Agile Interruptions

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  

“My team has stopped talking to me, and I like it!” This may sound like heresy since agile teams are centered on face-to-face conversation, but as with most sound-bites it is missing context and clarification. A more accurate description would be: “We are replacing some face-to-face conversations with other communication channels and this practice seems to improve flow.”

Like all good stories I have started in the middle, let’s back up and examine the full picture. “Flow” is the quiet and highly productive state of work when you are really “in the zone” and making real progress on a topic. In his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains what makes an experience genuinely satisfying and how people typically experience deep enjoyment, creativity and a total involvement in their work when in this state of flow. We experience flow when work is challenging enough to provide a reward of problem solving--yet not too crazy difficult that it is frustrating. So, not too easy and not too hard, but a perfect Goldilocks rating of “just right.”

Shimon Edelman, a cognitive expert and professor of psychology at Cornell University, offers some insight in his book The Happiness of Pursuit: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About the Good Life. He explains it this way: “…

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