Immutable infrastructure
Over the many years of my interactions with various projects, the most common misconception that I come across is equating a daily standup to scrum and agile. In such situations, the conversations invariably start something like this: “We are already agile, we do daily standups – so, we do not need any training. Just tell […]
Risk Management: Good to Great – Part II Enablers
Sometime in March 2016, we started with the series Risk Management: Good to Great. In Part I of the series on Practices. we covered what we believe are “great” risk management practices based on our consulting practice at PM Power Consulting. As a recap, here is the diagram from Part below: The centre piece in […]
Seven pillars of Servant Leadership
Often I get asked by Scrum Masters, who are in the process of adopting Agile Scrum, on references to servant leadership. How should one go about changing from “command and control style” to “servant leadership”. I used to share relevant examples from my experiences that has helped teams self-organize. Highlight instances, based on my observations […]
Keeping Daily Scrum Focused (2)
Here is an update from Rekha, one of the team member from the teams I was coaching. I am working on TSK-206, I took the build, tried to test on ST-OS1 setup, was unable to test. Then I tried ST-OS3, then Nithin told me that he had changed the environment to test earlier build, he […]
An Approach for Development of Delivery Managers
Delivery Managers in IT services organizations constitute the critical link between senior leadership and operational/project management levels in software delivery organizations. They play vital roles in: · Making delivery commitments to customers and ensuring that they are met, while meeting goals for revenue and profitability · Providing direction and support to executing teams and ensuring conformance […]
Improving Software Quality
Project Managers are accountable for meeting the customer commitments and quality is undeniably one thing that no customer would compromise with. When a project encounters quality issues, the Project Manager is in the firing line. Often Project Managers feel compelled to intervene: they roll up their sleeves, try to get to the bottom of the […]
Tracking in Agile projects
During a workshop on Agile Scrum, for participants new to Agile, a question came up – how is tracking in Agile different than in traditional project management? A very interesting question, which cannot be answered in short – covering some aspects, more to elicit interest in those new to Agile Scrum. In a typical project, the team […]
Transitioning to the role of a Delivery Manager-Part 2
In Part 1 of this article, we covered the “terrain changes” in making the transition from a Project Manager (PM) role to a Delivery Manager (DM) role. Terrain changes include the aspects to “learn” and “un-learn”. In Part 1, we covered the following: – Terrain change #1: Portfolio diversity – Terrain change #2: Dynamic aspects […]
Transitioning to the role of a Delivery Manager – Part 1
If you are a successful Project Manager (PM) with a solid track record, it is only natural that you aspire to get promoted soon. In software services organizations, this promotion often means donning the role of a Delivery Manager (DM). While your project management experience is doubtless a strong foundation for performing as a DM, […]
Project Management – Art or science?
While we would like to think that all management is science, and would like to go after all management issues scientifically, sometimes it is using the management arts that will help us solve some of the key issues. What is Project Management? Well, the Project Management Institute says that Project Management is “the application of […]
