Agile Coach Camp 2011 is arriving

The next 6th, 7th and 8th of May I will participate in Agile Coach Camp 2011 conference, that will take place in a lovely country resort near Perugia (Umbria).

The formula of that conference is a self-organized one, using the OpenSpace technique. That means that there will be no leaders, no followers but people who shares its experiences and know-how.

No matter if you are the most experienced, for sure you will solidify your knowledge and, why not, know something new from the others’ experiences.
Whether, on the contrary, you are the one with less experience, learn the most you can and try to participate sharing your experience.
As you can see the word ‘experience’ is recurring: that’s the central point of the entire conference.

Hence, once decided the agenda and shared among the participants during the first day, a set of tables, or slots, will be arranged and every one can join the one to which is interested.

There’s an interesting rule you must stick to “the law of two feet”:

“If at any time you find that you are neither learning nor contributing, use you two feet and move to some place more to you liking.”

You are the only responsible for the things you will bring with you at home from the conference.

So, choose a table and join the discussion, if you are not interested OR cannot give a contribution, leave that table and look for another one.

I’m sure that it will be a great occasion to know several people (not only italians) involved and interesting in agile and lean methodologies and to learn a lot of things!
That sounds very interesting, isn’t it?

Project management, the agile way seminar

Next wednsday I will be at the Bicocca University, keeping a seminar regarding the “project management and the agile way“.

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Project management is a mature discipline, established since several decades.

The first structured approaches in this sense, can be traced back to the years immediately following the end of the second world war. Today, it can count on a variety of organizations, standards, certifications and specific professional skills and figures. As well as techniques, methodologies and approaches become part of everyday life of those who manage projects.

As that way of thinking, understanding and applying the project management is actually still valid, is to be verified.

What we are experiencing is, in effect, a period characterized by a severe economic crisis that leads to continuous changes of the reference projects’ scenarios. Furhtermore, where the market asks and pushes for new and always better products, the globalization, through an increment of the competition, directs towards a normalization of the substantial costs of implementation.

Today, companies are required to review in a substantially way, strategies and plans to launch their products and services. They’re also heavily impacted by budget cuts, reduced market-time-windows and continuous changes in terms of functionalities and characteritics required.

This situation forces who leads projects, to the strong need to reduce risk, reduce costs, shorten lead times and at the same time, be sure to satisfy the client with what’s actually needed.

Thus, is necessary a depth reasoning about the actual effectivenes of old way of managing projects.
Here is the reason why it seems that the “agile way” to project management would be the best answer in nowadays context.

PMI Agile Certification News

Finally, it is official!

PMI yeterday pubblished the official information about the certification. The examination content online is available here. This document is a guide to the areas included on the examination.

The questions of the examination will be 120, of which 20 will be unscored pre-test items.

50% of the questions regard the topic “agile tools and techiques” and the other 50% “agile knowledge and skills”.

The “agile tools and techiques” topic is divided into ten areas:

• communications
• planning, monitoring and adapting
• agile estimation
• agile analysis and design
• product quality
• soft skills negotiation
• value-based prioritization
• risk management
• metrics
• value stream analysis

The remain 50% (agile knowledge and skills) is arranged into three different levels that group skills related to agile methodologfies: from the most important to the less important. Refer to the examination content online documentation for a futher detail.

And, the last but not the least, these are the official suggested books.

So?! What you are waiting for? Start studying!

Personal Alignment

Are you really focusing on your objectives? Do you know exactly what are they? Are your personal attitudes and strengths, completely aligned to reach those objectives?

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One of the most interesting book I read during these last two years, is “Coaching and Leadership” written by Deering, Dilts and Russel (http://www.alphaleaders.com/).

What I’ve found so fascinating in that book, regards some remarkable techniques that can be used to align yourself. Align in terms of better understanding which scope and objectives you want/would/should aim to and, finally, arranging a way to to effectively achieve them.

Sometimes, in fact, it happens that I found myself struggling for taking important business or prefessional decisions. In those case I use some suggestions coming from that book and some other taken from PM and PNL to find my own way.

This post limits the context to which those techniques can be applied, to the work environment, but whatever techniques can be used, obviously, for other environment as well.

Ready?! Let’s go!

Do you know exactly which are your strengths and weaknesses? Sure?

And again, do you know which opportunities may arise exploiting your strengths?

And to which threats you are exposed due to your weaknesses?

Well, if you need a technique that helps you arranging and organizing your ideas in that way, here there’s the most used: the SWOT! Yes,  a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats).

Start with the first quadrant top left: your strengths.

Answer the following questions:

• What do you do well?
• What unique resources can you draw on?
• What do others see as your strengths?

In short, your most valuable characteristics/attributes/attitudes!

To help you focus on that, think when in the past  you solved easily a particular situation or problem, where the others did not succeed.

Or, again, if there are things you are able to do without struggling as the others do. Often, in those situations, you find yourself surprised when the others tell you: “What? Already finished? How did you do so quickly?”

Ok, now it’s time to face your weaknesses. Do this with the utmost honesty you can.

Answer to the following questions:

• What could you improve?
• Where do you have fewer resources than others?
• What are others likely to see as weakness?

Think to the things that do not love, activities that make you spend a lot of time or resources than the others. What limits you, approaching to your job.

Well done, it’s time to wear the positive hat, the yellow one: do you remember De Bono and his six thinking hats technique? In this post I explained how to use that technique to identify risks in a project.

Now, list the opportunities that could arise if only you could steer toward the right direction, the explosive power of your strengths.

Answer to these questions:

• What good opportunities are open to you?
• What trends could you take advantage of?
• How can you turn your strengths into opportunities?

Try to report things that are specific, concrete, measurable, obviously achievable in a time frame significantly limited. You must set SMART objectives.

Oh, you don’t know what the acronym SMART stands for. Well, take a look to what says my friend Wikipedia.

Ok, now we are near to the end, only the last quadrant is missing: threats.

Answer to these questions:

• What trends could harm you?
• What is your competition doing more/better than you?
• What threats do your weaknesses expose you to?

Look at your weaknesses, how bad they are? Are they really so limiting? Do really they could have a huge impact on your objectives? If they don’t, ignore them.

If yes, instead, you should work on them or, at least, to the those that are the most negatively impactful,

Attention, think seriously and honestly to the things above but remember, you must focus mainly on your strengths. Do you know any champion that daily tries to address his weaknesses instead to improve his best qualities and capabilities?

Are you really interested in perk up your weaknesses?

It is not a matter of being a professional that is quite good doing everything, it’s a matter of being a passionate professional perfectly able to do the things s/he loves most!

Talent joins attitudes, habits, mental schemes, thoughts, past experiences.

A unique way to be for everyone of us. Find your talent, be committed to it and persevere. The rest is a matter of training! Be patient and faithful.

This is the first post of a small series, in the next we will discuss about some other techniques that help to define which objectives we want to achieve, in which time frame and how we can remove any impediments.

This sounds familiar to me, isn’t it?