Functional Management and Project Change


The functional manager really has two project-related roles in the classic, matrix management model. First, she is responsible for hiring (and then developing) personnel within her area with the intent of building the necessary skills to advance overall functional capabilities. Second, she allocates personnel, as needed, to work on various projects. This setup, in a way, isolates the functional manager from direct involvement in the project. Any project information relayed to her, or any influence exerted by her on the project, is conveyed via the people that she has allocated to the project.

In the agile environment, the functional manager must become more directly involved with the project than she is in the classic project environment. In keeping with our concept of aligning the business and projects, the functional manager must keep her organization aligned with both. For projects, this means obtaining the people with those critical skills needed for project success in the agile environment. These skills include the ability to work across traditional functional boundaries, as well as the ability to perform detailed technical tasks. Because of the rapid pace of change in agile projects, the functional manager must know when to hire a permanent employee and when the use of a consultant, or temporary employee, would be better. Hiring in today's business environment is a big commitment. It must be handled appropriately to support both the company and project objectives. The only way to do this effectively is to work directly with the project managers so that you know the project objectives, direction, and required skill sets. In essence, the functional manager is now being asked to obtain and develop project-specific skills rather than the more general, functional skills.

Agile Strategy

Get more directly involved with projects so that you can provide the right personnel/skills to advance them, and thus advance the overall organization.

How people with these skills are acquired can have a profound positive or negative influence itself on the business. For instance, if you need someone to provide high-level technical direction, as well as to form the cross-boundary networks necessary to nourish new ideas, then it's more desirable to add this person permanently to your core team. Even after this particular project is over, a person with these uncommon skills can surely contribute to the next one. In the agile project environment, the bigger change involves the greater use of consultants for specific technical roles. There are two reasons that agile businesses should not be spending their energy and money trying to develop permanent, specific, technical skill sets. First, the very nature of the agile environment means that the need for that specific skill could vanish overnight, if the project takes an unexpected turn. This creates risk for the business, in the form of an unwanted liability (i.e., person). And second, agile projects often need specific skills for short periods of time, or on an as-needed basis. In these cases, it doesn't make sense to hire a full-time person, even if you want to. As an alternative, you could have one of your permanent employees take on a task that's outside of her specific expertise. This approach is good for personnel development but bad for the agile project, since it will not get the high-level expertise that's needed. Generally, it's more efficient for the project (and the company in the long run) to outsource these roles to experts, even at a premium.

Agile Strategy

Look to outsourcing as a means of acquiring specific technical talent, especially if this talent can't be repurposed, in the event that the project in question no longer needs it.




Agile Project Management(c) How to Succeed in the Face of Changing Project Requirements
Agile Project Management: How to Succeed in the Face of Changing Project Requirements
ISBN: 0814471765
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 96
Authors: Gary Chin

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