Ingenuity and Tenacity at the Core of Agile

Michael Aucoin, D. Engr., PE, PMP is president of Leading Edge Management, LLC in College Station, Texas and author of Right-Brain Project Management: A Complementary Approach. He can be reached at [email protected].

  Agile  

A number of years ago, I struggled to understand a disconnect in project management. Time and again while speaking with PMs at conferences (and while delivering training), I heard common complaints of missed deadlines, blown budgets, inadequate resources and whiny stakeholders. I read the surveys and statistics about the stunning failures of projects to meet their objectives.

At the same time, I could see that some projects were wildly successful, even accomplishing nearly impossible feats. As a curious twist, many of these same projects were organized and executed by individuals with absolutely no education or training in project management. Some of these projects were so aggressive and agile that Doug DeCarlo would readily call them “eXtreme” projects.

In fact, I could look around and see a world full of projects being delivered by millions (even billions) of people just going about their daily business, all blissfully unaware of terms like earned value, PMBOK and Monte Carlo analysis. Imagine the audacity--rank amateurs beating the PM pros at their own game, and then some! How in the world can they do it?

I came to learn that they are all doing what comes naturally. More to the point, they exhibit two natural traits that separate those that conquer agile environments from those who muddle along to mediocrity. Think of these traits as your “IT…

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