Agile Project Manager?

There is a very common but highly erroneous belief that something such as an “Agile Project Manager” exists. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The reasons for this will be explained below.

A Project Manager, very simply put, is the person in overall charge of the planning, execution and closing of a project. Bearing this definition in mind, at the end of this article, you should be able to deduce if a Project Manager actually exists in an Agile environment. 

Contrary to what obtains in a Traditional project management environment, Agile values “Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools,” this transcends how work is done, to, and influences how we organize and inspire our teams in addition to how we operate as leaders. Leadership is not about instructing people on what to do and how to do it, rather, true leadership is about connecting with people’s inherent motivations.

Agile promotes the concept of Leadership over and above Management. Leadership itself in an Agile environment, adopts an interpersonal approach and completely eschews directing and command-and-control methods. Warren Bennis explains this simply as “Management is getting people to do what needs to be done. Leadership is getting people to want to do what needs to be done.” Rather than tell people what to do, Agile recommends we create an environment where people desire to do what needs to be done. This is similar to the popular pulling and pushing the rope analogy. Pulling the rope means people want to do what needs to be done, meanwhile pushing the rope, means people are instructed on what to do.

Management is quite mechanical and is focused on tasks, control and speed. Leadership on the other hand has a more humanitarian approach to dealing with people as its focus is on empowerment, effectiveness and doing the right thing. While we should strive for leadership, we need to be aware that a few mechanics of management need to be in place to support our objective.

A Project Manager exists in, and is suited for a Traditional project management (Waterfall) environment, but what exists in an Agile environment, is the Servant Leader. Agile recommends servant leadership and this model acknowledges the fact that it is the team members and not the Leader, Coach or Scrum Master who does the technical work and achieves the desired business value. This approach to leadership changes the dynamic of the relationship between the Leader and the team. An Agile Servant Leader focuses on providing the team with what they need, getting rid of obstacles to their progress and performing tasks designed to increase the team’s overall productivity.

Within the Agile methodology, there are four key responsibilities a Leader has towards his/her team. These responsibilities are listed and briefly discussed below:

1.     Protect the team from interruptions. An Agile Servant Leader is responsible for ensuring that the team is isolated and shielded from distractions, interruptions and work that is outside of the scope of the project at hand. Change requests are common place and welcome on an Agile project, however, these requests need to be passed through the appropriate channels. It is the duty of the Project Leader to ensure this is done. Thus, change requests should be made during the Iteration/Sprint Planning Meeting or submitted to the Product Owner for inclusion in the backlog. While protecting the team from internal distractions, the Leader should pay particular attention to external distractions as team members moving between different projects concurrently is counter-productive. Agile does not support the theory of multi-tasking but this is a whole other topic for another article.

One of the many ways a Leader can protect his/her team from outside distractions is to ensure that the team is co-located.

2.     Eliminate impediments to progress. Obstacles should be removed from the team’s path by the Servant Leader as they would usually result in delays or waste. Some of these obstacles exist in the form of documentation or compliance tasks that prevent the team from completing the critical activities on their project.

During the Daily Stand Up, the Servant Leader needs to make a note of the issues raised and work to resolve them that very day, if this is possible. Getting rid of impediments will enable the team to complete more tasks and essentially deliver more business value.

3.     Continually communicate the project vision. One of the key responsibilities of a Servant Leader is the communication and re-communication of the project vision. This is critical to the success of the project. It has been observed that the project team members’ ability to remain focused/reminded of the objectives of the project, helps them to align their decisions with, and work towards this common objective. A common vision helps to retain alignment with project objectives. When vision is frequently communicated, diversions are easily identified and can therefore be eliminated. According to Kouzes and Posner, the need to keep re-communicating a project vision can never be overemphasized, in fact, continually communicating the project vision, is a pivotal step for effective leadership.

4.     Provide essential resources. It is the responsibility of the Servant Leader to provide the resources the team needs to keep it productive. Some of these resources include but are not limited to work tools, compensation and motivation. Professionalism and a sense of duty is usually not enough to sustain the team’s commitment. Hence, it is recommended that leaders identify what motivates their team members as individuals and find and implement an appropriate reward measure. It is also important to bear in mind the fact that aligning project objectives with personal objectives yields the highest levels of productivity.

Victories should also be celebrated. Regular recognitions and celebrations help to keep the team members motivated and inclined to keep putting in their best effort.

Training and professional development activities are a great way of ensuring team members remain motivated and productive as this helps to ensure that team member’s skill sets are enhanced while they also get to grow on a personal level.

It is very important to understand that Agile teams are self-organizing/self-managing, and this negates the need for an “Agile Project Manager.” The team in an Agile environment is free from command-and-control management and can use their own knowledge to decide how best to execute their tasks. They are empowered to work collectively to create their own team norms and make their own internal decisions. This way, they figure out the best way to accomplish their tasks and they also get to resolve their issues, internally.

On a final note, Agile team members (who more often than not, have greater technical understanding of what it takes to complete the tasks than their leader), are in the best position to self-organize their own work so they are never managed, they only require support from their leader. As a matter of fact, it has been observed that the less technical an Agile Leader is, the easier it would be for him/her to limit his/her responsibility to supporting the team as there would be less likelihood of his/her getting in the way of the team by trying to impose their own technical know-how.