How To Do Agile Right

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Agile teams believe that customer feedback is better than management hunches for determining which innovation efforts are most important and how best to adapt them.’

Agile teams do not use sprints to make people work harder or faster. They use sprints to get faster feedback real customers (external and internal) about what those customers truly value.’

‘Creating an agile enterprise requires balancing and integrating operations with innovation.’

‘The best way to manage the transition to an agile enterprise is to manage it like any other agile team.’

Effective agile programs adapt to empirical feedback about inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and purposes. Few organizations currently have sufficient data to assess their present level of agility or their progress in improving it.’

Teams in an agile enterprise must make decisions quickly. Agile leadership teams can support quick decision making by being inclusive, overcommunicating, coaching, and building learning loops.’

‘Contrary to the popular myth, planning is an essential part of agile. Planning, budgeting, and reviewing must work together in frequent, adaptive cycles.’

Continuously revisit your talent strategy, recognizing that while you will need some new talent, most of the people in your organization are already there.’

Persistent, cross-functional agile teams are the best ways to improve business processes and technology. As teams gain experience and trust with operators, their development capabilities increase and adoption rates accelerate.’

Pace yourself to create pull and build momentum. The sequenced plan needs to include all the elements of the operating model- accountabilities and decision rights, management system, leadership and culture, talent practices, and the like.’

Source

Darrell Rigby, Sarah Elk, and Steve Berez (2020). Doing Agile Right: Transformation Without Chaos

How To Become A Great Project Manager

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‘Successful project managers see their primary role as leading the project from living order to geometric order.’

‘The objective of the manager should be to become a practitioner by learning from practice and not by learning about practice.’

‘In a dynamic environment, formulation of objectives must be bound up with action in an interactive and continous process.’

‘To be successful in practicing responsive agility, a project manager must operate within an organizational culture that acknowledges the unavoidability of unexpected events.’

‘Managers who maintain a stationary position may be forced to make complex judgments with incomplete or misleading information.’

‘In order to prevent a major disruption, the project manager must be willing to initiate a change rather than simply respond to events.’

‘Managers in successful projects feel a total personal accountability for results.’

Taking initiative while consistently challenging the status quo is one of the key ingredients in developing leadership competence.’

Step away from your work for a moment to better understand it, learn from it, and then share what you learned with others.’

‘A world dominated by living order requires moving from a one-size-fits-all paradigm to tailoring the decisions to the context of the specific situation.

Successful project managers have a hedgehog’s focus on results and fox’s resourcefulness when challenging the status quo is necessary.’

Source

Alexander Laufer, Terry Little, Jeffrey Russell, and Bruce Maas (2018). Becoming a Project Leader: Blending Planning, Agility, Resilience, and Collaboration to Deliver Successful Projects