During my professional career in various companies and industries some agile principles and methods have proven to be very effective with regards to team and project management. With this blog post I want to share a few of these key learnings with you.
If you also believe that agile project management can help boost team performances, then you will definitely like the following principles and methods. All of them can be implemented quickly and can generate value-add immediately.
Mindset/leadership style
- Team empowerment: Build a team of motivated members and delegate responsibility to the team.
- Treat people as adults: All your team members should be seen as experts in their field. Trust your experts and act accordingly.
- People before processes: Only put as many processes in place as are really required for your specific situation. Processes are in place in order to enable successful collaboration within the project team. If necessary, adjust the processes again and again but keep them as simple as possible.
- Use the 80/20 pareto rule: Most important things first. Take care of the most important features or key objectives in your projects first and explain this approach also to your stakeholders. The Pareto Principle states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes. This is from my perspective also applicable to many fields in project and business management. 20% of your actions will probably be responsible for 80% of your success or failure. So set the right priorities and don´t get lost in “unnecessary” details!
- KISS – keep it short and simple: This point goes hand in hand with the prior. Always go for the the simplest possible solution first and start with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Reduce complexity wherever you can. Don´t forget: Complexity is the enemy of execution!
- Deliver fast: Always prioritise requirements in a customer-oriented way and always try to deliver new functions or results to your customer as quickly as possible. Avoid long development cycles. This way, the customer quickly benefits from the results and you can get important feedback in return.
- React flexibly instead of stubbornly following the plan: More important than a good project is a good product/result. Communicate this mindset to your stakeholders and team members. You should embrace even late changes in requirements.
Operational PM methods/principles
- Lean processes: Avoid unnecessary documentation and ensure efficient processes. For example, ensure that an agenda is sent out in advance of a meeting and that appropriate meeting minutes are circulated to all project members afterwards. No one should be kept away from doing their work unless it‘s necessary.
- Communication: Communication is key! The most efficient form of communication is face-to-face. Promote it and ensure a solid information exchange and flow in your environment!
- Transparency: You can not manage what you can not see! All stakeholders should always be aware of the objectives, the current plan and the current status of your project. Ensure transparency in your project/business landscape.
- Regular short meetings: This point goes hand in hand with the above mentioned Communication and Transparency points. Let your team members or managers regularly report briefly on the status of their topics, i.e. what has been achieved, what will be done next and what kind of issues do they have. This ensures transparency and boosts collaboration. You should schedule this kind of short meetings on a daily or weekly basis. You can support these meetings with a Kanban board for example or conduct them purely verbally in stand-up form. These meetings should support general transparency and provide an exchange platform. In addition to these short meetings you should also have more extensive exchange meetings, where you have more time to talk about details as well as challenges your team is currently facing.
- Stakeholder management: Ensure that your stakeholders receive the information they need. Always provide the necessary transparency without spamming. Set up a good data management platform so that all the information can be found easily.
That´s it for today! Now it´s up to you to execute and use some of these learnings in your organization. If you want to learn more about how to execute and lead by example have a look at our video of the dancing man here. Agile leadership in a nutshell and in a very entertaining way.
Once you have applied some of the presented agile quick-wins you will realise that these principles and methods can support you and your team in most project/business settings. Therefore, you should start using them as soon as possible!
What do you think? Do you have any questions or further examples of agile quick wins in project management? We are looking forward to your comments or suggestions.
In case you need support in agile project management in order to boost your business, projects and/or team performances don´t hesitate to send us a message to info@rpma.de. We are looking forward to hearing from you.
Best regards, Xavier
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Xavier Reckers
PMP; MSP; PSM; PSPO; SA; PMI-ACP; Diplom Volkswirt
This article was already published in a similar version in German, first in 2015 on venit.com and later in 2019 here on rpma.de. Although years have passed all already previously presented quick wins in the prior versions of this article are still valid today.
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