Introduction
Agile leadership is the ability to inspire people to work on a common goal, through communication, collaboration and creativity. The key difference between traditional project management and agile leadership is the mindset. A traditional project manager will try to control and plan every aspect of the project, while an agile leader will focus more on delivering business value and responding to change.Agile leaders don’t only lead their teams, but also the whole organization towards agility. An agile leader can be anyone in an organization that wants to bring positive changes and adopt agile principles, not just the ones directly responsible for leading scrum teams or managing projects.
An agile leader knows how to remove impediments and protect their team from external distractions. They are able to create a great working environment where everyone can be creative and productive at the same time. Agile leaders take ownership of what they do, they don’t blame others when things fail or don’t go as planned, because they know that, ultimately, they are responsible for what happens inside their team.
What is an agile frame work
The Agile framework is a set of values and principles for iterative, incremental software development. It’s used to build complex products quickly and efficiently. Agile teams are organized around their ability to develop increments of a product in short periods of time. For example, a team may work on the next increment of the product during an eight-week sprint.
Agile projects work well with short sprint cycles because they’re cross-functional and self-organizing. The whole team works together on all aspects of the project — such as design, development and testing — instead of being broken up into specialized teams or roles. This makes it possible to get feedback from customers early in the process and make changes quickly if necessary.The leader of an Agile team is called a Scrum Master.
How to lead project team in an agile way
There is a lot of material out there on leading an agile team. And that is great. But how do you lead a project team in an Agile way? Keep reading, I will focus specifically on the project leadership (a part of PMI’s Project Manager Competency) and how to apply it in an Agile environment.In my experience, I have seen project teams running in Agile methodologies without any real leadership from the project manager. In these cases, the scrum master or team lead carried most of the responsibility.Deadlines are the main challenge for any project manager. In Agile methodologies, we have to consider the importance of the team to ensure that the job is done on time.
Here are some important points on, how to lead a project team in an Agile way like a professional;
- One major facet of agile project management is doing the necessary preparation beforehand. Make sure you know what’s expected at every step of the process and have a plan for how you’ll get there: are there any obstacles in your path? If so, how will you overcome them? Who will help you get through them? Knowing this stuff from the outset will make things go much more smoothly as you move through each step of your project.
- Create a culture of teamwork and collaboration within the team where all members have an equal opportunity to contribute, and everyone feels responsible for delivering quality work.
- Encourage participation by all members of the team, but don’t be afraid to make tough decisions when they are needed. Remember that you are ultimately responsible for meetingdeadlines and ensuring quality; therefore, you must be willing to delegate certain tasks or make difficult choices if necessary.
- Give clear instructions to your team members about what needs to be done and when it needs to be completed, so everyone knows exactly where they stand at all times.
- Provide feedback regularly so everyone feels motivated throughout their workday; it’s important not keep people guessing whether or not their efforts have been successful or not!
- Build strong relationships within yourprojectteam by encouraging collaboration, open communication and trust between colleagues; this way everybody will have better understanding of each other’s strengths weaknesses while working together toward common goals.”
- Focus on people over processes
- Lead by example
- Rely on metrics to measure your progress
- Expect some failures and learn from them
Conclusions
The roadmap to a successful agile project is not to do with the tools or technology being used, but more so the leader and their decisions. if a project leader can fully understand agile as a concept, then they are in a much better place than someone who merely uses the tools without any real understanding of the underlying methodology behind it all.Your job, as the agile Leader, is to lead the team that’s building your product. That means that you need to plan out the project in plenty of detail (while still leaving room for flexibility) and then keep all of the key players on-track as they work towards their goals. For a lot of folks (myself included), this is easier said than done. But if you’re prepared and willing to give it your all, then anything is possible. Just be aware that it takes patience and practice to do this right. I hope this post will help you to be a better agile leader, but if you want to go more in depth, just click the link above, you can find a better way ahead.