LeadingAnswers: Leadership and Agile Project Management Blog

Agile Alliance Update

I recently returned from the Agile Alliance Board meeting in Boston. Three times a year we meet as the board to review progress, plan Agile Alliance programs, conferences and member services. This latest meeting was my favourite. Not only did we get lots done in the two day period, but the process (mainly open space) worked really well and rather than committee work being frustratingly slow, it progressed well, and I came away energized by the whole experience!
We had many good discussions including:

Conference 2009 Update – Next year’s agile conference will most likely by in Chicago, at the Hyatt downtown hotel. Options are being kept open and the venue would work well with between 1200-2400 attendees.

  <Todd Little explains the dynamics of conference venue selection>

Click the "Contine Reading..." link below for more updates.

Agile Project Leadership and More on Accreditation

Last week I taught the “Agile Project Leadership” course with Sanjiv Augustine in Manchester, UK. The course went really well and we were looked after by Ian and Dot Tudor our hosts from TCC Training and Consultancy. They have a number of training facilities around the UK and ours was Aspen House, a converted church that retained all the arched doorways and high vaulted ceilings you would hope for.

It was a rare treat to teach in such nice surroundings and the church setting made evangelising agile all the more fun. In truth we were “preaching to the choir” as most of the delegates were already familiar with the benefits of agile and were looking for practical tools and more leadership techniques to move their organizations to the next level.

The DOI, Made to Slip?

Nearly three years on, why is the Declaration Of Interdependence (DOI) still not widely known or referenced?

The chances are that most readers will not be familiar with the DOI, yet it is a great piece of work. The DOI lists principles that, like the Agile Manifesto principles, help point the way for teams working on agile projects. It was created by the founders of the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN) to guide agile project management and rally support for an uprising of new project management thinking.

Other than believing some of the wording was a little too clever for its own good and general consumption. I did not fully understand why it had been avoided. Then I read “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath and I realized that it has the stickiness and appeal of a greased electric eel.

Popular Posts as PDFs - One year of LeadingAnswers

I have been blogging on this site for a year now and it has been lots of fun. With 82 articles and 33,000 visitors from 127 countries, I have made plenty of contacts that I would not have made otherwise and learned lots in the process.

A couple of people have commented that it is hard to print articles from this site and so I have created a separate page with some of the more popular posts as PDF documents for download or printing. Just click on the "Articles as PDF documents" link of the top right of this page.

Who knows what year 2 will bring, but I’d like to hear from you so I have added a “Suggest a Topic” email link too.  Drop me a line and if your topic catches my fancy I’ll write about it.

Thanks for reading.
Mike

Keeping Agile Real (and avoid losing people before you begin)

I went to see a bad chiropractor a few months ago and his approach diminished my (already quite skeptical) perception of this medical practice. His outright dismissal of conventional medicine and biased view that chiropractic treatment is the only true solution to all ailments turned me away from him and from any benefits I may have found by continuing with his treatment.

I am not comparing agile methods to alternative medicine, instead I’m just pointing out that zealots who fail to acknowledge alternative views can do a lot to damage their profession. As proponents of agile methods, I believe we can make a stronger case for agile by acknowledging strengths of traditional approaches and explaining how agile can help common challenges, rather than by dismissing traditional techniques.

Encouraged by other recommendations, I visited a different chiropractor and received great benefit. He did not attempt to undermine traditional medicine, instead he explained how he might be able to help and we took it from there. My symptoms got worse before they got better, but I stuck with it since his explanations seemed reasonable. My “conversion” moment came when he also relieved some additional injuries I had been suffering with for many years.

I do not think I am alone in appreciating a considered approach. Most of the people I deal with in the business community are smart, conscientious professionals who are looking for successful projects. Yet, we see the actions of zealots and as a believer it is easy to be caught up in their damaging behaviour.

The following list outlines some common examples of how biased thinking can undermine the value of agile methods and offers some advice to ambassadors of agile methods for avoiding these pitfalls.

Dismissing the Waterfall Process
The waterfall process as originally outlined by Winston Royce in 1970 actually contains some really good advice. For a start it recommends that the waterfall process always be run at least twice for a project because you will not get everything right the first time. Also that there should be regular feedback loops and checks along the way to ensure things are working correctly. Take a look, here’s a reprint of the original 1970 paper, look at page 7.

Download original_waterfall_paper_winston_royce.pdf

Agile ambassadors could do better to offer agile as a solution to single pass waterfall challenges on software projects rather than a superior approach period.

Running down the PMI, PMPs and the PMBOK

Blog Award

To my surprise, this blog won the PMISAC award for Project Management Literature last night at the 2007 Awards Gala Dinner. This is a great endorsement, I work on the blog in my spare time and it provides a large encouragement to continue and do more.

I also think having a blog considered for a literary award demonstrates how progressive the PMISAC is. It was not long ago that blogs were more the domain of developers than project managers. It is very encouraging to see alternative media branches recognized.

Update on Introducing Agile Article

My recent posts on “Introducing Agile methods to Organizations: Mistakes to Avoid” (part 1, part 2, part 3) have been picked up by InfoQ for a mini-book. While this is great positive feedback for me, it is good news for you as readers too, as I will also post links to the new expanded version here so you can get access to the extra material.

Mini-books are available free electronically and sold in paper form through Amazon. They are short (60-80 pages maximum) and intended to serve a tech savvy audience with a concise, yet in-depth coverage of a subject.

I plan to work on this in May and June and will keep you posted as to how it goes and when the final version is available.

Changing Jobs

In April I will be leaving Quadrus Development to go independent again. I have found an interesting contract at local company, Husky Energy, where they have an agile project to manage and some other interesting initiatives underway and I am looking forward to my new role.

End With the Beginning in Mind
I have been at Quadrus for over six years and I enjoyed my role there tremendously. Someone very wise (Christopher Avery) once told me that when a relationship comes to an end that you should always End With the Beginning in Mind i.e. remember the reasons why the relationship started in the first place and focus on these points when wrapping up. Not only is end-with-the-beginning-in-mind, a great twist on Stephen Covey’s "begin-with-the-end-in-mind", it is also very wise advice I wish I had appreciated when I was much younger.

In his book “Teamwork is an Individual Skill”, Chris says the following about ending partnerships:

“…people so seldom end relationships well. Maybe because we all want so much to win - and endings are associated with losing. Maybe it’s because we are embarrassed that we don’t know how to derive any more benefits from a partnership. Maybe we are embarrassed because of un-kept promises, real or imagined…endings are as inevitable as beginnings and we can improve the quality of endings by avoiding three things:

1) Burning bridges
2) Harming reputations
3) Being inhumane to oneself or others”

Chris then goes on to recommend some positive steps that include:

"1) End the collaboration by bringing to mind the positive intentions and positive results that the partnership produced.
2) Thank your partners for the opportunities, results, and trust they provided you.
3) …"

I think this is great advice, and personally think back with fond memories of when I started at Quadrus. Having enjoyed several years holidays snowboarding and hiking in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, my wife and I decided to emigrate to Canada. It seems foolhardy now, but we both quit our jobs, sold our house in England and moved to Calgary without new jobs to go to. I was fortunate to interview with Quadrus my second week in Canada and was offered a position the same day.

Quadrus took a chance hiring me and I am very grateful for that, I arrived here with my PRINCE2 project management certification that no one had heard of and quickly sat my PMP exam to at least gain some traditional project management accreditation. Fortunately my methodology experience was more transferable, with RUP, Scrum, and XP being well understood in Canada.

I had some cultural challenges as Canada and England are two nations separated by a common language. I learned how to “get my ducks in a row”, “ramp” on new technologies and avoid “kack” while explaining how long a “fortnight” is and what “knackered” means.

Quadrus encouraged me to develop training courses, speak at conferences and publish articles. Without these opportunities I would have missed meeting so many smart people and becoming enthralled by research and lifelong learning. Quadrus has a great set of dedicated IT professionals and I will miss their skills and community.

Other Items, Business as Usual
While I am changing my 9-5 job, my other activities will continue. Quadrus has agreed to continue hosting the Calgary APLN Drupal web site and I look forward to seeing Quadrus folks at future APLN meetings. I will still be writing articles for the Agile Journal and Gantthead and continue to be actively involved with the Agile Alliance, the APLN, CAMUG, and Cambrian House. I will still be presenting on Agile Project Management at Agile 2007 in August and the PMI Global Congress in Atlanta this October. Not least of course, I will continue blogging here, so there will be no end to totally biased leadership and project management ideas.

I will be having some leaving drinks in Ceili’s (803 8th Avenue) on Friday 30th at 4:30pm, anyone who knows me is welcome to drop by for a beer if you are in the neighbourhood.

My Background and Goals for this Blog

I am a project manager with Quadrus Development Inc. in Calgary Alberta. I moved to Canada, with my wife Samantha, six years ago from England to be close to the Rocky Mountains as we enjoy hiking, mountain biking and snow boarding. We have a 3 month old son “Jake”, who has provided a diversion to our mountain adventures this summer, and is lots of fun.

In 1994 I was very fortunate to be involved in the creation of the agile method DSDM and have been using agile methods including FDD, Scrum and XP for the last 12 years. I am a board member of the Agile Alliance and the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN).