MGMT 642: Agile Project Management

MGMT 642: Agile Project Management

Shahrzad Khosravi, PMP, SP, RMP, ACP

Week 8
Outline
• Stakeholder Stewardship Versus Stakeholder Management
• Establishing a Shared Vision
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Educating Stakeholders about Agile
• Activity: Stakeholder Engagement
• Assignments

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Stakeholder Stewardship Versus
Stakeholder Management
Stakeholder Definition
• An individual, group, or organization
that may affect, be affected by, or
perceive itself to be affected by a
decision, activity, or outcome of a
project, program, or portfolio. (PMBOK
7th Edition).
• Affect, be affected by, or perceive itself
to be affected by positively or
negatively.
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• Sponsor – Senior Management Team
• Subject Matter Experts
• Project Team Members
• Peers
• Manager
• Internal/External Clients
• Community/public
• The Media
• Vendors – consultants, contractors, suppliers
• Government
• Others (community/public, landowners,
interest groups, business competitors)
 Stakeholder Stewardship Versus Stakeholder
Management
• Stakeholder stewardship • Stakeholder • Stakeholder
• Careful and responsible management engagement
leadership of something • Process of managing the • Includes implementing
entrusted to expectation of anyone strategies and actions to
stakeholder’s care who has an interest in a promote productive
• Having a proactive desire project or will be involvement of
to create a better future affected by it. stakeholders.
for key stakeholders • Solely the act or skill of • Starts before or when
while responsibly controlling and making the project starts and
balancing the needs of decisions. continue throughout the
others, society, future project.
generations, and the
environment.
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Establishing a Shared Vision
Product Vision Board and Product Box
Target group Needs Product Business goals
• Who will the product • What problems are • What are the key • What are the high-
benefit? being addressed? features of the priority business
• Who are the • What benefits will be product? goals?
customers and users? provided?

Side Front Side Back

Impacts Impacts
Value of the product
Supporting Supporting
What’s In It For Me Features and capabilities
details details
(WIIFM)?
Costs Costs

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Product Roadmap
• Used to communicate a high level overview of a project’s goals and
major deliverable on a timeline or schedule
• May go beyond a project.
• Shows features or types of features
• Shows the desired sequence of feature delivery
• Does not focus on the details of the features, so very high-level
• Helps being the process of release and iteration planning
• Stakeholders are engaged in the initial product roadmap development
process.

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Product Roadmap Continued

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Agile Project Charter
• Agile project charter is supposed to be much shorter than traditional project
charter.
• It usually needs to answer the W5H questions:
• Who will be engaged? – Covered in the project governance section
• What is this project about? – Covered in the project vision section
• Where will it occur? When will it start and end? – Covered in the timeline section
• Why is it being undertaken? – Covered in the project vision section
• How will it be undertaken? – Covered in the roadmap.
• Project Vision
• Vision: Why are we doing the project?
• Mission: What (deliverables) will be done in the project?
• Success Criteria: The expected results

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Agile Project Charter Continued
• Project Elevator Statement

Section Description Example

For: Target customers Agile Project managers
Who: Need (opportunity or problem) Want to become agile project leaders
The: Product/service name “Agile Project Management” class
Is a: Product category 10-week course
That: Key benefits/reason to buy Takes participants through a comprehensive agile
development life cycle, incorporating real case studies and
hands-on exercises
Unlike: Primary competitive alternative(s) Agile courses from generic training organizations
We: Primary differentiation Only use instructors with hands-on agile project experience to
ensure they can answer all your questions, and our
supplementary materials include valuable tools, case studies,
and chat sheets
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Release Plan
• Iteration planned with targeted release dates.
• May look similar to Gantt chart
• Stakeholders are engaged and invited in Release Planning meeting.

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User Stories and Product Backlog
• Developing a user story is an opportunity to engage the Product Owner and/or
stakeholders.
• Stakeholders are involved in creation of the product backlog.
• Product Owner to rank/prioritize the user stories based on expected value to the
business/customer.
• Based on the description of a user story, the team will provide an estimate.
• A user story will look something like:
• “As a (role), I want to do (feature) so that I can do (reason/benefit).”
• End users are often called Personas to facilitate understanding of end user
perspective.

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Kick-off Meeting
• Kick-off meetings are used to assemble the appropriate stakeholders
and engage them in delivering expected results.
• At the project or release level:
• The focus is usually a combination of internal and external stakeholders.
• The goal may be delivering high-level roadmap items or groups of user
stories/features.
• At the sprint/iteration level:
• The focus is usually internal stakeholders (team).
• The goal may be iteration/sprint planning but since this is a kick-off, it may be
referred to as iteration 0.

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Agile Modeling

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Wireframe
• Low-fidelity way to present a product, can efficiently outline structures and
layouts.
• Wireframe is the basic and visual representation of the design.
• Wireframe design doesn’t need to focus too much on minutiae, but must express
design ideas and should not miss any important parts.
• Wireframe is like a channel that helps team member understand their projects
better.

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Wireframe Continued

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Alan Dennis, et al. (2022). Systems Analysis and Design, 8th Edition. Wiley.
 Wireframe Continued
• Example of Input
Interface Wireframe
• Request input and display
New Reservation Form
• Example of Output • Example of Information
Interface Wireframe Interface Wireframe
• Output and display
Reservation Confirmation

Show Product
Information

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Wireframe Continued
• Example of systems walkthrough using wireframe

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Personas
• When personas are used as a
project tool, they should:
• Provide an archetypal description of
users
• Be grounded in reality
• Be goal-oriented, specific, and
relevant
• Be tangible and actionable
• Generate focus

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Stakeholder Engagement
Two problems with using high-tech tools in agile projects:
1. Data accuracy perception increases
2. Barriers for stakeholder interaction are created

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Principles of Stakeholder Engagement
• Get the right stakeholders.
• Cement stakeholder involvement.
• Actively manage stakeholder interest.
• Frequently discuss what "done" looks like.
• Show progress and capabilities.
• Candidly discuss estimates and projections.

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Principles of Stakeholder Engagement
• Get the right stakeholders.
• Cement stakeholder involvement.
• Actively manage stakeholder interest.
• Frequently discuss what "done" looks like.
• Show progress and capabilities.
• Candidly discuss estimates and projections.

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Agile Roles
• In agile, three common roles are used:
• Cross-functional team members
• Team members with all the skills necessary to produce a working product.
• In software development, these are designers, developers, testers, etc.
• Product owner
• Guides the direction of the product
• Prioritizes the work based on its business value.
• Works with stakeholders, customers, and the team to define the product direction
• Creates the backlog for delivering the highest value
• Team facilitator
• A servant leader
• This role may be called a project manager, ScrumMaster, project team-lead, team coach or team facilitator.

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Importance-Influence Grid
• Influence: Ability to effect changes to planning or execution
• Importance: Level of project’s importance to the person (How important the project is to the
person)
High
Protect their Build the
interest relationship
IMPORTANCE

Little or no action Beware of potential

needed risks
Low
Low INFLUENCE High
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Impact-Influence Grid
• Influence: Ability to effect changes to planning or execution
• Impact: Level of impact/involvement

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Adapted from “Stakeholder Register” by Waterloo Information Systems & Technology.
Power-Influence Grid
• Influence: Ability to effect changes to planning or execution
• Power: Level of power/authority
• Low-Power, Low-Influence: Potential Players (Monitor for change)
• Low-Power, High-Influence: Affected Players (Keep Informed)
• High-Power, Low-Influence: Important Players (Keep Satisfied)
• High-Power, High-Influence: Key Players (Manage Closely)

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From Mastering Project Human Resource Management: Effectively Organize and Communicate with All Project
Stakeholders by Harjit Singh (0133837890) Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education LTD. All rights reserved.
Channels of communications
• C = n(n-1)/2
• How many channels of communications when there are:
• 1 stakeholder (A)?
• 2 stakeholders (A, B)?
• 3 stakeholders (A, B, C)?
• 4 stakeholders (A, B, C, D)?
• 10 stakeholders?
• 50 stakeholders?
• 100 stakeholders?
• 1000 stakeholders?
• Channels of Communication.xlsx

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Channels of communications Continued

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Miscommunication

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Miscommunication Continued

From: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/476059-tree-swing-cartoon-parodies
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GOS (Goal, Output, Scenario)

Goal:
Output
Scenario
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Meeting Facilitator’s Responsibilities
• Establish a climate of safety and equity within
the group
• Create a friendly and safe atmosphere among
participants.
• Create a framework conducive to discussion
and sharing.
• Ensure a common understanding
• Listen attentively, reformulate and clarify
interventions to ensure that the ideas
expressed are clearly understood.
• Ask follow-up questions.
• Make sure that all members of the group get to
participate equally.
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• Maintain one’s role as facilitator to ensure that
the group remains focused on the objective.
• Guide the group discussion and maintain
constructive dialogue to address the root cause
of the problem being discussed.
• Monitor and respect the time allocated for each
subject.
• Ensure you are perceived as neutral in your role
as facilitator.
• Propose a summary before closing the meeting
• Develop detailed action plans that clearly define
responsibilities, timelines and deliverables.
Sprint/Iteration Planning
• A type of histogram, but it arranges the results • After agreeing to the Items the Team can do,
from most frequent to least frequent to help the Team and the Product Owner jointly agree
identify which root causes are resulting in the to a single Sprint Goal that defines Success for
most problems. the Sprint, and the Product Owner advertises
• Pareto charts are used In Sprint Planning the this Sprint Goal to the Stakeholders.
Product Owner works with the Team to • in quality control to identify causes of
negotiate what Backlog Items the Team will problems; action will be taken to fix first the
agree to do in the Sprint in order to support the problems causing the highest number of
Release Goals and Strategy. defects.
• Each of these Items has an agreed-upon • 80/20 rule: Roughly 80% of the effects come
Definition of Done, and collectively these Items from 20% of the causes.
are called the Team's Sprint Backlog.
• Stakeholders are engaged, invited but not
• It is the ScrumMaster's responsibility to assure mandatory to attend.
that the Team agrees to a realistic amount of
work, and the Product Owner does not unduly
influence this agreement.
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Sprinting / Iterating
• The Team's work pattern is often described as Swarming and can look chaotic
from the outside.
• Participatory design – Stakeholders, designers, researchers, and end-users in the
design process in order to help ensure that the end product meets the needs of its
intended user base.
• Artifact updates – Update artifacts, documentations, etc.
• Develop product increment – Develop product in an incremental fashion.
• The team is interacting with the stakeholders.

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Daily Scrum / Stand-up
• While the Sprint is in progress the Team has Daily Scrums that allow
each Team Member to understand what the Team's status is and to
enable the Team to re-organize for the work at hand.
• Stakeholders are not invited. Only the core roles are invited.

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Sprint Review
• This is done for three reasons:
1) To prove to the Product Owner and Stakeholders that the Team is moving in
the right direction.
2) To get feedback from the Product Owner and Stakeholders about what
they've done.
3) To discuss the next Sprint's Goal with the Product Owner and Stakeholders.
• Product Owner’s attendance is mandatory.
• Stakeholders are highly encouraged to attend but not mandatory

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Iteration Retrospective
• To analyze its performance and performance and practices.
• This is focused on the process and people, not product.
• Stakeholders are not invited.

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Backlog grooming
• Product Owner and the team review items on the backlog to ensure
the backlog includes the appropriate items and they are prioritized.
• Backlog grooming time should be planned in each iteration (sprint)
(e.g. 10%).
• Product Owner and the team may be interacting with the
stakeholders throughout the grooming process.

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Educating Stakeholders about Agile
Assess Your Environment
• In order to truly become / transition to agile, one must assess the
environment.
• Four steps in assessing your environment:
1) Educate stakeholders about agile goals
2) Understand the current organizational style
3) Find agile support
4) Prepare for resistance and educate your leaders

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Agile Goals
• Goals of Agile Transitions
• Improve delivery
• Increase quality
• Create a faster time to market
• Improve delivery
• Agile frameworks deliver working software every two weeks or so.
• Iterative approach
• Short, timeboxed delivery cycles

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Organizational style
• Culture • Cultural Constraints to Agile
• Culture is the foundation for business Transitions
strategy.
• Management style
• Strategy • What's it like where you work?
• Customer base • Command and Control Hierarchy vs.
• Performance Collaboration
• Competition • Acceptance of change
• Prepare for change
• Process focus
• Prepare for a transition
• Explain how less is more
• Trust
• Trust is an essential element to an
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agile transition
Evolving Leadership, Bob Marcus
 Finding agile support
• Team of Agile Supporters
• A group of people who see the
value in the agile transition
and are willing to try it.
• Key to buy-in
• Individual Contributors: Get
the right people on board.
• Middle Management: Identify
the thought leaders for your
pilot project.
Management is a support role, Aaron Zeckoski
• Executives: Gain support from
an executive with vested
interest.
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Preparing for resistance
• Help people understand why and how to change.
• Common Reasons for Resisting Agile Transformation
• Lack of understanding of agile frameworks
• Make sure your leaders are educated.
• Make sure the entire organization gets training, coaching and education.
• Breadth of change agile requires
• Agile is a mindset more than it is a framework for delivering work.
• A collaborative approach benefits all.
• Create a plan with your leaders.
• Corporate culture
• Hit the reset button on your current environment.

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Activity: Stakeholder Engagement
Effective Stakeholder Engagement and
Communication
• Identify at least five Situation

communication situations that Intention

are part of a project.

WHAT are we communicating?
• Situation 1:
• Situation 2: HOW are we communicating?
• Situation 3:
What particular TOPICS are we addressing?
• Situation 4:
• Situation 5: What are the objectives sought for each of the TOPICS?
• Define the GOS.
• Fill-in the table for one What ELEMENTS are important to consider?
situation.
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Assignments
Homework Problem 8: When to Use Agile?
• When should a PM consider Agile Project Management Approach?
• When should a PM NOT consider Agile Project Management Approach?
• Before Using Agile Project Management Approach, what should the organization
do?
• Do NOT search the Internet.
• To be more consistent, please use below naming convention for your following
assignment:
• Homework8_[Last name]_[First letter of first name].pptx
• If file naming is not followed, there will be a grade deduction.
• Upload to the Homework section in Moodle.
• I will pick one group and the group will do 8-10 minute presentation at the start of the next
class.
• If you go under or over time, there will be a grade deduction.
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Assignments due before next class
• Online forums
• One most interesting thing you learned about agile from today
• Weekly summary
• Review today’s lecture and summarize
• Homework Problem #8

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