Voices THE AGILE PROJECT MANAGER
More to
Master
There’s no way around it: Going
agile requires new skills.
By Jesse Fewell, CST, PMI-ACP, PMP,
contributing editor
I
n the race to go agile, project leaders are
discovering a hard truth: What got you
here won’t get you there. The problem
is that you can’t just stretch plan-driven
delivery skills in an agile environment—
you need to master new ones. Here are the three
must-have skills demanded by agile approaches.
SCOPE SLICING
The easiest way to deliver faster is by delivering less.
Want that project in half the time? Cut half the scope.
It’s simple—and really hard. Complex products involve
dependencies and customizations. Where to begin?
The technique is called “story slicing.” Begin with
the ideal user experience to deliver a minimum viable
product (MVP), and worry about exception cases
later. Support a single vendor first, and then add more.
Scope slicing can be overwhelming. Your spon-
sor might struggle to define a “minimum viable
product.” Your team might protest building a
prototype because of the associated rework with
building out the full product later.
But the approach is here to stay. Whether it’s
software projects building a series of “full stack”
deliverables or marketing projects featuring “micro
campaigns,” the point is to get an incremental
glimpse of the final product.
TOUGH TRADE-OFFS
If negotiation is an important project management
skill, it becomes mission critical in an agile envi-
ronment. Everything is a trade-off. For example, a
customer might want to accelerate the schedule,
but then complain about part of the scope being
unable to make the new deadline.
Such common project tensions are even more
palpable in high-change, high-demand environ-
ments. But an array of agile techniques exists to
help project managers negotiate. Good arguments If negotiation
should involve quantitative elements (e.g., dot- is an important
voting, burn-up charts, cycle times) and qualitative project
elements (e.g., vision, MVP). Taking the time to management
add to your negotiating toolkit will help overcome skill, it becomes
awkward moments.
mission critical
MANAGE MESSES
in an agile
Agile is messy. One executive told me that she warns environment.
sponsors agile projects will be scary at first. “You’ll get
to see all our mistakes as we figure out how best to
deliver. But if you have the stomach for it, then we’ll
be able to get you a better product sooner.”
The agile project manager must learn how to
present mistakes in the positive lights of learning,
progress and risk reduction. As author Eric Ries
has written, the agile-minded leader “eats failure
for breakfast.” That might not sound appetizing to
someone new to agile, but it’s the truth. PM
Jesse Fewell, CST, PMI-ACP, PMP, has served on the
core team of the Agile Practice Guide and the Steer-
ing Committee for the PMI-ACP® certification. He
can be reached at email@jessefewell.com.