Chuck Cobb

© 2014-2020 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 1

Hi, My name is Chuck Cobb – I’m the author of “The Project Manager’s Guide To Mastering
Agile”. That will be the third book I’ve published to date on Agile Project Management and
I’ve also published two earlier books on business excellence.

However, I want to assure you that I am not just an academic book author. I have over 20
years of hands-on experience as a practicing project manager in a very broad range of
industries and application areas.

Welcome to my training course on “Hybrid Agile Project Management. This course is

designed to help you see these two seemingly disparate approaches in a fresh new
perspective as complementary rather than competitive to each other. It will also teach you
to get the best of both worlds by learning how to blend these two seemingly disparate
approaches together in the right proportions to fit any given situation.

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Agile Business Management Roadmap

3. Enterprise-level Agile Business Management

2. Mastering Agile Business Management

1. Hybrid Agile Project Management This Course

© 2014-2020 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 2

This course is part of an overall curriculum for Agile Business Management that consists
of three courses:

1. Agile BM 101 - Hybrid Agile Project Management

The Hybrid Agile Project Management course povides a solid foundation for the other
courses in this overall curriculum and helps all business personnel develop a solid
understanding of how to implement a hybrid approach that blends the two approaches
in the right proportions to fit any given situation

2. Agile BM 201 - Mastering Agile Business Management

The Mastering Agile Business Management course is designed to provide a much deeper
understanding of how to effectively lead Agile/Scrum projects for anyone in a Product
Owner role or in an equivalent level of business responsibility. The Product Owner role
in Agile is not well understood and many business managers who are assigned to
perform that role are not well-prepared for it.

3. Agile BM 301 - Enterprise-level Agile Business Management

The Enterprise-level Agile Business Management course is focused on advanced topics

related to applying Agile to a business at an enterprise level including
• Alignment and Value Disciplines
• Enterprise-level frameworks (SAFe and DAD)
• Enterprise-level Agile Transformations

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• Organizational Culture and Change Management

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Agile Adoption Has Grown Very Rapidly

© 2014-2020 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 3

Although the exact numbers from various surveys are be open to discussion, there is no question that Agile
has become the latest management trend of today and it is much more than just a fad – it is really here to
stay and the rate of adoption of Agile methodologies has increased significantly since 2009.

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The Agile “Bandwagon”

Like many new things, Agile” is

becoming a hot new buzz word
and everyone wants to jump on
the “Agile bandwagon”

© 2014-2020 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 4

Like many new things, Agile” is becoming a hot new buzz word and everyone wants to jump on the “Agile
bandwagon” without necessarily fully understanding why they’re getting into it and exactly what they expect
to get out of it.
It reminds me a lot of when Six Sigma was hot in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. In those days, Six Sigma was
what we called the “Program du Jour”, there was a lot of hype about it and everyone wanted to jump on the
Six Sigma bandwagon. Several patterns were apparent at that time…there was a lot of “hoopla” (like green
belts and black belts) associated with Six Sigma, a lot of people got lost in the mechanics of doing Six Sigma,
people tended to think that Six Sigma was a panacea for any possible problem that a business could have and
they tended to regard all other previous process improvement methodologies as obsolete and passé. A
similar thing is happening with Agile today -
While Agile has huge potential advantages for a business, I think it’s important not to get lost in some of the
hype that exists about Agile and objectively understand the differences between an Agile approach and a
traditional project management approach and the benefits and limitations of each.

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 Just becoming “Agile” is not necessarily the
most important goal in itself depending on the
nature of the business you’re in.
We need to take time to understand what
problem Agile will potentially solve and how it
will benefit your business.

© 2014-2020 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 5

Just becoming “Agile” is not necessarily the most important goal in itself depending on the
nature of the business you’re in. We need to take time to understand what problem Agile
will potentially solve and how it will benefit your business.

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Agile Challenges for Businesses and Project Managers

“Waterfall” Agile

© 2014-2020 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 6

Agile can pose a difficult challenge for many businesses and project managers. Many
businesses and project managers have an existing management system and project
management approach that is based on a traditional, plan-driven approach (or what is
sometimes called “Waterfall”) and are faced with a choice of using:

• Continuing to use a traditional, heavily control-oriented and plan-driven approach which

has an emphasis on managing costs and schedules that may be constraining the
business, or

• A more agile approach which can offer many benefits including faster time-to-market
and higher business value; however, there is also a risk associated with losing control of
projects with less focus on managing costs and schedules

Many people see this as a binary and mutually-exclusive choice between two extremes - I
want to show you how to get the best of both of these two worlds

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The Problem
Business Environment

Projects

“Waterfall” “Agile”

Many businesses and project managers see this as a binary and mutually-exclusive choice
and attempt to force-fit their business and projects to one of these extremes

That often causes a lot of confusion and consternation

© 2014-2020 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 7

The fundamental problem is that because many people see this as a binary and mutually-
exclusive choice, they make the mistake of attempting to force-fit their projects and
business environment to one of these extremes and that can cause a lot of confusion and
consternation because it often doesn’t result in a good fit.

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Why is This Video So Important? (cont.)
The result is probably not optimal and can be problematic

The methodology may not fit the project

and might also not fit the company’s business environment and culture
© 2014-2020 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 8

The result is probably not an optimal solution and it can often result in a mismatch that
very problematic.

It’s like attempting to plug an appliance requiring AC power into a DC outlet. The
methodology may not be well-suited to the project and it might also not fit well with the
company’s business environment and culture.

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The Solution
Business
Environment
Overall Project
Approach
Project
Characteristics

Development
Approach

Fit the approach (or combination of approaches) to the project and to the business environment
That may require more skill but it definitely can be done!
© 2014-2020 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 9

A better solution is to go in the other direction and fit the approach (or combination of
approaches) to the project and to the business environment.

That may require more skill but it definitely can be done! My training courses are designed
to help businesses and project managers develop the right skills to create a well-integrated
approach to fit your business and projects.

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 What’s Unique About this Training?

Traditional Plan-driven
Project Management Agile
(“Waterfall”)

We need to see these two approaches in a fresh new perspective as

complementary to each other rather than competitive
© 2014-2020 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 10

The training curriculum and the three books I’ve written in this area are all very unique.
There are a lot of books and training on Agile as well as a lot of books and training on
project management. What’s unique about my books and training is that they are designed
to help close the gap between the project management community and the Agile
community to help people see Agile and traditional plan-driven project management
approaches in a fresh new perspective as complementary to each other rather than
competitive and to help people see how to blend these two approaches together in the
right proportions to fit a given situation to get the best of both worlds.

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Where Does This Course Fit In?

7. Enterprise-level Agile Project Management

6. Advanced Agile Project Management
5. Mastering Agile Project Management
4. Introduction to Agile Project Management
3. Understanding Agile at a Deeper Level
2. What’s the Future of Agile Project Management?
1. Learn the Truth About Agile vs Waterfall

This course is designed for business managers and business analysts

© 2014-2020 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 11

I have developed a total of seven courses on Agile Project Management; those courses
provide a lot more detail on how to implement a hybrid Agile approach for someone who is
in an Agile Project Management role.

This course is part of an abbreviated version of that curriculum for business managers who
may be more indirectly involved in Agile projects and only need a general understanding of
how a hybrid Agile development process works.

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Intended Audience

Agile Product Owners or Product Managers

Business Analysts

Business Sponsors

Senior-level Executives

Helps to Develop a Collaborative Relationship

© 2014-2020 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 12

The intended audience for the course is:

1. Agile Product Owners or Product Managers - who need to better understand how to
effectively perform the Agile Product Owner role. The Product Owner role in Agile is
not well-understood and most of the people who might be selected to perform that
role are not well-prepared for what it requires
2. Business Analysts - who work in an Agile environment and need to optimize their
skills to provide a high level of value in that environment
3. Business Sponsors - who want to learn more about Agile Project Management in
order to provide more effective leadership for the initiatives that they are
responsible for
4. Senior-level Executives - who are interested in making their business more agile and
want to develop a well-integrated approach to fit an Agile development process to
their business
The idea behind this course is that Agile requires a collaborative relationship between
the project team and business managers based on a mutual understanding of the Agile
process. This course is designed to help develop that collaborative relationship.

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Why Do Business Managers Need to Understand This?
Why can’t It be delegated to a Project Manager?

In an Agile environment:

The requirements and the design of the solution evolve and

are further refined and elaborated as the project is in
progress

For that reason, business people need to be much more

directly involved to provide leadership and direction as the
project is in progress

In order to provide effective leadership and direction, the

business people need to fully understand how the process
works and participate collaboratively in the process
© 2014-2020 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 13

You might ask: Why does a business manager need to understand this? Why isn’t it
something that can be just delegated to a project manager? In a traditional plan-driven
project management model, most of this work could be delegated to a traditional
project management role and the business involvement would be much more indirect.
In an Agile environment,
• The requirements and the design of the solution evolve and are further refined as the
project progresses
• For that reason, it is essential that the business is much more directly involved in
providing leadership and direction to the project as it progresses
• In order to provide effective leadership and direction, the business people need to
fully understand how the process works and participate collaboratively in the process

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 NEXT LECTURE:
DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
WHAT IS “WATERFALL”?

© 2014-2020 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 14

The first problem we need to get past is that the terms “Agile” and “Waterfall” are used
very loosely in actual practice…In the next section, we’re going to discuss the definition of
these terms and the next lecture is “What is ‘Waterfall’”?

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