In this week’s pod, we welcomed Adrian Pyne to discuss what project agility really looks like.Adrian is above all a project professional. He has led or rescued Transformation programmes widely from Telcos to eCommerce, Finance. Mining, Aviation, and the public sector. He has designed, built and operated P3 (project, programme and portfolio management) capability, PMOs, and Professional Services businesses.His key skill is the adaptation of best practice successfully. In the last 10 years his consultancy has focussed on two areas. Firstly, what he and colleagues call Organisational Project Management – the creation of an organisation culture that enables projects to Thrive and not merely Survive, or even die. Secondly, on Agile Project Management which too many organisations get badly, and expensively, wrong.He has written Agile Beyond IT, a book on Agile Project Management, showing how it both can be used well beyond the realm of IT Agile software development projects.. Adrian says he will also show that Agile projects can have any life-cycle they need.Adrian remains a frequent speaker around APM and elsewhere, including internationally, and is a visiting lecturer at Nottingham and Southampton University Business Schools, He is also a regular blogger, and he says, is still learning.Adrian is semi-retired and lives with his partner in Dorset. The main topics we discussed on the podcast were as follows:

• Agile or Agility comes from the Agile Manifesto 2001 (4 values). It was always intended to be used for Software Development
• Great project professionals are agile!
• We “do” projects to deliver value. Agile is focused on the delivery of value
• In the late 90s / early 2000s saw a realization that people deliver projects. If they are not engaged and focused, the project is likely to fail
• There is no point implementing agile projects if the organizational culture is toxic
• A hybrid approach between Agile and Critical Path methodologies is often challenging. When you adapt agility to Project Management, it is adapted to everything including planning / scheduling. This needs to keep pace in order for it to work
• Scrum is a purely software development approach – it is NOT a project management approach
• Some of the major agile certifications are heavily focused towards IT projects. This needs to be broadened to make it more relevant
• Agile projects should aim to make an audit trail of the value within a project
• For every project change request – does it enhance the value?
• Organisations that do not adopt agility are more likely to be commercial risk

Here are links to a some of the topics we discussed:

• Agile Beyond IT: How to Develop Agility in Project Management in any Sector – Adrian Pyne https://www.amazon.co.uk/Agile-Beyond-develop-agility-management/dp/1788603273
• Manifesto for Agile Software Development – https://agilemanifesto.org/
• Jo Lucas – Activating the Mycelium – https://sustainabilitypractitioners.org/rpm-ego-to-eco-in-conversation-with-jo-lucas/
• Forbes: How to Succeed in a Project Economy – https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccazucker/2022/01/11/how-to-succeed-in-a-project-economy/?sh=668b222a28d9
• Agile Beyond IT Newsletter – https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/agile-beyond-it-6922580439241007104/

Tune in next time when we’re joined by Spencer Easton to talk about Takt production vs Takt time.For more information, blogs or to support our charities visit www.projectchatterpodcast.comIf you’d like to sponsor the podcast get in touch via our website.You can also leave us a voice message via our anchor page and let us know if there’s something or someone specific that you would like on the podcast.

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