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Successful Agile Needs Teamwork

Agile embraces the concept of self-organizing teams but they are inherently unstable and are only successful when the ‘Leadership – Self-Management’ dilemma is understood and dealt with. Too much central control destroys agility, inhibits creativity and resists change. Too much self-management leads to chaos and anarchy and destroys a team. A successful Agile Team needs to operate as far along the continuum towards self-management as it can, without tipping over into chaos. You can’t just eliminate the PM role and say to a software development team, “OK, you’re now an Agile Team – you need to self-organize”. This is a recipe for failure, and one of the reasons why many organizations resist the Agile approach.

 

TechWell Contributor's picture TechWell Contributor
Active Following

Great leaders don't always lead the charge, stand in front, or offer direction. They know when to step aside to let others step forward. Yet, this type of leadership is often mistaken for passivity or overlooked entirely. Esther Derby shows how "in front" leadership actually can cause gridlock and loss of productivity and destroy the good spirits of a team. You can avoid these pitfalls by noticing when the most effective leadership means choosing to follow.

Esther Derby's picture Esther Derby
When Is Communication Not Really Communication?

Complaints in the workplace about insufficient or inadequate communication are common, yet that very word "communication" is subject to multiple interpretations.

Here's an example of what I mean: A director had a survey conducted to determine the cause of his employees' low morale. One of the key findings was their desire for more communication. Eager to put things right, the director began circulating more reports and email than ever. And as a voracious reader, he started to extract articles from his many periodicals and circulate them to everyone.

Naomi Karten's picture Naomi Karten
Agile 2009 - Johanna Rothman - Manage Your Project Portfolio
Podcast

Agile 2009 - Johanna Rothman - Manage Your Project Portfolio

Bob Payne's picture Bob Payne
Agile Removes Limitations—You Must Now Change the Rules

If you're practicing agile methods but continue to reach back to the rules and structures your organization used before adopting agile, you might be asking for more trouble than you know. In this article, George Schlitz discusses the mingling of old and new rules in organizations in different phases of agile adoption and offers a four-step method to help sort out the confusion.

George Schlitz's picture George Schlitz
Agile 2009 - Olav Massen - Real options
Podcast

Agile 2009 - Olav Massen - Real options

Bob Payne's picture Bob Payne
The Lean-Agile Prism: Going Beyond The Agile Triangle

Project management has contributed diverse triangles as it has evolved. From the traditional project triangle to the agile inverted triangle and, recently, the agile triangle. In this article, I am proposing going one step beyond the agile triangle by taking into consideration lean thinking to add a fourth element, specifically that of design, to form the lean-agile prism.

TechWell Contributor's picture TechWell Contributor
Using Product Portfolio Management to Improve the Efficiency of Teams

Product portfolio management has become an essential discipline for all development organizations that want to achieve enterprise agility. The repeated process of selecting, sizing, and prioritizing the work to be done ensures that their development teams are delivering the most valuable products and enhancements for the business’ clients. This is required for both external clients in the case of product companies and for internal clients in the case of IT organizations. However, the subject of this paper is another, possibly even more important, reason: avoiding the overloading of the organization’s development teams which greatly lowers their efficiency.

Al Shalloway's picture Al Shalloway
Agile Project Management: Part 2 of 2

Estimating Projects give people the fits. On one hand, you have to know when things are going to get done and how much they are going to cost. On the other hand, estimating projects looks a lot like magic from the outside.

I've been successfully estimating and teaching people how to estimate projects for a long time, and if you’ve read Part 1 in this series, you're ready for some tips and tricks of estimating.

TechWell Contributor's picture TechWell Contributor
Project Portfolio Decisions—Decisions For Now

If you are anything like me, you have a to-do list a mile long. Because I work for myself, I have an integrated list of everything I need to do: projects for clients, books to write, articles to write, columns to write, presents to buy, house maintenance, clothes to organize, office cleanup. The list is long and never-ending.

Johanna Rothman's picture Johanna Rothman

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