Interpersonal Skills

The successful agile project manager must balance the freedom required by highly creative teams with classic PM duties such as schedule tracking and progress reporting in order to drive the project forward. Solid interpersonal skills are essential to managing in the agile environment. A heavy-handed approach is rarely successful. The trick is to let the team run as free as possible, while maintaining the ability to pull them back in when necessary. However, relying solely on soft skills may not always be enough to pull off this critical balancing act. In addition to employing superior interpersonal skills, the project manager can play the roles and use the processes described in this chapter to stay on top of the project and establish the credibility with the team necessary to effectively lead it through the storm of uncertainty—and do it all without stepping on anyone's toes.