Tailoring Approaches – Leading Answers

April 26, 2025September 30, 2025Agile Project Management, Planning, Tailoring Approaches, Warning Signs

Hold Your Horses: PREPARE for Responsible AI Use in Project Management

Artificial intelligence promises to revolutionize project management; it can assist with data analysis, automate routine tasks, and predict project trends. However, as a veteran project manager (read “slightly skeptical older person”), I am concerned AI will cause a tsunami of project failures before improving the state of the practice. People tend to be lazy, and a fool with a tool is still a fool. Worse yet, a fool with a tool that produces well-written, convincing project deliverables is a very dangerous fool. Attempting to Solve the Wrong ProblemProducing project charters faster (or communications plans, risk management plans, etc.) is not the right goal. Project management does not have a typing speed problem. Unfortunately, AI vendors and people looking to implement […]

October 13, 2023September 27, 2025Agile Project Management, Events, Tailoring Approaches, Travel

Is the Agile Movement at an Inflection Point?

Inflection Point – a critical change in direction. Yesterday, a couple of data points crossed my desk that got me wondering if the Agile movement has succeeded and will now be absorbed into the mainstream. First, Jurgen Appelo posted about how the Agile Movement is Shrinking, but the Agile Mindset is Growing. He explained that some Agile conference attendance numbers are shrinking while business change is accelerating, and the most sought-after skills are collaboration and agility. An alternative explanation is that people do not go to in-person conferences as much anymore. COVID taught us that remote is possible. Anyone who tried to get Taylor Swift tickets knows in-person can be expensive, and maybe on video is the next best thing. […]

August 9, 2023September 27, 2025Agile Project Management, Books, Planning, Tailoring Approaches, Teams, Visual Learning

Suitability Filters – Team Discussion Tools

Suitability filters are models that offer simplified views of a decision-making process. They help people identify and discuss the variables at play and make a recommendation. The British statistician George Box said it best “All models are wrong, but some models are useful.” A good model provides insights, usually a basic view of how something works or the interactions between variables. From this perspective, models are interesting and can speed up our comprehension of something. However, the greatest benefit of models is as a group alignment tool. Visual Models Create Group Consensus Much of today’s work is knowledge work. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) contribute their expertise and collaborate to solve problems or build new products and services. This work […]

April 14, 2023September 27, 2025Agile Project Management, Books, Exceptions, Leadership, Planning, Risk Management, Tailoring Approaches, Theory of Constraints, Warning Signs

Definition of Broken (DoB): A Tool for Improving Communications and Outcomes

Communicating project issues is challenging. Exactly when should we escalate? Who to, and how much of a chance to correct things should be given first? This is why some projects create control limits around critical parameters and develop escalation plans to communicate exceptions and agree on the next steps. However, on most small to medium size projects, these escalation plans are often missing or left to the project manager's discretion. This creates further problems if the response is too late, not far-reaching enough, or not aligned with sponsor expectations. Also, what are the expectations for communicating delays, risks and issues at the team level? Do we want to hear when something takes a couple of hours longer than planned (probably […]

September 27, 2022September 27, 2025Agile Project Management, Books, Events, Leadership, Tailoring Approaches

Beyond Agile presentation this Friday

On Friday, September 30, I will be presenting a session on Beyond Agile at the HTEC Project Management Virtual Conference. The session is free to attend and is part of a program that also features Scott Ambler, Sanjiv Augustine, Nader Rad, and Frank Turley. You can register here. “Yes, And, And” A colleague recently described Beyond Agile as a “Yes, And, And” toolkit, and I thought it was a great way to summarize the two elements of combining hybrid agile with the Theory of Constraints, and value stream view. “Yes, And” “Yes, And” is a term from improv comedy that refers to the idea of not undermining what has come before and adding valuable new elements. For example, we can […]

June 22, 2022September 27, 2025Agile Project Management, Books, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Tailoring Approaches, Teams

From Servant Leadership to Shared Leadership

This is part one in a series on leading agile teams from the Beyond Agile book. We will examine what leadership entails and how it applies to agile teams. Then discuss the transition from servant leadership to shared leadership. EQ as a Foundation for Leadership As we saw in the previous articles about Emotional Intelligence (EQ), leadership is built on top of EQ. We need good EQ to be able to recognize and manage our own emotions. This is a prerequisite for others to consider us credible and worth listening to. So, a firm grasp of EQ, either gained intuitively or improved through study/training, brings us to the starting line with engaged stakeholders. Then leadership involves bringing this collective […]

May 8, 2022September 27, 2025Agile Project Management, Books, Certification, Tailoring Approaches, Visual Learning, Warning Signs

Agile Adoption – Left to Right is the Way to Go

Agile approaches "Crossed the Chasm" a decade ago. The organizations we see adopting it today are in the "Late Majority" and "Laggard" categories of Geoffrey Moore's Technology Adoption Life Cycle. As companies adopt agile because they have to / it's now expected / the industry norm / required to stay competitive / <insert your own reason>, we see more push-back and failures than ever. Doing something because you have to, rather than because you want to, leads to shortcuts and the wrong mindset. The image below, from Ahmed Sidky, shows agile as a mindset. In the image above, agile is a mindset described by four values, defined by twelve principles and manifested through an unlimited number of practices. The correct […]

April 16, 2022September 27, 2025Agile Project Management, Events, Tailoring Approaches, Warning Signs

Hybrid Agile Discussion

Upcoming Presentation: “Hybrid Agile, Stepping Stone or Quicksand?” How do you feel about hybrid agile – mixing agile approaches with non-agile approaches? Can it be useful sometimes, or is it the path to compromise and failure? (A great way to separate agile purists from pragmatists is to ask them what they think about hybrid agile.) Please join me on April 26 to discuss hybrid agile with PMI San Diego Chapter. In this session, we will separate agile blends from non-agile hybrids. Then explore case studies of failures and success stories, examining patterns of problems and success factors. Topics include: Left-to-right agile adoption vs right-to-left implementation The Genius of the “And” vs. the Tyranny of the “Or” Hybrid models (switchover, sandwich, […]

October 21, 2021Agile Project Management, Books, Leadership, Personal Agility, Tailoring Approaches, Teams

Beyond Agile Gratitude #1 – Weaving People and Process

Now that my Beyond Agile book has been published, I would like to thank some people who helped shape its content and ideas. Alistair Cockburn and Joshua Kerievsky helped me appreciate the balance between people-focussed activities and effective processes. “…Agile approaches combine a mixture and equal balance of people and process approaches to delivery. One way to picture these interwoven elements is like the twin strands of DNA. In figure 4.1, we see a blue thread of people elements such as empowerment, collaboration, and team decision-making, mixed with gold process elements such as backlogs, prioritization, and short iterations. If you have not noticed it before, agile approaches weave people elements and process elements together through the agile mindset, values, and […]

May 30, 2021Agile Project Management, Books, Certification, Events, Leadership, Lean, Personal Agility, PMI-ACP, Tailoring Approaches, Teams, Theory of Constraints, Visual Learning

PMI-ACP and My New Book “Beyond Agile: Achieving Success with Situational Knowledge and Skills”

It has been 10 years since the PMI-ACP exam was created, and I published my PMI-ACP Exam Prep book. I recall the Steering Committee meetings where we discussed what we believed was necessary for agile practitioners and team leaders to have experience in and an understanding of. Since then, the exam has been updated a couple of times based on Role Delineation Studies (RDS) and Job Task Analysis (JTA), which is how PMI surveys practitioners and asks what techniques are commonly used. However, the core content has mainly endured unchanged, which is testimony to its usefulness. I remember discussing the scope and goals for the credential among the committee that comprised: Alistair Cockburn, Mike Cottmeyer, Jim Cundiff, Jesse Fewell, Mike […]