Agility and Values-Based Leadership (Part 4): Commitment

Andrew Burns, PMP, PMI-ACP is a Chief ScrumMaster in Edgewood, Kentucky.

  Agile   Estimating   Leadership   Scrum  

This fourth installment of articles scrutinizing agile frameworks based on values, principles and practices focuses on commitment (following the entries on courage, focus and openness). A stated value of the Scrum framework, commitment is everything in agile. Agile focuses on the people who will do the work encouraging them to estimate, to plan and to commit to delivery. The role of the project manager evolves here. Instead of driving process to completion, the agelist measures delivered business value. Business value is the only indicator of progress and success; the team manages intermediate steps independently.

Yet the project manager remains accountable for organizing the process as a true servant leader, ScrumMaster, player coach or by any other agile moniker. Role names vary depending on the core agile framework chosen, but facilitating to improve practices remains a constant duty. In all frameworks, practices proliferate intentionally and constantly subject to ongoing selection and re-selection. Select practices based on sound scientific principles. Above all, remember that regardless of practice and principle, the people performing the work must invest in and see value in the outcome.

Agile project managers don’t presume commitment from their teams. Commitment is part of the process. Ceremonies mark the moments of commitment that become more and more …

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