The coronavirus pandemic is the most frightening, disruptive, and widespread crisis of our lifetime.  As managers and leaders, none of us have faced challenges of such a magnitude or scale.  Over the next several weeks and probably months, our teams will look to us for guidance, support, and leadership.  In this article, I draw from […]

Many organizations struggle with project governance, oversight, and control.  The truth is that most projects are not successful.   Over the past 25-years, only 30% of all projects are delivered on-time, on-budget, and with the desired scope.  Traditional waterfall projects have phase gates that theoretically establish defined control and governance points.  The project must complete the […]

Disciplined Agile (DA) has the potential to become a leading agile framework because it creates harmony in this congested thought-space.  DA recognizes practices from across the spectrum and offers a pragmatic and context-driven approach to agility. Currently, DA is not widely used.  In the State of Agile Report,  it does not make the list of […]

Agile teams using the Scrum framework commit to delivering value in each development sprint.  Sprints are generally 2-weeks long, and the goal is to create working software that can be deployed into production.  While commitment is one of Scrum’s core values,  in reality, teams do not always complete the work.  This is commonly known as […]

Managers and project managers are often told that “engaging stakeholders” is critical to success.  However, they rarely receive guidance on what it means or how to “engage your stakeholders.”  It is similar to when I started practicing yoga, the teacher told us to “release our sacrum.”  I had no idea that I had a sacrum, […]

Stakeholder management is one of the most critical project management functions.  Stakeholders are our customers, organizational leaders, members of our project teams, and people we may not even know.  The project manager’s ability to effectively identify, understand, and engage stakeholders is a key determinant of success.    According to the Project Management Institute’s (PMI), 2018 Pulse […]

Many organizations try to catapult into agility.  Striving to instantaneously transform their traditional practices and culture.   Unfortunately, this strategy is usually painful and often fails. The Scrum Guide states, “Scrum is easy to understand, but difficult to master.”  Basic training can be quickly and easily accomplished in just a few days.  However, being Agile is […]

The Project Management Institute (PMI) is making a bold pivot toward agile.  As a project manager and an agilist, I am excited by these moves.  At the same time, it is hard to envision both this transition and the future state.  In this article, I share some of my thoughts about the upcoming changes to […]

Experienced agile coaches and practitioners develop a sixth-sense. They can quickly assess the health of an agile project or team just as doctors do with their patients. In 2013, Mike Cohn coined the term scrum smells to describe the signs that a scrum team is in trouble. In my agile training and consulting practice, I […]

Knowledge Management (KM) is broadly defined as the process of creating and sharing information across the organization.  Its goal is to enable learning.  KM became a formal business disciple in the 1990s even though it dates back centuries.  I believe that project management follows the apprenticeship model. Throughout my management career, creating a learning environment […]