Agile Motivation (Part 1)

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   Talent Management  

We all know that agile replaces command-and-control management where people are told what to do with empowered teams, where people are enabled to do the right things. However, how do we get to this state, and what to do if this all sounds a bit too touchy-feely and wishful thinking for our set of lazy workers? While it might be tempting to assign work from the backlog to team members, crack the whip and follow up with them on progress, we would be missing the huge productivity difference between the passive compliance of working through a to-do list versus solving challenges and delighting customers--which is huge.

So then, how do we get team members to this state of wanting to proactively pull work from a backlog of features at a high pace? Well, if they are not there already (and many might be closer than you think), then it will likely require some coaching and a little team motivation.

The good news is that most people want more challenging and rewarding ways of working. Nobody wants to be told what to do and be micro-managed. “We manage property and lead people, if you try to manage people they will feel like property.”

I am convinced that project managers lay tasks out in sequence for people to simplify tracking more than to assist with task execution. Often, the planned sequence is not practical (or sub-optimal, anyway). People are great at …

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