Agile Project Management: Five Things Your Team Wishes You Knew

By Mark Wavle, National Lead, Agile Enablement Services, Insight Enterprises

Agile project management is not a new concept, but it is a highly intuitive one: Breaking complex projects down into smaller tasks that can be achieved in short bursts, in turn allowing faster value delivery and feedback through an iterative, constantly improving process. This creates nimbleness, a closer connection the customer’s needs and wants and, crucially for businesses embracing digital innovation, space for creativity and flexibility.

All that being said, however, Agile isn’t necessarily easy to implement. For leaders of Agile teams, there can be a steep learning curve. Make no mistake, embracing Agile requires organizational change, and as with all change initiatives, you’re bound to hit some bumps in the road.

I’ve worked with many Agile teams over the course of my career. Here are my top pieces of advice for leaders looking to implement an Agile approach and effectively navigate its occasionally choppy waters:

1. It’s not just another way to manage work. “Project management” may be something of a misnomer when it comes to implementing an Agile framework. It’s not just about the process of the work, it’s about the culture required to maximize the benefit of the Agile approach. Leaders must be intentional and consistent about enabling the shift in mindset required to operate as an Agile team. Remember that your people are what drive innovation and outcomes for the users.

2. A compelling vision is central. Vision is table stakes in any team setting, Agile or otherwise. For Agile specifically, teams need a product vision. I have seen teams in highly challenging circumstances produce amazing results once they were fully aligned on — and enthusiastic about — designing a product that would provide value to the customers they cared about. It was like watching a sports team care so deeply about winning that they worked through their differing skills, communicated effectively and overcame significant obstacles.

Help your teams care deeply about winning the game. And don’t forget to connect the team to the outcomes and impacts of their work.

3. Awesome teams solve tough problems. Traditionally, we have sought out and rewarded individual performance. But in the Agile context, it is far more important to build outstanding, self-organizing, problem-solving teams. If you can enable them to form then protect them from interference, these teams will overcome significant obstacles for you and your users with resilience.

There are a few things you can do to help foster awesome teams and overcome individual silos. First (as already mentioned), cast a compelling vision. In addition: a) identify skills and traits that support teaming, and b) seek out team members, both internally and externally, that exemplify those features. You may also consider rebalancing your performance management system to reward behaviors that leave teams better and more resilient.

4. Elevate learning to a first-class citizen. Learning must be a highly desired outcome in the Agile ecosystem — it’s a prerequisite for creativity and problem-solving. In learning organizations, there is an emphasis on “speed to learn” because they realize the faster they can learn, the stronger their competitive advantage. Encourage your teams to run experiments, ask about what they have learned recently and celebrate learning.

This focus on learning applies to the product, technology and processes. As we consult with organizations on their agility, we find many benefit from the outside perspective of an Agile Health Check to identify areas of strength to protect and areas of challenge where they can target learning experiments. Building and tackling a backlog of challenges propels an organization forward.

5. Appropriate boundaries enable creativity. The challenge of constraints is finding a balance that enables the team’s innovative self-organization and protects the things most critical to the larger system they operate within. The existing boundaries are likely unbalanced, and your team needs your help. But the reality is that boundaries are necessary.

The questions are many: Is the boundary real? Who owns it? What does it protect? How does it impact our ability to deliver? How can we influence it? Navigating constraints may occasionally lead to conflict, but strong leadership can promote a more collaborative relationship where all parties are working together to experiment with better ways to manage and respect boundaries.

Want to see how far you are along the Agile journey to digital transformation? Take our quiz — and think about how you can apply the lessons above to build better, faster, more creative teams.

Mark is the national lead for Agile Enablement Services on Insight Enterprises’ Digital Innovation team. He has more than 10 years of Agile experience as a practitioner, Professional Scrum Trainer, Scrum Master and Agile Coach and has worked in a variety of industries, including healthcare, marketing, insurance and retail.