Month: October 2007

Agile Project Management, Events, Leadership, Planning, Risk Management, Teams

Calgary APLN Planning Session

Last week we had the planning session for the 2007/2008 Calgary APLN Chapter. The goal was to create a prioritized list of topics to explore this season and demonstrate some of the values and practices of agile project leadership along the way. We started by using the Speedboat game in small groups to identify impediments and propellers towards our goal of “Connecting, developing, and supporting great project leaders”. Speedboat is a group exercise for “Issue” and “Enabler” brainstorming that can be used with any group. It helps people to clarify goals, air their concerns, and suggest options for avoiding risks and moving forward. My colleague and co-host for the session, Janice Aston, wrote up these useful notes on using Speedboat […]

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Agile Project Management, Events, Leadership

Agile In Atlanta – PMBOK to LWOK

I have just got back from the 2007 PMI Global Congress conference held in Atlanta, Georgia. It was a good conference and while I may question the applicability of traditional project management approaches for software development projects; for organizing a conference it is hard to question the results. I experienced no line-ups; good speaker support and a well thought out and organized conference. My presentation on “Developments in Agile Project Management” was over subscribed and I was asked back to do an encore presentation which is a great endorsement for the level of interest in agile project management, especially from within the traditional PM community. When I presented on agile methods at the 2004 PMI Global Congress in Anaheim, I […]

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Agile Project Management, Books, Leadership, Planning, Teams

Right-Brain Project Management

Last week I attended an excellent presentation on “Right-Brain Project Management” by Dr Michael Aucoin. I attend lots of presentations during the course of a year, mainly at North America events but a sprinkling of international conferences too, and few presentations stand out as being excellent. This one was exceptional from the content (that connected some loose ends in my Agile-Leadership-Project Management mental model) to the materials and delivery. So, what was so good about it and what does it have to do with Agile Leadership? Well it outlined a parallel view of project management that supports and reinforces agile leadership and fills in some gaps along the way. Michael started off by talking about today’s Stretch projects. He defined […]

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