Month: September 2007

Agile Project Management, Metrics, Risk Management

Agile Risk Management

Risk Management processes may have the air of a traditional, process-driven project management activity. However, agile methods are great risk reduction vehicles, and are actually very well aligned for rapid risk identification and reduction. What is a Risk?A risk is some event or circumstance that could transpire and impact the project. The PMBOK talks about good risks (opportunities), but most risk literature focuses on events with potential for negative impacts (project risks). The risk management process outlined in the PMBOK is shown below: Where’s the “Risk Response Doing” Step?One step absent from this process is a “Risk Response Doing” step that focuses on executing the actions identified in the risk mitigation plan. In the defense of the PMBOK, these activities […]

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Agile Project Management, Lean, Metrics, Planning, Risk Management

Agile Exception Processes – What to do when bad stuff happens to good projects

When caught by a fire or other urgent situations it is useful to have emergency equipment on hand and know how to use it.  The same goes for Project Exception Processes, if something untoward happens then that is not the best time to be creating new processes to deal with the event and explaining how to use them. Emotions are high, people respond to bad news differently, and it is better to practice an agreed to procedure than figure out new rules. Project tolerances and exception plans provide an agreed to emergency plan for when bad stuff happens to good projects. They act as guardrails to help prevent us going off track and provide a mutually understood and agreed to […]

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Agile Project Management, Events, Leadership, Teams

Developing Authentic Leadership

Last night I gave a talk on “Agile Project Leadership” at the Calgary Agile Methods User Group (CAMUG). I like giving these because the questions raised make me re-examine elements of leadership and last night was no exception. One question raised was basically “We hear about these ideas and they sound good, but in our projects the same old stuff keeps happening. How do we get real results?” I responded with some explanation about encouraging servant leadership, but in retrospect I think the underlying question was more about making the switch to authentic leadership rather than shallow imitations that bring poor results.   Some subsequent discussions with a couple of attendees have helped me straighten out my thoughts on the […]

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