Chapter 9: Management - Creating an Environment of Agility

Overview

Agile project management is about deftly managing the change in requirements associated with project uncertainty, so that it becomes a positive force for both the project and the business, rather than a negative one. The project manager guides the team through the changes necessary to bring the project to a successful completion. The individual team members execute the activities that bring about successful course changes. Now, it is up to management to create an environment that will nourish the seeds of change and creativity, rather than crushing or stifling them.

Creating an environment that is supportive of change is not easy, especially when you consider that management must balance the project needs against the longer-term business planning needs, which are generally rooted in predictability. The stability and certainty, which is so often strived for in classic project management, is a perfect match for long-term business planning. Replacing that predictability with the controlled chaos of the agile project can be unnerving for most managers. Yet, continuing to employ classic methods in an agile environment will likely result in the same loss of predictability—and perhaps something worse.

When discussing change from the management perspective, we need to cover two dimensions. First, we must look at the dimension of change within the actual project. An agile project is more likely to take a zigzag course through a network of pathways to reach its completion point. By contrast, a classic project may take a more direct route along a well-planned primary path. The second dimension to examine is the organizational change that must come about to support the agile project. This dimension includes redefining individual, leadership, and organizational roles to meet the dynamic needs of the project, and it is definitely more difficult to address. We should also draw a distinction between senior management and functional management. While in some cases these two types of management overlap and may actually be the same, for the purposes of this discussion, we'll use the following broad definitions to reflect the matrix organization used by most companies:

• Executive or upper managers are those people who create the long-term business strategy and direction for the overall organization.

• Functional managers are those people who manage a specific part of an organization made up of people of similar skills sets (e.g., R&D, marketing, or manufacturing). These managers loan out their resources to projects, based on their particular needs.