A Scenario for an Agile Project Manager

1. The Scenario
for Agile Project Manager
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Dr Sami Zahran
2017
sami_zahran@Hotmail.com
Dr Sami Zahran, 2017, sami_zahran@Hotmail.com

2. The Scenario
 You are a newly appointed project manager
 Have been asked to run an agile project
 working with a third party Fintech to deploy a new
workflow capability to an operational team.
Consider each of the following statements and note down
what you believe (based on experience and training) are the
three most important considerations related to each of
these statements. You will be asked to give your rationale
for the three you have chosen
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Dr Sami Zahran, 2017, sami_zahran@Hotmail.com

3. Three most important considerations:
I. Ice breaking (Let us know each other) : Every team member to introduce
themselves: Role and experience
 Rationale: To help make the group individuals into a cohesive Team (make them
aware of Tuckman’s model of performing teams (Forming, Storming, Norming,
Performing) and that Agile needs self-organising teams. Summarise the Team Rules
(Honesty. Openness, Every one has a say, Visibility)
II. Introduce the project (What is this all about?) : Go through the business vision of
the project. Summarise what the project is about and highlight its value to the company
 Rationale: To get the team to have a common understanding of the scope and
objectives of the project. In Scrum, the primary focus is on delivering products that
satisfy customer requirements in small iterative shippable increments).
III. Introduce Agile principles (Why Agile) : Highlight the main principles of Agile
(collaboration, self organisation, Transparency) and contrast it with the waterfall.
 Rationale: To illustrate how the agile is the most suitable approach for this project
and how it will deliver value to the business quickly and incrementally.
1) Meeting the project team for the first time – a mix of
business SME's, internal and external developers
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Dr Sami Zahran, 2017, sami_zahran@Hotmail.com

4. Three most important considerations:
I. Sprint planning meeting (Collaborative effort) A time-boxed (e.g. 8 hrs for a 1
month Sprint). The Sprint planning is a collaborative work of the entire SCRUM team
to define: What can be delivered in the Increment resulting from the Sprint & How
the work will be achieved. The team and product owner identify the user stories that
the team can completed in every sprint.
 Rationale: To get the development teams to focus on the highest value user
requirements.
II. Building the Sprint backlog (Sprints and their priorities) The Spring Backlog is the
set of Product Backlog items selected for the Sprint plus a plan for delivering the
product Increment realising the Sprint goal It defines the Sprints and their priorities in
coordination with the product owner.
 Rationale: To gain the teams commitment to a prioritised Sprints backlog
III. Monitoring the Sprint progress (Continuous Team visibility of the Spring progress)
The Spring plan’s progress to be reviewed in the Daily Scrum
 Rationale: To enable the Sprint development team to assess the progress in the
Daily Scrum and update the Sprint Backlog as necessary and identify any blocking
factors.
2) Planning Sprints
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Dr Sami Zahran, 2017, sami_zahran@Hotmail.com

5. Three most important considerations:
I. Identify and quality stakeholders (Stakeholder management in important) Run a
Stakeholder Identification workshop with the product owner and the team. Create a
Stakeholder register with the priority and information needs for every stakeholder.
Develop a communication plan to reflect the level of stakeholders engagement in the
project.
 Rationale: Actively engaging stakeholders is critical for the acceptance of the
project deliverables and achieving the value expected from the project.
II. Regular Communication (Keep them informed) : As agreed and specified in the
stakeholders management strategy and communication plan keep them engaged
through Visible progress report (Information Radiators, visible charts or RAG reports)
 Rationale: To ensure Stakeholders continuous support to the project
III. Report the progress regularly: (bur- down charts) graphically in Burn-Down
charts. Report the results of the daily Scum (progress and/or impediments)
 Rationale: To ensure their visibility of the project progress and any blocking
factors (Impediments). This will ensure their knowledge and awareness of what is
and in not delivered.
3) Communicating to Senior Stakeholders
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Dr Sami Zahran, 2017, sami_zahran@Hotmail.com

6. Three most important considerations:
I. Driven by Vision: (All projects to be based on the business vision) The project
should based on business case to implement the business strategy and realise target
ROI
 Rationale: To ensure that the solution complies with the overall business
strategy and architecture
II. Incremental Solution design: (Incremental delivery of Value) In Agile Designs,
the overall system design will emerge over time, evolving to fulfil new
requirements and take advantage of new technologies. are emergent, they are
not designed upfront. The solution design should be based around features and
groups of features defined in User Stories, and should support incremental
releases based on Value-based prioritisation.
 Rationale: To ensure that the user requirements are fulfilled by the design and the
final deliverables. The solution should enable the incremental release approach of
the deliverables, and that the user will get value of each increment
III. Value-based Prioritisation delivery of Increments: (Prioritised delivery) The
solution should support incremental delivery of high value products first according to
value-based prioritisation.
 Rationale: To deliver value to the users quickly and incrementally.
4) Solution Design
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Dr Sami Zahran, 2017, sami_zahran@Hotmail.com

7. Three most important considerations:
I. User Acceptance of the SPRINT deliverable/increment: To ensure that users have
accepted the increment and the UAT has been done successfully. Ensure that the
deliverables meet the User Story acceptance criteria and are accepted by the
Product Owner. Ensure that all the deliverables have the status “Done”.
 Rationale: To ensure that users & Product Owner have accepted the Increment based
on the acceptance criteria defined.
II. Protecting the Integrity of the Operational environment: Assessing the Impact of
the Increment on the Operational environment ( e.g. security impact). This is to
ensure that the Increment will not have unwanted impact on the operational
infrastructure
 Rationale: Increments roll-out into operation should be subject to stringent change
control and operational acceptance and that management approval has been granted.
(e.g. through a formal change board GO/NOGO decision).
III. Readiness of Users, Support and Operational staff: Ensure all the supporting
documentation and structure have been prepared and accepted by the product
Owner, users, product support team and the operational teams.
 Rationale: To ensure that the Users and the organisation will start benefiting from
the value provided by the increment (value-driven delivery)
5) Implementation into the operational team
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Dr Sami Zahran, 2017, sami_zahran@Hotmail.com

8. Three most important considerations:
I. Early identification of Issues: Develop a systematic approach for early identification
and fast response to important issues and events which could impact the SPRNT or the
project. Observe the team member for any symptoms of conflict. Work-out the
severity of the issue and the level of management required to make a decision on the
issue.
 Rationale: Early detection of issues will prevent the issues developing into a problem
affecting the conduct and flow of SPRINTs or the Project .
II. Try to resolve the Issue informally: Depending on the severity of the issue, try to
resolve the issue informally. Have a face-to-face meeting with the team member(s)
source of the issue and get the details of the issues and negotiate a resolution in
(win-win)
 Rationale: For non-serious issues that can be resolved informally, a face-to-face
meeting could come with a win-win resolution.
II. For serious issues: Depending on the severity level of the issue, identify the
appropriate management level that you need to escalate to. Prepare an Issue Report
containing a description, impact assessment and recommendation for management.
 Rationale: For serious issues, refer to the company procedures to assist in resolving
the issue.
6) Managing Issues
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Dr Sami Zahran, 2017, sami_zahran@Hotmail.com

9. Comments and
Discussions
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Dr Sami Zahran, 2017, sami_zahran@Hotmail.com