Agile Teams – 8 Types of Workers Needed for Best Productivity

Agile team members are often found to be highly skilled knowledge workers with very strong values of independence.  Many software developers are introverted, preferring to interact with their computers rather than people. But are they a “high performing” team yet?

Self managing teams often fail because their members lack the needed people skills to work together, collaborate, and appreciate each other’s skills as well as differences in order to achieve high performing results.

My Bachelors & Masters degrees in Marketing, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering spent no time to speak of on people skills and certainly nothing on how to participate and contribute to high-performing teams.  These skills were learned on the job and in real world experience.

Do you find yourself in a similar situation?

Then your next step is to learn how teams work and find out the nature of how your own teams are working today so you can improve the situation.

There are 8 “Types of Work”

There are eight distinct ‘Types of Work” that Team Management Systems (TMS) has described on a work wheel.  All teams must have these 8 work types covered on each teams, and they should be done well for the highest-performance possible.

Did you know people show distinct ‘work preferences’ for two or three of these activities depicted on the TMS wheel.

This concept is invaluable when working in the area of Project Management – especially Agile Teams that are self-organizing & managing.

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WEBINAR – Selecting & Managing the Best Lifecycle for your Project, Team & Solution

You’ve managed projects but they’re never easy.

They don’t fit into the nice definitions found in project management books. Your schedules are generally off. There are always unkind surprises. Although you’re not failing, you feel you could be more successful.  You have many possibilities to make your project rock and roll.

Take a more pragmatic approach to choosing and using the best lifecycle for your project…

You can use an iterative lifecycle to explore prototypes — You can use an incremental lifecycle to start checking features off as done — You can use an agile lifecycle that allows for more adaptability — You can use a combination lifecycles.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

  • LIFECYCLES – what each looks like
  • which RISKS each lifecycle addresses
  • HOW TO COMBINE lifecycles for the best way to start managing risk

View the Webinar Recording [click here]


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WEBINAR – Selling Agile to Management, the Business & your Team

Trying to get BUY-IN from your Organization about using Agile?

Learn how to deal with the common objections about using Agile.    They will make you chuckle as well.

Objections like:

  • If waterfall works – why not keep doing it?
  • Agile doesn’t allow for long-term planning
  • Business wants “fixed priced” contracts
  • My team is not co-located
  • How do I work with non-Agile parts in the organization?
  • and more….

Click Here to view recording.

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BOOK: The Software Requirements (Memory Jogger)

A handy guide by Ellen Gottesdiener.   This inch-thick “pocket book” is easy to carry around and browse through when a busy requirements analyst has a few minutes to spare.

Ellen addresses all aspects of the requirements engineering process:

  • elicitation,
  • analysis,
  • specification,
  • validation, and
  • management.

Each chapter contains a wealth of practical techniques that can help any software team improve how it deals with requirements.  She describes a plethora of requirements “models,” ways to represent different types of requirements-related information.

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AskAboutProjects.com – Ask your PM Questions

Do you have QUESTIONS about Project Management you want answered?

AskAboutProjects.com is a great place to ask questions & get answers directly from other PM’s !   All project management question are welcome  —  No question is turned awaya as too trivial or too “newbie”.

I found it to be a great tool for all levels of Project Managers.  And a great place to:

  • exchange knowledge,
  • gain awareness,
  • and for more experienced PM’s to share their skills and experience – be a mentor !

askaboutprojects_screenshot

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WEBINAR – Becoming Agile for Project Managers

webinars4Scroll down to Listen to Webinar Recording…


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Click book to purchas

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Learn WHEN, WHERE & HOW project managers can leverage and actually use Agile techniques to deal with…

  • compressed schedules,
  • changing requirements,
  • risk,
  • and much more…

…in order to deliver what the customer actually needs !

PDU’s: 1

COST: Free………….

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WEBINAR – Becoming Agile Introduction

Listen to the entire webinar recording <click here>

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(click book to purchase)

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Learn how more traditional PMBOK and Waterfall organizations are becoming agile.

…and listen to great Q&A sessions with the audience on topics, such as

  • Is Agile only for software projects?
  • How and Where to identify areas to leverage Agile
  • How do you move to Agile?
  • How does Agile affect the traditional Project Manager role?
  • and more…

SPEAKER: Greg Smith is a Senior Project Manager, ScrumMaster, and Agile coach with ten years of experience leading project teams to a more agile process. Greg has received numerous awards for his work in helping start-ups establish good software practices, and for helping enterprises overcome bureaucracy and deliver urgent projects. Greg is also a co-author of the top rated agile adoption book, Becoming Agile in an Imperfect World.

PDU:  1.5……..*** PDU information is provided in the video **

COST: Free


BOOK: Get FREE chapters from “Succeeding with Agile” by Mike Cohn

book-succeedingwagile
Mike Cohn’s NEW book hit the streets Nov 7, 2009.

“Succeeding with Agile” shows both how to get started and then how to get good at Scrum. The author illuminates all teaching points with helpful tips, advice on overcoming common objections, exercises to try, and anecdotes drawn from over a decade of experience helping companies succeed with Scrum. The result is a book that will be reached for and referenced again and again by all stakeholders in an agile organization.

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BOOK: Making Things Happen (update to “Art of Project Management”)

makethingshappen1Project Management is NOT boring !!!  Is it?

Did you ever want to know the secrets to Strategies for defining, leading, and managing projects.  Berkun explains what it takes to lead critical projects from start to finish.

O’Reilly’s review mentions…this book “offers a lively, inspiring, and practical approach to managing projects that draws on Berkun’s own lessons learned in more than a decade of work in the industry.”

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WEBINAR – Becoming Agile for Project Managers

Sorry you missed our Webinar with Greg Smith on 12/2

becoming_agile_book

Click book to purchase

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To listen to the recording:….. click here

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