In my previous post Why Scrum Is Awesome for Project Managers, I summarized the options available to project managers in organizations that are using Scrum. One of the options is to continue being a project manager. Essentially, the project manager is a stakeholder and may support Scrum Teams and agility across the wider organization.
What this looks like will vary based on the product, business, initiative, and more. However, there are 5 common ways I see project managers can enable and support Scrum Team success.
Effective Scrum Masters partner with others to help remove organizational impediments. Project managers often have great knowledge and experience with organizational processes and tools, as well as connections across the organization. They likely understand the greater impacts of an organizational process, helping to connect the people who can enable change.
Project managers may know the history of a process or tool, which can help bring clarity to the real purpose. Often this gets lost over time, and people just “follow the process.” Perhaps the original problem the process was designed to solve no longer exists. Perhaps there is now a better way. Or maybe the original constraints are now irrelevant.
When there is shared understanding of what people are trying to accomplish and why, they can collaborate towards a better way of accomplishing it.
The Product Owner is accountable for maximizing value; they decide what is going to be implemented in the product and the order in which that occurs. Therefore, the Product Owner owns the budget and schedule. However, Product Owners may need support in managing the budget and schedule, especially for larger and more complex products.
Project managers can bring a lot of knowledge and experience in this area to help Product Owners be more effective in managing and communicating budgets and schedules. This may be as simple as teaching Product Owners the organizational processes and tools. Or a project manager may actually help with the details, working more closely with a Product Owner, especially when budgets are not yet clearly aligned to products.
Remember, project managers are change agents. So let’s leverage their knowledge and skillset when we need help implementing change.
There may be organizational initiatives that impact multiple Scrum Teams. Project managers can help these teams stay connected with larger initiatives so that the work can be refined and ordered, considering dependencies and schedule constraints. Project managers can partner with Product Owners to help leadership better understand the cross-impacts of organizational initiatives, determine realistic timelines, and make necessary trade-offs.
A Scrum Team may be implementing changes that have significant downstream impacts to several business areas or customer implementations. For example, maybe there are large groups of people who require training, new equipment installs, and new operational procedures. It may be helpful for a Scrum Team to work with a project manager for planning and executing downstream changes to processes, tools, and ways of working.
Scrum Teams may need to work with teams that are using a more traditional plan-driven approach. Project managers can help create focus on doing the right thing, negotiating approaches that help everyone figure out a way to meet each other’s needs while enabling value delivery and frequent feedback.
Instead of being a go-between, create the bridge that allows individuals and teams to collaborate more effectively.
Project managers can act as servant-leaders. Demonstrate an agile mindset by helping create more focus on valuable outcomes, embracing and responding to change, and promoting cross-functional collaboration.
Demonstrate openness and curiosity. Let go of resistance to change and jump in, helping to shape a more agile organization.
Challenge old assumptions and limiting beliefs. Seek ways to better serve customers, teams, and the wider organization. Help people explore the art of the possible.
In order to do the 5 things above, project managers need to take ownership of their change agent role. There is not a map telling project managers exactly how to execute these 5 activities successfully. Every project manager will need to navigate how to best serve teams and organizations in their context.
Start with gaining a solid understanding of agility and Scrum, especially the why. Then you can integrate this mindset into how you work, looking for ways to help Scrum Teams and organizations gain the benefits of business agility.
