In What Agile Project Managers Do, Part 1, I spoke about what agile project managers might do. Here’s what agile project managers do not do: The agile project manager does not assign work. The agile project manager does not estimate work on behalf of the team. The agile project manager does not commit to features, […]
One of the questions I hear all the time with people transitioning to using agile is this: How do we organize the project if we don’t have a project manager? If you read Manage It!, you know I don’t buy the idea of a controlling project manager. But a facilitative project manager? Oh my. That
If you’ve been watching my writing (and speaking), you’ve noticed that I like both agile and lean. I like the cadence of milestones and demos that iteration-based agile provides. I like the limiting of work in progress and seeing the whole that lean provides. For me, both are necessary to deliver value. You might have
As I’m teaching my Practical Product Owner workshop, some POs are having trouble understanding how big a defect is. Sure, they want to have small(er) stories, but a defect isn’t done until it’s all fixed, and the team has decided if they need automated regression tests added to the smoke tests. So, here are three
I had the chance to teach agile ideas to some project portfolio managers, or people who were considering setting up a PMO to manage the project portfolio. Many of these folks had a real concern: how to manage “resources.” (People to you and me.) Part of what I said to them was that resource management
I am very happy to announce that Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects, 2nd edition is out! This edition has these additions from the first edition: A chapter on scaling. How do you move from a team or a couple of groups’ portfolio to the entire organization? Updated chapter on
I am leading the August workshop, Practical Product Ownership, starting next week. I still have room in that workshop. If you struggle with the role of the Product Owner, this workshop is for you. You will learn to deliver what the business needs, with your team. I hope you join us. If you are wondering
An agile coach asked me this question, “What tool should our senior leadership use for managing the program/portfolio?” That question told me these things: Her leadership is confused about the difference between a program (one business deliverable composed of many projects) and the project portfolio (a picture of the committed work that implements the organizational
I was at an experience report at Agile 2016 last week, Scaling Without Frameworks-Ultimate Experience Report. One of the authors, Daniel Vacanti said this: Flow focuses on unblocking work. Iterations (too often) focus on the person doing the work. At the time, I did not know Daniel’s twitter handle. I now do. Sorry for not
In Part 1, I talked about small stories/chunks of work, checking in all the time so you could build often and see progress. That assumes you know what done means. Project “done” means release criteria. Here are some stories about how I started using release criteria. Back in the 70s, I worked in a small development group.