The document discusses how the role of the project manager is changing in an agile environment. In traditional project management, the project manager takes a command and control approach, but in agile, the role shifts to be more collaborative, focusing on stakeholder management, empowering self-organizing teams, and acting as a servant leader. As organizations become more agile, project management must also evolve to support adaptive management through facilitating teams and addressing organizational impediments to change.

1. Project Managers
And their changing role in the Agile World
Graham Dick graham.dick@moreagile.co.uk +44 7717437478

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Project Management
Command and Control

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PM Responsibilities
Command and Control View
Inward Towards The Team
• Get the right resources
• Identify and manage risk
• Create a WBS
• Schedule the work
• Record progress information
• Monitor budget spend
• Manage issue resolution
• Identify necessary training
• Assign tasks and actions
• Incorporate change into plans
Outwards Towards Stakeholders
• Obtain plan approval
• Negotiate the budget
• Match resources and schedule
• Receive and manage change
• Report progress
• Report budget spend
• Escalate critical risks
• Escalate significant issues
• Meet management demands
• Deliver the project
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Collaborative
Self
Organizing
Empowered
Servant
Leader
Teams Take On Responsibilities
“Agilista” Popular Front Seizes Control
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PM Responsibilities
Responsibility becomes Accountability
Inward Towards The Team
• Get the right resources
• Identify and manage risk
• Create a WBS
• Schedule the work
• Record progress information
• Monitor budget spend
• Manage issue resolution
• Identify necessary training
• Assign tasks and actions
• Incorporate change into plans
Outwards Towards Stakeholders
• Obtain plan approval
• Negotiate the budget
• Match resources and schedule
• Receive and manage change
• Report progress
• Report budget spend
• Escalate critical risks
• Escalate significant issues
• Meet management demands
• Deliver the project
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• Get the right resources
• Identify and manage risk
• Create a WBS
• Schedule the work
• Record progress information
• Monitor budget spend
• Manage issue resolution
• Identify necessary training
• Assign tasks and actions
• Incorporate change into plans
Responsibility = Doing Work; Accountability = The Buck Stops Here

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The Organization is Not Agile
How to make the project fit?
The Project Manager carries
the responsibility for – actively
works to manage –the
relationships with other parts
of the organization. This is the
value-adding aspect of
Project Management.
Management is needed
because of the lack of
effective continuing
collaboration between parts of
the organization.
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Defining the Interface
Outward to Stakeholders, Inward to Team
Project Manager
• Outward looking responsibilities
• Inward looking accountabilities
• Appointed by stakeholders
• Static across the project
• Communicates
• Outward to Stakeholders
• Inward to Iteration Lead
• Should be a member of the
team
• Can’t collaborate if outside
Iteration Lead
• Inward looking responsibilities
• Appointed by the team
• Should change regularly
• Communicates
• Outward to Project Manager
• Outward to Product Owner
• Is a member of the team
• Collaborates as a team member
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Outward Accountability
Who Has Accountability for Delivery?
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Collaborative
Self
Organizing
Empowered
Servant
Leader
In the Agile world the
whole team has
accountability for
delivery

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Project Management Evolves
As the Organization Becomes More Agile…
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Increasing Agility
Adaptive Management Becomes Essential
Adaptive Management
§ Agile organization context
§ Continuing adaptation
§ People focused
§ Management set vision and
goals
§ Delivered by self-organizing
teams
§ Balance flexibility and rigour
§ Motivate staff
§ Increase discipline
§ Achieve high performance
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Talk about Culture
Leadership
(style, values, habits)
Strategy
(goals, success measures, rewards)
Structure
(roles/responsibilities, organisation)
Processes
(policies, operations, value chain, business processes)
People
(values, beliefs, attitudes, norms, habits)
Culture
Introduction to ICAgile – Ahmed Sidkey Feb 2014

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Talk about Culture
Leadership
(style, values, habits)
Strategy
(goals, success measures, rewards)
Structure
(roles/responsibilities, organisation)
Processes
(policies, operations, value chain, business processes)
People
(values, beliefs, attitudes, norms, habits)
Change
Culture
Introduction to ICAgile – Ahmed Sidkey Feb 2014

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Supporting the Agile transition
from a people perspective
Adopt coaching/mentoring/facilitating behaviours
• Role-model “agile behaviours” – be the servant leader
• Agile Behaviours - listening, questioning, clarifying, self
management, manage through others, power of teams
• Agile values & principles – model environments in which it is
safe to fail, safe to innovate, safe to be curious …
• Ensure clear guiding vision (both for Agile & projects)
• Support concept of slack
• Ensure necessary information is available
• Respect the team’s decisions whilst holding them
accountable for adopting Agile – let them loose within
the ‘strictures of agile’
• Be aware of knowledge worker’s motivation/drivers
intrinsic (autonomy, mastery, purpose) rather than
extrinsic

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Supporting the Agile transition
from an organisational perspective
• Address impediments
• Support functional managers to evolve into mentors &
developers of craft
• Centres of excellence, communities of practice etc
• Interact with PMOs and SLTs to address project metrics
• Make them agile friendly … over time J
• Exploit agile transparency and empiricism
• Interact with SLT & HR to evolve People management
• From assessing and monitoring tasks to continued value
delivery & supporting learning
• Individual measures move to emphasise those that support
team performance: supporting collaboration, info sharing,
developing t-shaped skills, self organising behaviours

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Summary
• Agile change is a real, positive change for Project
Managers
• Move to Agile forces PM role to evolve
• Less command and control
• More stakeholder management
• Driven by key Agile principles
• Collaboration
• Self-organization
• Empowerment
• Servant leadership
• Constrained by organizational relationships – so not for
all
• Help the move to Adaptive management
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Contact More Agile
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Graham Dick
e: graham.dick@moreagile.co.uk
m: +44 7717 437478
@grahamcmdick, @More_Agile
www.moreagile.co.uk