We all desire to work more efficiently, improve our results and stop wasting so much time. Unfortunately, many traditional ways of doing business are becoming outdated. Working in an office eight hours a day, five days per week was once the gold standard. Now, flexible work hours and working remotely are commonplace. Conference calls have replaced meetings – heck, even conference calls are now outdated thanks to Skype and video conferencing! We all know what it feels like to space out during mind-numbing, useless meetings. The world of business is evolving quickly, and the Project Management profession is no exception. You may hear certain buzzwords echo around the industry. In this article, we’ll discuss one of the top recent trending words in project management: Agile. What is the Agile project management process exactly? Let’s find out.
The definitions of ‘Agile’, according to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, are as follows:
- “Marked by ready ability to move with quick easy grace”
- “Having a quick resourceful and adaptable character”
Now that we’ve painted a picture of the basic concept, let’s dive into Agile project management.
What Is Agile Project Management?
It officially began with the ‘Agile Manifesto‘. A group of seventeen people with software and programming backgrounds got together for a weekend of skiing and hanging out back in 2001. The group found that they all desired a new way to approach their work – not the cumbersome, documentation-heavy practices of years passed. They wanted a way to achieve more with less, more quickly, with less wasted resources.
One member of the group – now known as the Agile Alliance – used the term ‘Agile’ to describe their needs. By the end of the weekend, the Agile Manifesto was written, which is centered around 12 core principals of developing software ‘the new way’. I highly recommend checking out the Agile Manifesto to read the 12 core principals, but the common threads are:
- Quality and user experience (customer satisfaction) are top priority.
- Make room for change and adjustments.
- Constant teamwork and involvement of multiple disciplines throughout the project’s life
- The team itself is the most important asset, and those with ambition should get the resources they need to work their best
- Teams should self-organize
- Issues are resolved most efficiently through face-to-face discussion
- Keep it simple – no wasted time, processes, etc.
- Routine review of progress and make adjustments as needed
It is this list of core tenets that summarize the purpose and mission of Agile development, which we will explore in this article.
Why Should We Use Agile Project Management Techniques?
Based on the points above, it’s probably obvious as to why Agile techniques are valuable in project management. Since we’ll get into the details in the sections below, consider these statistics:
- This list of workplace productivity statistics (via Workgroups) states that Americans:
- Spend over 30 hours per month in meetings, which most feel are a waste of time.
- Need 90-minutes of uninterrupted work to focus at their best.
- Miss work due to stress, to the tune of 1-million workers per day.
- Are 14% more productive when working from home.
- According to HuffPost (via iDoneThis), 41% of to-do list items are never actually done.
- This article from Forbes states that workers are spending 2.5 hours per day on email-related work.
Clearly, these statistics are enough to turn a Project Manager’s hair white, and rightly so. The above statistics are scary, but with a few techniques and strategies, we can reach our goals faster, stay standing (metaphorically) after an expected blow and stop wasting so much time.
Below are some ways we can incorporate Agile practices into our project management strategy!
1. Don’t Overdeliver (On Things Unimportant)
As a self-admitted perfectionist, I wasted way too much time early on in my career as a Project Manager. One way I wasted my time was by over-delivering – both to clients AND to internal management.
I over-delivered to our clients by including colorful layouts and tables in every document I submitted, keeping the most minuscule details on the meeting agenda/minutes and copying them on many unnecessary emails, big and small.
I over-delivered internally by spending too much time on formatting (again), exchanging a lot of information via email and ‘overly-organizing’; rearranging shared files and putting emails in their perfect folder.
In reality, our client would’ve been happy with a bullet point agenda prior to meetings. They didn’t need, or probably want, to be copied on some emails. The literal buts-and-bolts of the building did not matter to them.
Internally, the time I spent on overly-organizing and perfecting documents would’ve been best spent on key priorities.
Here are a few tips to not overly deliver and save your time and energy!
- Ask your client how they’d like to be updated. Is a 30 minute meeting each week with a bullet-point list all they want? Do they like to be looped in on emails, or do they avoid their email like the plague?
- Create a basic format for typical documents that’s pleasing enough and stick to it.
- Go right to the source to get questions answered. If on a construction project you need the Architect’s input on a specific issue, don’t add it to the meeting agenda if it’s small – just call them.
- Create a simple organizational structure for files and keep it as simple as possible!
2. Beat Surprises To The Punch By Making Room For Them
I am convinced that there’s never been a project that didn’t have surprises or unexpected issues arise. And maybe that’s OK.
As the expression goes, we must know the enemy and ourselves to win in battle.
Surprises are most damaging to a project in the following ways:
- The team’s workload is already ‘maximized’, or appears to be.
- Work is not done correctly or on time.
- Teams are not working together, in terms of results.
- Communication is broken.
While we can think of many other ways surprises come up, let’s focus on some Agile project management strategies we can use to quell the impacts of surprises by planning ahead:
- Ask each team member what they feel like they’re wasting time on. Who else knows better?
- Based on this feedback, identify time-wasting processes. Is your company presently administering 3-4 meetings per week? Which can be cut?
- The only final draft will be the one that every single necessary party have reviewed, contributed to and signed off on. How? Make every earlier version a draft or outline.
- Break goals into smaller steps. Make sure every team member involved knows the desired outcomes of each small task. Rather than a Contractor, Architect and Engineer working to ‘design a roof’, the goal can be to identify expected usage, aesthetic and efficient construction techniques first. Once those are defined, move to the next goal.
- Get everyone ‘marching to the same beat‘, which we’ll discuss below.
3. Each Team Member Should Know What The Others Are Working On
I had a nasty, manipulative boss for several years. Some of his ‘strategies’ involved keeping people confused as to who is responsible for what, redirecting resources with little or no notice and delegating work without consideration of other deadlines and workload.
Obviously this is a terrible way to run a business or manage a project. If the goal is to create chaos and fail, do the things he did. While some of this was done on purpose in order to deflect blame, etc., he also was simply not a good manager.
Here are a few ways to create transparency between team members and keep the project dynamic ‘Agile’:
- It’s the 21st century. There are project management apps that make it easy to keep track of team to-do’s and progress. Check out apps like Monday, Trello and more. These programs are highly-visual, easy to navigate and sync with all forms of technology.
- Create a project organizational chart. This should include each team member’s key responsibilities, rank/position and where they overlap. Each team member should have a copy.
- For every task on the meeting agenda and minutes, make note of the person responsible for completing the task.
- Critical deadlines should be communicated as early as possible, especially when team members are working across multiple projects.
- Tasks should be small enough that there’s a solid update on each one at the end of every week. By doing so, every team member knows exactly what others have on their plate on a moment-to-moment basis.
- When tasks are bite-sized and transparent, it makes it easy for team members to collaborate with one another.
4. Structure Some Of The Team’s Time, But Not All
Either extreme just won’t work. If you give team members too much freedom, how will anything ever get done correctly or on time? Too little freedom, however, and they can’t work ‘their way’ – all their time and work is structured too tightly.
As project managers looking to keep a project agile, we must try and strike the sweet spot between too little and too much control.
Following the steps above – delivering on the most important items first, making room for surprises and transparency between team members – will create an environment for Agile dynamics to flourish. Creating a flexible structure is the last step.
Here are some ways project managers can structure their team member’s time, without being too ridged and controlling:
- Establish ONE group meeting each week, but make it long. This could be two hours, four hours or even the whole day. You might be thinking “Why the h*** would I want to create one long meeting?!“. Here’s why:
- This meeting should be structured ahead of time with an agenda. Not just any agenda, though…
- Create approximate time goals for each task or project on the agenda to keep on pace. If team members are needed for some parts but not all…
- Make it a flexible meeting. People won’t sit there rotting while others discuss a project they’re not working on. Allow them to bring laptops and phones. The benefits of this…
- Encourage people to get their own work done, but also call upon them if their expertise or knowledge is required. They’ll be sitting right there, not two missed calls and a string of texts away.
- Practice efficient communication:
- Encourage team members to only check emails/respond at a regular interval. The goal of this is to promote focus. Earlier we mentioned how people need 90 minutes of uninterrupted work to focus their best, so use this as a bench mark.
- Minimize email communication as much as possible, ESPECIALLY critical needs.
- Establish ‘office hours‘ – times you’ll be available to meet or discuss, and times you cannot.
- Know the needs and styles of each team member. Some people are early risers. Others get their best work done in the evenings. Some people have family obligations while others don’t mind working on the weekends. Here are a few questions you can ask each team member to get this started:
- What is their greatest strength? Greatest fear? Lest favorite part of their job?
- What do they do outside of work? What are their obligations?
- If they could have anything to make their work better, what would it be?
- What is their personality type? Are they a people-person or do they want work slid under their door?
In Conclusion
This article has outlined the basic fundamental concepts of Agile project management. Hopefully you’ve found this information helpful and that using some of these techniques will keep your project operating smoothly, efficiently and with agility!
