Agile Communications

Mike Griffiths is an experienced project manager, author and consultant who works for PMI as a subject matter expert. Before joining PMI, Mike consulted and managed innovation and technology projects throughout Europe, North and South America for 30+ years. He was co-lead for the PMBOK Guide—Seventh Edition, lead for the Agile Practice Guide, and contributor to the PMI-ACP and PMP exam content outlines. Outside of PMI, Mike maintains the websites www.LeadingAnswers.com about leading teams and www.PMillustrated.com, which teaches project management for visual learners.

  Agile   Communications Management   Lessons Learned   Talent Management  

“We work with bits, not atoms.” This phrase speaks to the distinction of IT projects from physical construction. Our tools and processes manipulate ideas, concepts and models--not steel, concrete or plastic. Given the intangible nature of software, it is no surprise we need more focus on communications, collaboration and information sharing to keep everyone informed and aligned towards a common goal.

Agile methods recognize this increased need for communication and provide a variety of tools and checkpoints to help avoid the classic project mistakes of mismatched expectations and confusion. In the absence of a visible physical product to point at and measure, we need to be constantly confirming understandings and aligning ideas against increments of the final solution. Otherwise, we get the “That’s not what I asked for!” or “That’s not what I need!” of yesteryear’s IT projects.

Why so often?
Daily stand-up meetings are common on agile projects--not because IT folk are more forgetful than other workers and need to discuss work goals and results more often, but because the potential for misunderstanding is higher when working on novel, hard-to-describe problems. Stand-up meetings keep the team informed of work and issues that change quickly and also provide a forum to raise obstacles to progress so they can …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.