Agile panel for PMSA
In August 2018, I was part of a panel discussion about Agile to an audience of mainly project managers and business stakeholders. The panel consisted of members of the SUGSA coaching circle. We were a diverse group of scrum masters, developers, and project managers. We met once every two weeks to learn about Agile in our roles and share lessons along the journey.
We were asked to present our learnings to an audience of project managers, business stakeholders — a yearly event held by PMSA (Project Management South Africa).
These were some of the questions the audience asked…
- Traditional project manager and scrum master role — can it be combined
- How to apply Agile to programmers
- Can we apply Agile generically in different industries
- How to manage scope/budget in Agile
- How to convert from waterfall to Agile
- Pure Agile — is it possible or should it be a hybrid
- Changes in governance to adopt Agile — decision-making (how decision-making is approached from traditional to Agile)
- Where fit for purpose? & complexity — what’s the criteria
- In PM world there’s a project dissection — a plan ahead. What would constitute a project plan in Agile
- If there’s no PM on a project who handles all that in an Agile environment
- How does Agile handle huge projects that has risk factors of over Millions within the business? Late delivery is not an option.
- Does Agile give the team a ‘big picture’ view of the project? And how?
The questions says a lot about what people are struggling with and the knowledge gaps in Agile. It also says a lot about business and how far we are willing to be labelled as “Agile”. Even if only in word.
“Rash actions, ill-conceived, will lead to more problems.” — Saru, Star Trek Discovery
One gentleman in the audience said they got a new CEO and he brought in Agile. He changed the project manager titles to scrum masters with no real direction or guidance. They brought in Agile coaches for 6 months, but after they left, they didn’t know what to do. He asked how many teams should a scrum master manage across projects within an organisation? (to be a good scrum master, 2–3; to be great, only 1). How do they manage all the ceremonies across 3 large teams? He sounded overwhelmed.
Interestingly enough one project manager came to me and said…
“Not all PM’s are control and dictate people. She felt this is what people portray project managers to be. She said she approaches her role as a PM from the side of the team and how to get the best work out of them.”
I think she’d make a good scrum master :)
Nevertheless…
Language is important. Words define people. Don’t define yourself by your job title alone. I’m more than a scrum master, but I am no Master of anything. I strive toward it. Everyday. Its about alignment, team flow, engagement, feeling motivated, having a purpose, belonging and meeting the right expectations. Making sure teams feel these things and organisations SEE it. Whichever terminology you use to describe your role is irrelevant. I think the Agile vs Waterfall debate is long gone. Deal with people like human beings.
“More than autonomy, people want to be part of something bigger” — GapingVoid.
You will answer more questions and solve more problems by keeping this close to your company vision and every decision you make toward that.
It felt good to be on this Agile panel! Listening to people and contributing thoughts and experiences. More than that, I felt a part of something larger.
