The Scrum and XP chapters include specific agile project management practices for those methods. Other authors present generalizations with common themes: manager promotes the vision, more communication, avoid command-control, and so on. This section summarizes two well-known descriptions.
Jim Highsmith, an Agile Alliance founder and creator of the Adaptive Software Development method, summarizes nine principles for the agile project manager [Highsmith02]:
Augustine andWoodcock, two managers with experience in XP-oriented projects, recommend six practices [AW02]:
A theme of agile project management in Scrum and XP is the devolution of both control and planning to the entire team, not the manager. The manager does not create a work breakdown structure, schedule, or estimates; this is done as a team. The manager does not (usually) tell people what to do. The manager does not define and assign many detailed team roles and responsibilities. Rather, the project manager role emphasizes coaching, servant-leadership, providing resources, maintaining the vision, removing impediments, promoting agile principles, etc. Thus, managers more used to control and rule-based methods or project management have some challenge adopting agile methods. |