretty great discounts. In that case, the course costs $243, while it costs $372 for non-members.
This course comprises nine sections. It covers Agile project management and the implementation of Agile methodologies in a very comprehensive way.If you’ve just started leading an Agile team or your company is moving toward that work method, this course could be a lifesaver.
It should take you around 17 hours to complete it if you have a good knowledge base. It covers a whole slew of topics, from scheduling and planning all the way to leading an Agile team and engaging stakeholders.
5. Brain Sensei: Complete PMP Exam Prep Course
Brain Sensei’s PMP Exam Prep Course is a terrific way to hone your skills if you already have experience in project management.
The course gives you a detailed project management overview, even fundamentals about project closing, project initiation, among other subjects. There are eight different course modules available. They discuss defining, planning, executing, controlling, monitoring, and closing projects, in addition to other key issues.
The entire course lasts six months, and it contains as many as nine hundred practice exam questions. The whole package can be yours for $500.
Make the best choice for your needs
Hopefully, this information will help you to make a more informed decision and to choose the online course that will meet your needs.
6 Global Trends – What they mean for Project Leaders
As the project management profession matured over the years, there has been a growing emphasis on developing leadership skills in order to become a better project leader.
In the words of the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) President and CEO, Sunil Prashara:
“Not only do today’s project leaders need a strong understanding of technology, the ability to determine the best project management methodology for projects, AND the new “power skills” like empathy, creativity and inspirational leadership, they must also have an understanding of the major business, technological, economic and geopolitical trends shaping the world.”
Sunil Prashara, President of PMI
To help prepare project professionals for this, the PMI has conducted research (interviews with project professionals; analyzed information extracted from political, economic, scientific and demographic databases) on the most pressing, long-term trends around the globe. The purpose is to gain a greater understanding of where these critical areas are heading and how industry project leaders can prepare.
With the speed of transformation and operating in a complex world, it will help to gain an understanding of these changes in order to thrive and make an impact where you are.
Signposts Report
The findings have been published in the PMI 2020 Signposts Report. In summary, the Report consist of the following Insights:
Insight 1: Africa and most of the developing world will be home to a new generation of talent ready to tackle a new generation of projects.
Insight 2: Climate change ranks as one of the biggest existential threats to civilization, but project professionals can play a pivotal role in avoiding the point of no return.
Insight 3: As artificial intelligence truly moves into the mainstream, it brings harsh realities—and immense opportunities for project leaders with the right blend of people and tech skills.
Insight 4: Rampant protectionism is forcing a rethink of the once unstoppable force of globalization. But for many project teams, it’s cross-border business as usual (with a few tweaks).
Insight 5: The global infrastructure gap between needs and investment is wide. To close it, project leaders are relying on data-driven innovation—and good old-fashioned people skills.
Insight 6: Keeping information safe requires a united front, backed by a cross-disciplinary, enterprise-wide cybersecurity culture.
The Report makes for a fascinating read about climate change, artificial intelligence, globalization, the infrastructure gap, cybersecurity and shifting demographics.
There are complex issues to be solved which require a new way of thinking and to reimagine the way work gets done. The PMI advocates that organisations need project leaders who bring holistic perspectives, a deep curiosity and broad skill sets to the work at hand who are capable of embracing new ways of working, leading diverse teams and exploring innovative solutions. We need to get ourselves ready.
What is the State of Agile adoption today?
By Linky van der Merwe
The 14th annual State of Agile report has been published by Digital.ai, formerly known as CollabNet VersionOne. The report documents the experiences of more than 1,100 IT and business professionals across a range of industries and roles worldwide. With 40,000 participants contributing over 14 years, the State of Agile report is the longest running and most widely cited Agile survey in the world and provides global enterprises with comprehensive data to benchmark and guide their Agile practices.
Key findings
Notable findings from the 14th annual State of Agile report, completed in December 2019, include:
- 60 percent of respondents have increased speed to market
- Risk and compliance continue to trend upward, as the value of identifying and measuring technical risk prior to deployment increased by 54 percent and the importance of automated audit compliance and governance across control points increased by 10 percent over last year.
- A significant shift in Agile techniques occurred, as product road-mapping increased nine percent while release planning decreased 11 percent. Drivers for this change may include a general increase in continuous integration/continuous deployment and better-defined program increment planning.
- The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) continues to be the most popular scaling method cited by respondents, increasing 5 percent over last year and outpacing the number two choice, Scrum@Scale, by 19 percent.
- 55 percent are planning to implement Value Stream Management (VSM) a combination of people, process, and technology that maps, optimizes, visualizes, measures, and governs business value flow from idea through development and into production.
Interesting demographic analysis is showing that companies with more than 20,000 people were more likely to be practicing Agile for at least five years. While companies with less than 1,000 people continue to mature quickly and are increasingly embracing a broader view of business agility by applying Agile principles to areas of the business outside development, IT, and operations.
How COVID-19 affected Agile adoption
In mid-May 2020, Digital.ai conducted a brief supplemental survey of respondents to learn how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected their Agile adoption. The findings reveal:
- 55% say their company plans to increase the use of Agile in the next 12-14 months. This is an increase of 13 percent over the original survey completed just five months ago.
- 43% of organizations say their momentum for Agile adoption has increased over the past 90 days, with 15 percent saying it has increased significantly.
- 33% say they increased or expanded Agile adoption in the last 90 days to help manage distributed teams.
To find out what the survey reveals about Agile methods and practices, Agile benefits, scaling Agile, Agile Project Management tools, success and metrics as well as Devops and Value Stream Management, please download the 14thState of Agile Report here.
How to Create a Perfect Remote Work Environment
With the spread of COVID-19 as a declared pandemic across the world, the transitioning to working remotely, or what is classically called ‘work from home’ (WFH) has equally spread fast. Many organisations have realised that their staff can continue working from home without interruption, therefore minimising the impact of the virus lockdowns.
However, working remotely has it’s own challenges that need to be overcome in order to stay productive.
Herewith an Infographic guide, with compliments from Wrike, that covers everything you need from room temperature to ergonomic chairs, from what you play on your headphones to what you put in your belly. We trust that this will help you to stay super productive!
Infographic brought to you by Wrike
How Active Listening can help with Virtual Teams
By Linky van der Merwe
Many teams all over the world, have been forced into a ‘work-from-home’ situation due to the Coronavirus spread and countries’ response with different degrees of lockdown measures to curb the spread. Inevitably, virtual teams have many challenges. This article will position how the skill of ‘Active Listening’ can play a huge part when leading virtual teams.
What is active listening?
Active listening can be described as follows:
- Clarifying
- Feedback
- Focus
- Improve the communication
- Repeating
- Intent
- Encouraging
What are communication challenges to overcome?
The challenges people are coming across, include the following:
- How to listen when you are part of a virtual team
- Technology is overloaded; organisations and schools are using the networks, which could cause connectivity or sound issues
- When no video is used, you cannot read body language. Tone of voice becomes very important
- Participants can talk over each another, or some don’t get a chance to speak
How to address communication challenges with listening skills?
You will find with remote work that virtual teams require new rules and new ways of collaboration. Different ground rules will apply, for example to time-box discussions and to ensure that every participant get a chance to speak. More 1-on-1 discussions are required and you need to have more empathy.
Communication with virtual teams can take a lot of energy. Therefore, beware of low energy levels, for example if a person hasn’t eaten, or it’s at the end of a long day, people may lose interest.
Stages of Listening
Reception during communication can be explained with:
- Intake
- Meaning
- Significance
- Response
3 Phases of active listing
The following image provides a nice breakdown of the three phases of active listening, namely comprehending, retaining and responding.
Levels of listening
There are also different levels of listening to be aware of.
Level 1: Internal listening
You ask a question. When a person answers, you think of your own life, interrupt them, or just keep thinking of your own things, and stop listening while they’re speaking. It’s all about ME.
Level 2: Focused listening
The person who listens, asks clarifying questions. Now it’s about voice, information, body language (if it can be seen), emotions that are being observed.
Level 3: Global listening
The person listening has a sense of curiosity. You listen with emphathy. You consider the environment and you take into account a person’s background.
Level 4: Listening for potential
You listen with intent and a positive attitude while thinking of future possibilities and potential.
How to become better with active listening
What will really help you is to have curiosity and to use keywords. If you’re not interested, or curious, you won’t listen, or spend energy there. While listening, look for keywords, ideas and concepts. If things are repeated, look for patterns, because repeated themes are more important.
Another way to become better with active listening, is thinking in a visual way. To do this, you can draw notes, or draw a picture. This gives context, meaning and focus.
You can also improve your active listening skills by being aware of yourself. Do this through reflection, mindfulness and self-awareness. Ask yourself questions like:
- How do I listen?
- What is good and what not?
- Can I improve something?
Nonviolent communication
Nonviolent Communication is an approach to nonviolent living developed by Marshall Rosenberg beginning in the 1960s. NVC is based on the assumption that all human beings have capacity for compassion and empathy and is really about communicating honestly and receiving empathetically. It is an essential ingredient to active listening.
The steps involved with NVC are:
- Observe – when I see, hear
- Feelings – I feel
- Needs – because I need
- Requests – please could you now. The needs of the other person are important and always considered
Tips to improve
There are several ways to keep improving your active listening skills. They are:
- Conscious practice
- Write down keywords
- Note your own ideas
- Ask neutral clarifying questions
- In your mind repeat what other persons says
- Try to visualize what the other person is saying
- Ask additional questions until you can form a mental image
- Don’t talk; rather use non-verbal signals like sounds and expressions, grunts and body language
- Reply with 1-2 syllables
- Admit you are lost
- Repeat back or paraphrasing to show understanding
- Adjust your own posture
- Mirror the other person
- Apply mindfulness
- Check the environment
- Drawing of notes, or pictures
The skill of ‘Active Listening’ should not be underestimated; it becomes even more important with virtual teams. It is something that can be practiced and improved over time.
As a virtual team lead, it is your responsibility to hone this skill and to model the behavior of good active listening to your team members so that they can also practice it and improve their listening skills. You will find that it will greatly contribute to building trust within teams and to help overcome the challenges of working virtually.
Sources:
- Webinar by Pascal Papathemelis from Agile 42
- Corporatecoachgroup.com: “How to improve active listening skills”
How to Deal with COVID-19 as a Project Manager Part 2
By Linky van der Merwe
This article follows from the previous article: How to deal with COVID-19 as a Project Manager, published on 16 March 2020.
In light of this crisis, some of the best things a Project Leader can do, is to arm yourself with information and to be a pillar of strength for your project team(s).
By now we all know that the Coronavirus, known as the COVID-19 pandemic, has serious implications for economies all over the world and is causing a huge business impact in every country where it is spreading. Countries, organizations, and individuals are faced with extremely serious risks, uncertainties, challenges, questions, and decisions—in many cases existential in nature. It is important to arm yourself with accurate, comprehensive information to manage your organization and teams through this crisis by making informed, thoughtful decisions.
Let’s look with a broader lens before we try to understand the impact on project teams.
How to restart national economies
Recently McKinsey reported on the scenarios under which economies will need to restart, called: “How to Restart National Economies during the Coronavirus Crisis.“
Based on the rapid, exponential spread of COVID-19 across the world over the past month, McKinsey has revised its Scenario Analysis (as shared in the previous article) to include 9 potential scenarios. These scenarios capture outcomes related to GDP impact, public health response, and economic policies.
Stages of Recovery
Different countries have had different levels of success in handling this crisis, therefore McKinsey is proposing 4 stages of recovery readiness.
Overview of the 4 Stages of Recovery
To understand what state of readiness a country is in, the 9 scenarios are mapped to the 4 stages of readiness. The best prepared areas are in the upper right box.
For every country and territory, there is a path to recovery—before parts of the economy can be restarted, you must first slow the spread of the virus. If you prematurely restart the economy prior to truly containing the spread, you risk re-starting the spread. Most countries expect to experience significant decline in GDP in Q2 of 2020, which would be the first time since WWII. In fact, GDP drops to its lowest point globally in Q2.
COVID-19 Scenarios Overview
Based on the COVID-19 scenarios, here are the proposed paths to recovery.
If you examine the Stage 2 scenario: A3-Virus is contained, which captures the situation where the virus is contained by mid-Q2, it is expected that public health containment and mitigation efforts, along with a seasonal decline, leads to a reduction in case load.
The result is that by the end of 2020, beginning of 2021, GDP will have recovered to the pre-pandemic levels for most countries.
Under the A1 scenario (medium virus spread), we endure a slow, global recovery—there is severe and large-scale human and economic impact. Most countries will take over 2+ years to recover to the pre-pandemic GDP levels. In this scenario, the GDP shows a gradual U-shape recovery stretching multiple years.
Implication for Companies and Projects
If the Stage 2 scenario (A3-virus is contained) materializes in your country, you have the possibility that the economy should return to normal within a year, with little impact on larger projects and programmes that were able to continue, despite wide-scale lock-down measures in many countries. Of course many small projects would have been put on hold, postponed, or cancelled altogether due to the economic downturn.
However, in the event of a possible A1 scenario in your country, the slow economic recovery, may cause many planned projects to be postponed and multiple cost-saving measures are expected to be implemented by stable companies who will try to survice over the 2+ years that it will take the economy to recover to pre-pandemic GDP levels.
Our response
There is no point in panicking about the situation we as project practitioners are finding ourselves in. Rather prepare for the eventuality that uncertainty, challenges and difficult decisions are lying ahead for most companies.
In another McKinsey article: “Saving our livelihoods from COVID-19: Toward an economic recovery“, they state:
The pandemic could give rise to a new era of human development
McKinsey, April 2020
Recognise the impact of COVID-19 on people’s livelihoods. There will be an increase in unemployment and poverty. This means that some of your team members are experiencing a decline in household income that could last months. This will have a demoralizing effect on families and on teams we lead. We need to raise our awareness and focus on providing emotional safety to our teams. When people feel safe (a basic need) and still secure in their jobs, they will stay committed and motivated to work productively.
It will be the government’s responsibility to help companies to safeguard employment. People will be allowed to return to work under strict health protocols. We need to support those protocols in order to contain the virus and still stay economically active.We can expect that companies will make structural changes during the economic recovery period like leaner operations, digital and industrial reconversions, the introduction of new channels, agile organizational structures, digital innovation and innovative learning techniques. These changes will certainly have an impact on how projects are prioritized and executed in future. As project professionals we need to position ourselves to have market related skills to fill the demands of the recovering economy.
We need to work on being more resilient in these difficult time and keep developing our leadership skills. This is why I’m reading a book called: “Prosper!: How to Prepare for the Future and Create a World Worth Inheriting” by Chris Martenson and Adam Taggart. It gives specific, attainable steps you can take today that can limit your vulnerability and help you to live your life with greater purpose.
Keep yourself informed, be realistic, but stay positive while leading your teams as best as you can through these uncertain times. As long as value is delivered by projects and the outcomes serve companies and their customers, you will stay in high demand.
Please comment and let us know how you are dealing with the pandemic crisis. How are you supporting your teams through this? Share anything that will help others who are in the same predicament.
Sources:
- How to Restart National Economies during the Coronavirus Crisis. McKinsey, April 2020
- Saving our livelihoods from COVID-19: Toward an economic recovery McKinsey, April 2020