Agile in practice - adjusting your mindset

APM Scottish Branch ended March with a well attended informative seminar delivered by Andy Baldrian, focusing on Agile in practise.  The evening commenced with a review of the roles of the Scrum master and the Servant leader, leading onto the product owner and the team.   These interestingly title roles each have a unique roles to play in an agile project, from the servant leader driving the project to the product owner effectively being the CEO of the team, agile requires each team member to be 100% committed to the team.  A concept that many project managers may be unfamiliar with, no doubt used to dividing ourselves amongst several projects at once!
 
Agile is about responding to change and requires an environment that encourages openness.  Being open about the things that one does not know are vital for agile to succeed, following this route allows the problems to be solved rather than glanced over.  Agile effectively turns traditional project management on its head, not telling you how to do a project, but following a set of principles.  Agile projects are value driven and are about being able to change the process / way things are done.  Changing the way teams do things must be dealt with.  

Erin Clerihew
Scotland branch committee member