Call Agile Whatever You Want

Last year, when a vendor was asked to submit a Statement Of Work (SOW) to address the Statement of Objectives (SOO), they came back with a very interesting presentation.

Upon completing our Lessons Learned at the end of the last period of performance, we have something that will solve all of your problems.

Now, I don't know about you, but whenever someone says that, I get very suspicious.  All is an absolute and absolutes are red flags.  It's a particularly large red flag, considering the customer was not invited to participate in the Lessons Learned session(s).

What was the proposed solution to All of the customer's problems?  The vendor called it "agile" (with a lower case "a").

Seriously?  That's all you have?  Agile will solve all of the customer's problems?  I sat quietly and said nothing of having several years of experience actually using Agile and leading Agile and Scrum teams. (Note that I prefer to use a capital "A")

Needless to say, the vendor had no experience following Agile principles or leading Agile teams.  The vendor, in my eyes, failed to educate themselves or the customer on the value Agile can deliver.  Over the course of the next year, they shied away from face-to-face communications and all of the things the customer would see value in.  They continued to keep their functional teams in silos and nothing changed.  After a few months of the customer and myself telling them they were not following Agile principles, they admitted they were doing an undocumented agile-like-waterfall hybrid.  After a few more months of telling them they were not following any kind of Agile "like" process, they lamented and said they were now following a waterfall process.

NOW? I asked myself.  This vendor couldn't even define what done meant, let alone explain what processes they were following.

In the last few months, three major events have happened to the program I support.

1. The CIO retired
2. The Program Director retired
3. The program budget was just cut over 10%

A new CIO and Program Director are now in charge of the program and realize they have a lot less money to work with.  So, how are they going to turn this around?

Let's fast forward to a few weeks ago.  The new Program Director calls an all hands meeting.  What is going to change?  She started the meeting by making a profound statement

Communications is key to our success.

If we do not communicate, we will fail.

What is she asking us to do this next year?

1. The vendor will not have their contract option year exercised
2. The PMO will be re-oriented away from its current functional configuration
3. 8 Cross-functional Project Teams are being created
4. Each team will include (at a minimum) a product owner, a PMO lead, and technical point of contact(s)
5. Regular communications will take place for each project team, activities and statuses will be reported up to the program level, and then disseminated back down to the rest of the PMO
6. The Progam Director is giving teams of motivated individuals the environment and support needed, and trusting that we will get the job done

At no time did she ever say Agile.  But, is it really necessary to?  As long as we begin to follow Agile principles, you can call it whatever you want.  I see this first step as a big step in the right direction.

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Day 3 of PMINAC

Today was the last day of the PMI North American Congress.  It's started well enough.  I left the house at 6:45am.  Due to Washington DC traffic, I arrive 2 hours and 30 minutes later.  Yep, welcome to my flesh little slice of hell. I did arrive in time for my first session.

Here were the days events:

Flexible Project management: Extending Agile Techniques Beyond Software Projects.

Teamed up with John Stenbeck, Laurie Diethelm, Rich Sheridan, and Lisamarie Babik for the session exercise. I was in John's and Lisamarie's sessions before.  Both enjoyable.

My notable Tweets:

There must be dedication to the team. If you don't have flexibility in your project, change is expensive. Co-location may not be pleasant but it is key to team communications. iterate, iterate, iterate. Keep your options open. Decide your last responsible moment. Out of hundreds of cited projects, there was not a single case where the requirements did NOT change

Modern Agile Contracts for the Real World by Jesse Fewell

Notable Tweets Contracts are put in place to make people accountable. When dealing with contracts, traditionally we start with scope... ...but what if we are constraint driven? Fix the cost and time? Distinguish the proposal, from the contract, from the project execution Look for a balance between T&M and fixed rate. Try graduated T&M As project managers, you should be influencing at the beginning of the project As a PM you need to empower decision makers As a PM, don't hide things. Keep people informed Change is not a risk. Change is a reality

The attendees then broke out into groups and everyone participated in an exercise.  There were lots of smiles with this group and they were really engaged.

We then broke for lunch and then I checked out the Exhibit hall.  I was hoping to say hello to Dave Garrett but he was talking to someone.  Dave was one of the first people to follow me on Twitter.  I admire what he's done for the project management community with Gantthead.com.

I then went over to the VersionOne booth.  I spoke to Ken Mills and Leeann Berner for a few minutes.  I just drank a cup of coffee (thank you to Gantthead for the breathmints) so I don't think I let them say much.  I really think they have a great product and wanted them to know that.  I think customer feedback is good, especially if you like something.

I then made my way to one of the umpteen million couches around the hotel.  I sat for a few minutes and began to doze off.  In my semi conscious state, I think I farted.  I have to say, it's not cool falling asleep in a public place and then farting.  People look at you funny.  Check out the picture of this poor guy.  Yep, I felt your pain brother, I felt your pain.

Jesse and the guys from Excella Consulting stopped by.  I chatted with them for a few minutes.  I then attended Nancy Nee's session on Metrics for Agile Project.  Pretty good session.  Here are some notable tweets.

Tie all metrics to goals and objectives The less granular of the feature list that you report the better. Avoid task level reporting. How to estimate? ROM or team velocity Daily stand-ups are a great way to manage ADD Referencing the Sulaiman, Barton, Blackburn paper on EVM

My last session of the day was the creme dela creme of the Congress.  I got to see Michele Sliger's session titled Goodbye, Scope Creep, Hello Agile!

The only thing that sucks is my Droid X flooded my Twitter stream with updates and then turned off (battery was dead).  Yep, no more tweets.  But, the silver lining was I actually got to listen to Michele talk.  Michele offered a compelling argument on why waterfall may have worked in the past but not so well now.  She illustrated how waterfall works and how Agile works.  She then showed how scope creep would be applicable with waterfall but now becomes an opportunity with Agile.   Offered the audience a glimpse into Kanban.  This was the only session I saw at the Congress where Kanban was really discussed.  She did an awesome job of presenting.  It didn't matter if the attendees had never heard of Agile before the Congress.  By the time Michele was done with her session and the Congress sessions officially ended, I feel confident there were a lot of light bulb moments.  The reception of Agile at the Congress was overwhelmingly positive.  Sure, there were a few haters out there.  But, I believe they were in the gross minority.

Thank you to all of the PMI Agile Community of Practice people who put on such excellent sessions.  Thank you to PMI for realizing the importance of Agile adoption.  Thank you to all of those people out there who followed along on Twitter.  I know I forgot awesome moments from the last 3 days.  But, I'll admit, my ass is tired!  I am all Congressed out.  For those out there who are wondering why this PMI Congress favored Agile so heavily, only time will tell.  I'm just ready to get back to work and do my part in educating people about Agile.

Day 2 of PMINAC

And so concludes my second day at the PMI North American Congress.  Again, it was an awesome day. I went to 4 different Agile centric sessions.   Titles included

Why Failing Early in Agile is a Good Thing!

An Agile Simulation in 75 Minutes

Agile PM Mastery in 60 Minutes, Guaranteed!

Beyond Backlog and Burndowns: Complementing "Agile" methods with EVM for Improved Project Performance.

I really enjoyed the Agile Simulation, presented by Brian Bozzuto, MBA, PMP, CSP and Giora Morein, PMP, CSM, CSP, CST.  Check them out at BigVisible Agile Training.  Yes, we who work in this industry enjoy having a lot of letters after our names. But seriously, these guys earned every letter. Though a few people struggled with the simulation, most got it.  I saw several light bulb moments from session attendees. It's exciting when someone looks you right in the eye and says "I think I get it!"

Later, I had lunch with Michele Sliger and Lisamarie Babik.  I had such a blast sitting with these two and just enjoying myself.  Sure, I was enjoying the Congress but this was fun!

I wanted to make a special note about my final session of the day.  It was about Agile and EVM.  The material was presented by a PhD and a colleague who had working with EVM for over 20 years.  The response to their presentation was mixed at best.  For those in the audience with an Agile background, it was a challenging topic to cover.  But, it was still interesting.  To counter that, several with EVM backgrounds were acting like 3-year-olds and that we were trying to steel their teddy bears away.  Some people got up and left the session, the guy next to me chewed on his finger nails until he fell asleep, and some in the audience just wanted the microphone to argue about the 32 points of EVM criteria.  But let's move on.

After the sessions had ended for the day, I had the honor and privilege to meet a few people that I've known through blogs and the Twittersphere.

I hung out with Brian Bozzuto and Bob Tarne.  I then met Elizabeth Harrin, resulting in remarks about the coffee at the PMI Congress. Forgive me Elizabeth, I was in the moment.  I then I went off to have drinks with Bas De Baar, Josh Nankivel, and Cornelius Fichtner.

So, I'm off to bed.  Day 3 will be a long one.

Day 1 of PMINAC

And so concludes my first day at the PMI North American Congress.  It was an awesome day.  It started with the morning presenter, Vivek Kundra, Chief Information Officer of the United States.  I originally didn't plan to see this him speak.  I'm very glad I did.  I was really surprised when he talked about being more agile and stated

We're not just looking at Agile methodology, we're also moving to Agile management.... & EVM is not a silver bullet.  In addition, he said process will no longer trump business outcomes.

Immediately following the presentation, I met up with Michele Sliger, author of The Software Project Manager's Bridge to Agility and someone I've admired for a while.  Shhhhh don't say anything.  She might think I'm a groupie or something.

Off we went to have some lunch.  Let's skip the details of lunch.  It was OK but I was more interested in hanging out with Michele.

Just before we went to the first presentation, we stopped off at the tag and ribbon table.  It had buttons from all of the Community of Practices.  But the one Michele and I were looking for was missing!  Where was the Agile Community of Practice!?  The same happened for the Agile CoP ribbons.  Come to find out, they ran out.  I guess that's a good thing.

Sunday was going to be limited to just 2 presentations.  I chose Growing Up Agile: the Next Generation of Project Managers, presented by Lisamarie Babik, PMP.  My second presentation was 5 Years of Teaching Agile PM or PMI: Lessons Learned and Recurring Resistance by Mike Griffiths.

I enjoyed both sessions a lot and if you were on Twitter, you probably saw Michele, or Jesse Fewell, or myself doing real-time tweets.

The day concluded with the key note address by President Bill Clinton.

All in all, the day was full of surprises.  So, some may ask, are you Agile?

Thank You Guys and Agile Community of Practice

I was asked the other day if it was worth being a member of PMI.  I wasn't completely sure.  See, you can be a PMP in good standing but not have to be a member of PMI.  It's strange to me but true.  Granted, as a member, you get discounts to attend events and go to networking events (if you're into that).  But, was there real value to me? Last night I had the pleasure of hanging out with Mike Cottmeyer, Jesse Fewell, Brian Bozzuto, and Dennis Stevens.  They were all in Washington DC, attending the PMI Leadership Institute Meeting (LIM) and representing the PMI Agile Community of Practice (CoP).  Now, I will be at the PMI Global Congress Sunday through Tuesday but these guys are in town this week.

Well, last night I spent 6 hours with them.  So, ask me again if it's worth being a member of PMI. My answer is now a confident yes.  I say yes, not so much for being a member of PMI but rather being a member of the Agile CoP.  These four fellows are the kind of Agile thought leaders you want to talk to, if you ever need some inspiration.  If these four are what you get when you team PMI and an Agile CoP, I see a great future.

I was going to go into some details of our conversations, but it would probably be 5-pages of me ranting about stuff with stopping points when one of the guys hands me another beer.

I genuinely had an awesome time and am inspired by each of them.

If you are a PMP and are passionate about Agile, I would strongly recommend you get involved with the PMI Agile Community of Practice.  Not sure quite yet?  Then at least do yourself the favor of looking these guys up, read what they have written, go listen to them speak, or get some training from them.

If you're reading my blog and you're in need of some Agile Training, Agile Coaching, or Agile Transformation, send me an email and I will reach out to my ever-growing Agile circle of friends.

Why Ask Why

Before you spend the next week, redesigning the TPS report, you need to stop and ask yourself a simple question.

Why?

Why are you doing it?   If you can not map the task back to a stakeholder or customer objective/requirement (goal) you better stop now.  Some people call this gold-plating.  Additionally if you can not map the task back to one of your personal goals, you better stop now.  I call that flushing time down a toilet.

Do you sometimes feel like you're rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic?  Are you spending all of your time doing stuff that is not getting you any closer the real goal?  Well, stop for a minute and pretend you are a 5-year-old.

Whenever you ask a 5-year-old to do something, they never seem to do it without first asking why.

Go sit down Why?

Because it's dinner time. Why?

Because you need to eat your dinner. Why?

Because I don't want child protective services saying we don't feed you. Why?

Because we're trying to get you to adulthood without scarring you too much.

What's our main personal goal as it relates to our son?

Goal 1: Get him to adulthood without scarring him too much

Now, as project managers and leaders, what are your primary goals? Is it keep the project on schedule? Is it keep the project from going over budget? Or, is it one of the 12 principles of the Agile Manifesto?  Whatever your answer(s), when asked to do something, keep asking why until you reach your main goal(s).

We want to add this change to the next deployed version Why?

Because it is now a priority Why?

Because it will either save time, money, or both

What's one of our documented goals related to our project?

Goal 1: Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

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Zombie (Team Member) Motivation Techniques

What skills do you need to lead your zombie army?  Sorry, what I meant to ask was, what skills do you need to lead your team?  Motivation techniques can be as unique as the individual. There are a lot of people out there who identify themselves as project managers, those tasked with managing inanimate resources (time, scope, budget...zombies). Though those skills are necessary, there is a need for skills to lead teams and manage stakeholders.  I'm talking (soft) skills to lead, manage, and inspire human resources.

Provide Feedback

You can't expect your team to operate in a vacuum.  As a team member, imagine if your manager provided an annual review and then didn't provide feedback to you until the next annual review.  That would be a clear failure on the part of the manager or leader.  I believe managers and leaders are obligated to provide continual feedback to the team.  Now, if managing a zombie team member, no feedback is needed.  They'll keep searching for brains until someone either shoots them in the head or decapitates them.  Either way, providing feedback will probably only result in you being chased by a horde of flesh eating zombies.

Recognize Performance

Let's look at this from both a positive and a negative perspective.  If your team is not doing a good job, you need to recognize their performance (both as a group and individually) and give constructive feedback so they can meet your expectations.  If they are meeting your expectations, you need to reinforce what you like so they can continue to meet those expectations or exceed them.  Recognizing zombie team performance is like watching someone win a pie eating contest.  They eat (brains).  Put another brain in front of them and they'll eat it.  Repeat ad nauseum.  How well they perform is limited by nothing but time.

Negotiate

Don't be an unreasonable person.  Recognize that some team members will not feel comfortable with some goals set for them.  Win-win negotiations should help you arrive at the desired outcome.  With constant feedback and motivation, believe any team member can reach any goal you set for them.  Note, don't set the bar too low and give them a false win.  Do not believe in "stretch" goals.  Negotiate realistic outcomes.  Most importantly, don't negotiate with zombies!  Zombies are like terrorist, except they have a green skin tone and look at you like an opened can of Spam sitting in the hot sun for a week.

Motivate and Persuade

Have you heard the idiom you can catch more bees with honey than you can with vinegar?  Get to know each of your team members personally and find out what motivates them.  What's important to them; coffee, family time, or recognition?  You may buy one team member a coffee gift card, tell another to go home early, or thank another publicly in a meeting.  Everyone has something that motivates them.  If you ever order lunch for the team, make sure you consider everyone (individually).  When you set schedules, try to consider individual family obligations.

Respect

Respect is fundamental in any relationship.  You will get the very best from people if you have mutual respect.  I once had a superior ask me if I wanted my team to respect me or to like me.  My response was OR?  Why can't they do both?  Teams will respect you if they know you would never throw them under the bus to protect yourself.  Take the hits from management if you don't reach a goal.  Protect the team at all costs.  As a result, the team should do everything they can to prevent that situation from happening.  Zombies are not team players.  They want your brains and they will throw you under a bus at the first opportunity.  Don't judge them. They know not what they do.

Summary

If you're going to be a project manager who is managing people, you need to have good soft skills.  That is, you need the ability to engage and interact effectively with your team, obtain acceptance, build consensus, and provide assistance, direction and leadership.

I'm a strong believer that if you treat people with honesty and respect and your motives are good, it will come back to you.  That means be genuinely concerned about the well-being and happiness of your team.  Listen to them and guide them.  Whatever the business side expects of you will get taken care of.  Your team will rise to the challenge.  I've known project managers who lacked some of these skills.  Either they didn't provide feedback to their team or they were unreasonable or demanding.  The team was miserable, productivity went down, and that manager blamed the team.  It was a vicious cycle.

Sometimes, you just have to do what you know is right and face the consequences.

Sometimes, you have to fight the urge to eat brains.

Photo: flickr user frogmuseum2

Lacking Empathy

As a project manager, I personally believe empathy is one of the most important virtues.  I think it's one of those attributes that makes us most human.  You can't expect to take care of your team, or even customers, if you are unable to be empathetic.  Regardless if you can help someone, ask anyway.  Regardless if you can understand what they are thinking or feeling, try anyway. I recently participated as a juror in a criminal trial.  Though I knew it would be a personal inconvenience, I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do.  It was my obligation as a citizen, to do my part in ensuring justice was served.  Some would argue if it truly was, but I digress.  So, what's the point of this blog post?

About a month ago, I informed the necessary (corporate) parties who pay me that I had been selected to be part of a jury pool.  Upon sending them the necessary information, I was told I would be paid for a full 8 hour day, minus $20. (The amount Frederick County pays a juror for one day of service).  Considering the cost to short my paycheck was probably more than $20, I wasn't going to argue.  If that's what they wanted to do, it was a wash for me, with the exception of the work I had to delay for my customer.

Upon submitting my hours on the second day, I received a (billing) submission error.  Because it was an ambiguous error message, I send an email to accounting.  I said, upon completing my second day of jury duty and billing my time, I received the error.  Within a few minutes, I received a very short email response. It informed me I would only be paid for 1 day of jury duty, that "it's in the handbook" and I would have to bill my time to my Paid Time Off (PTO).  I was surprised I didn't get a "I'm sorry if there was a misunderstanding..." or "I regret to bring this to your attention..." email.  Seconds later I got another email.  It was one line.  "You can also take Leave Without Pay".

Let's take a moment to reflect.

Both of these emails came from the Human Resources department, not from my direct chain of command.  I did get a telephone call from my Director within a few minutes.  He apologized if I had misunderstood the corporate policy to only pay employees for one day of jury duty but added he would work with me if I had already made plans that would result in a PTO deficit.  I want to commend him on having empathy.  He showed true leadership in picking up the telephone and calling me.  He showed true leadership in listening to me vent for several minutes.  It didn't change anything but he certainly scored a few points in my book.

We're all human beings.  We all like to be treated like human beings. When in doubt, pick up the phone or go talk to someone directly. Most importantly, don't ever send a one line email that basically says "RTFM"

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