Alignment and Channeling

Despite a lack of formal authority, the agile project manager must still be able to direct the project and the team. There are still some necessary aspects of the classic, planning-and-control line of attack, but the agile project manager must take a softer approach (see Figure 5-3). Instead of driving compliance to a potentially outdated plan, she must keep the project aligned with the changing project environment. The agile project manager is like an information manifold that takes in technical and business information from many sources, organizes and reconciles it, and then channels it to the appropriate team members and sponsors. I've heard many project managers lament that they wish they were making more technical contributions to the project. This is a noble thought, but rather than spending time trying to make technical contributions, or reverting back to the classic project management control methods, you should be tuning up your manifold. The constant change involved in an agile project requires an information manifold that is constantly pulling in new information, digesting it, analyzing it, and distributing it to the right people. This is perhaps the single most valuable contribution an agile project manager can make during the execution phase of a project.

Figure 5-3: The project manager's focus in an agile versus classic environment.

Agile Strategy

Act as an information manifold to efficiently distribute the distilled information to the appropriate team members. This highly valuable role provides a key linkage between the project and its external environment, and it puts you out in front of both the project team and sponsors.

Perhaps manifold is not the perfect analogy, since it implies a rote and simplistic method of distribution. This is probably true in a repeatable environment, but not so in the agile one. Here, you need to be an intelligent manifold (see Figure 5-4). When you are in the midst of a dynamic technical and business environment, knowing which events are important to the project (and which are not important) is critical to making the correct decisions. Knowing where to look for the information, and then getting it, can be challenging. Reconciling the constant flow of information against your (agile) plan takes effort. Analyzing various "what if" scenarios is a skill to be honed. And finally, packaging the information and channeling it to the right people at the right time is key to success. By acting as an intelligent information manifold, you do two things. First, you establish credibility with the technical team by adding value where there was none before. And second, you influence the direction of the project by channeling the appropriate information to the appropriate decision makers, at the appropriate times. An outline of the mechanical parts of the manifold is also discussed in Chapter 10.

Figure 5-4: The project manager acts as an intelligent information manifold to distribute key project information to team members and sponsors.