Looking for an “Agile Project Manager”
Last week I was intrigued by a job vacancy from a staffing agency in my mailbox. They were looking for an ‘agile PM to support one of their customers in an ambitious program to improve the customer experience’. The fact that a project manager would be working agile to deliver a program were too many contradictions in one sentence for me. I asked for more information but am still waiting for the response.
The situation did spark my ambition to write a blog article about
- The difference between projects and programs
- The roles in classic and agile project management
I hope to shed some light on the need for a hybrid approach to project & program management. And the reason why recruiters in IT and project management should be aware of this.
Project or program: Same same, but different?
No, it is not. They are essentially different.
A project is a temporary undertaking to create a unique product, service or result. Key elements are the uniqueness and the fact that you focus on 1 product, service or result. There is a clear aim on this one objective.
A program combines related projects and program activities in a coordinated manner. Focus is on the integration between the parts to obtain benefits not available when managing them individually. Key elements are the coordination and integration for the overall benefit.
This means that a project manager and program manager have a whole different role and job. The program manager applies his knowledge, skills and principles to obtain the program benefits and control that is not available by managing the projects and other program components individually.
Agile project management: the roles in scrum
Looking at the Scrum methodology, there are not a lot of roles: It only takes one product owner, a scrum master and team members. That is it.
- The product owner is responsible for managing the product backlog to achieve the desired outcome that a product development team seeks to accomplish. He represents the business, which means that his key activities are around identifying and describing the items on the backlog, prioritize, accept the delivery, and create transparency about the product and work.
- The scrum master is the conductor of the scrum team. He clears the obstacles, facilitates the team collaboration, ensures the team follows the agile processes and coaches the team in agile values and principles. He is accountable for the team effectiveness, but at the same time should act as a servant leader for the team and the larger organization.
- And finally, the scrum or agile team: a small team of – preferably full-time – people with all the necessary competencies, without any formal hierarchy, and focused on delivering according to the product goal. They are cross-functional team and have an end-to-end responsibility to deliver their sprint commitments.
There is no project manager role. Maybe if we scale agile from a team to a program level?
Scaling agile to program level
In SAFe the agile teams power the Agile Release Train (ART). This ART is a long-term team of agile teams that incrementally develops, delivers, and operates one or more solutions. The roles that are critical to operate and ART are
- Release Train Engineer (RTE): a servant leader that facilitates program execution.
- Product Management: responsible what gets build.
- System Architect or Engineer: define the architecture to guarantee that the systems and interfaces for the solution work together.
- Business Owners: responsible for the business outcome of the ART
- The end customer of the product
Sounds like the RTE comes closest to the program manager. But he is no project manager.
Hybrid (project) management: the best of both worlds?!
In today’s fast change world, we are confronted more and more with situations that ask for the combination of classic and agile techniques. When blending the two extremes in a smart way, you can end up with the best of both worlds: Hybrid project management. This is exactly the mix where a project manager can fill the gap: by applying a hybrid management approach, bringing a compromise between classic & agile and succeeding where the 2 separately would fail.
Maybe a hybrid Project Manager is the best answer to the challenges of today’s complex professional environments and the way to deliver true value for the customer ?!
Proj3ctS and hybrid project management
If you want to hear more about blending classic and agile, reach out via http://Proj3ctS.be or keep an eye on this blog for more insights.
References
PMI Lexicon of Project Management Terms – From Project Management Institute – Via https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/registered/pdf/pmbok-standards/pmi-lexicon-pm-terms.pdf
What is scrum? – Scrum.org, the Home of Scrum – Via https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-scrum
The Truth About Job Titles in Scrum – By Dave West (CEO and Product Owner of Scrum.org)– Via https://youtu.be/0fW8aoxyVHs
Agile Glossary – From Agile Alliance – Via https://www.agilealliance.org/agile101/agile-glossary/
Agile Release Train (ART) in Essentail SAFe – From Scaled Agile Framework – Via https://www.scaledagileframework.com/agile-release-train/