No longer is agile a purely software development methodology reserved for techies – organizational leaders across all industries are looking to adopt Agile methodologies, or at least some form of agility in their own field.

I’ve asked project managers how to illustrate the concept of Agile in a simple engaging way that every kid can understand. Here’s my collection of answers.

1

If you take the purest meaning of agile, which is how I always explain it to my children, agile is about being able to move quickly and easily. — Belkis Vasquez-McCall, USA

2

You remember when we were at a zoo? The organization is like a big zoo, but a human one. There are many different kinds of people with different kinds of food to eat — interests. Agile is something to connect them better, to let them eat together and share their food with each other. Only then the organization can change as quick as a leopard and adapt like a chameleon. If they don’t, the lion will come and eat them. And we don’t want this, so it’s better to learn agile. — Aleš Štempihar, Slovenia

3

Agile Project Management is when you have a boring and complicated school task that you transform into an exciting game with your friends. All of you contribute to the game, using your skills and interests, and the task gets done. — Yulia Tchernaya, Denmark

Agile can take on many meanings as you continue along your agile journey. Complacency can set in, which is dangerous because it can truly make agile feel almost the opposite of how it should be. Instead of enabling us to move quickly and easily, sometimes we get so bogged down with processes and documentation that we seem to do more moving by standing still and talking about moving than actually getting the job done.

4

Like building something from LEGO and whatever you decide to make any time, you will always have all the pieces you need and always have the correct instructions. — Barry Curry, Ireland

While you’re here, would you like to check out the results of our Project Manager Book Survey 2018?

5

Son, you know when dad arrives from work, very hungry? Agile is like when we keep bringing him tapas rather than keeping him waiting for an elaborate main dish. — Marisa Silva, United Kingdom

Agile has several different flavors, but in most cases agile means you get started on something before you’re completely ready to get started. You then have a time box — say, two weeks — during which you are expected to deliver. At the end of that time box, you show what you did, and then you get input from others on whether or not to move forward. Over the next two weeks, you repeat that process and move progressively forward until you’ve achieved your goal.

6

Son, when grandpa and grandma married, a long time ago, times were tough and they didn’t have much money to build a big house (like Auntie Rose has). This was October and winter was coming so they had to build something very quick at first – here, have a look at this picture. Yeah, it was a very small house, just with the basic but grandpa ensured that the foundations and the roof were solid enough to survive winter. Then summer came and grandpa started adding to it — first, the living room, then he also extended the kitchen because grandma needed more space to cook. And for the next two years he was incrementally improving their house: here’s another picture, when he added the porch and the garden in the back. Grandpa did it all by himself (with the help of uncle Tom sometimes) and grandma was really happy with what they built. And that, son, is what Agile is about too! — Marisa Silva, United Kingdom

7

When my nearly two-year-old frames a question ever so thoughtfully by starting with “Daddy… I want to….”, however that ends, the next question is “Great. What’s the fastest and easiest way to do that?” Now you’re agile, kiddo. — Pete Adams, Australia

8

When you’re trying to build a prototype of the Eiffel Tower, just using your LEGO parts, that’s called the AGILE Version of Building a REAL one. — Afshin Montazami, Iran

All roads lead to Agile, but some project managers even try to explain backlog prioritizing to kids.

9

Backlog prioritizing is like sorting your LEGO. You put your favorite pieces into one box, so it is easy to reach them, and the other, less important ones, into the box that goes on the top shelf. A backlog is like all the homework you need to do. — Yulia Tchernaya, Denmark

But sometimes project managers have a hard time when a kid asks who’s a stakeholder. Then classmates, teachers, and principals automatically become stakeholders.

10

Treating and building good relationships with teachers, peers, and your principal is the same as building healthy relationships with clients or vendors, which in turn is a crucial aspect of Project Management. — Mayur Sonawane, India

11

Agile is what you do when the ice-cream shop you went to turned out to be closed. If you’re not agile, you go home because your plan was foiled. If you’re agile, you figure out something equally fun to do. — Allen Holub, United States

12

You know when mommy says NO and you go ask dad? That’s Agile. — Perry Watkins, United States

13

I want you to get dressed in the morning. You can do that yourself. These are the things we plan to do this week so you must pick your clothes accordingly. They need to be fit for purpose. You can’t go to school in your swimming costume, for example. Even though we have planned what we are going to wear, we have to expect that things may change. If it is raining you will need a raincoat. If it is hot, you probably won’t want a coat at all. Being able to change your mind on what you choose to wear is O.K. as long as you always wear what is fit for purpose and you always leave the house on time. You may make a mistake. You may not take a coat when you need one. We learn from mistakes so we don’t repeat them. — Kerry Burns, United Kingdom

14

I would describe a backlog as a washing basket. They add the clothes and when it’s time, you pull the clothes out of the basket that can go into the wash (the sprint) together. — Kerry Burns, United Kingdom

15

Well — we might make a mistake, so we work in small steps and ask ‘is this right?’ at each step. That way if we get something wrong, or have to change something, it’s not a disaster. — Guy Maslen, New Zealand

16

I would use examples from everyday life to explain these terms. I think kids (even adults!) learn more from concrete examples that they can learn from books. For example, set up a Kanban board on the fridge for household chores and work through it for a few weeks. The kids would begin by helping their parents create the Product Backlog, then volunteering to do certain chores (listed on the backlog) the next week. — Kirk Bryde, Canada

17

I’d say (very tongue in cheek) that a good parent has a child that says DOD before daddy. I used to scrum my little one’s bath time routines. Whiteboard and all. But had to stop when I was challenged on the DOR being my job to have bubble bath already in the water. — Garin Reyneke, South Africa

18

Mhm. I don’t do Jargon with the kids. My daughter composes music. Every couple of days, she plays a new or modified piece to me and asks how I like it. Sometimes, the feedback is along the lines of, “A bit too exciting”, but usually like, “I wish it was longer”  or, “Very enjoyable.” When I like it, she introduces the piece to her peers. — Michael Küsters, Germany

19

Depending on their age, I’d probably talk about planning a weekend, to get the best out of it. A list of things they want to do. A list of things they ought to do even if they don’t want. Prioritize and rough the schedule. During the weekend I’d ask them what happens if a friend calls with a good idea. Rearrange to fit it in? What happens if a friend / the weather cancels something that was planned? Rearrange. I’d encourage them to have a look back on Sunday evening. Was it a better weekend than usual? What do we want to keep? Want do we want to do better? — Paul Oldfield, United Kingdom

20

Agile is when groups of people believe that we can consistently break down work into smaller, simpler chunks and build something that is valuable to other people. As we keep doing this, we always see if there are ways we can do better, and make things more valuable. Imagine you and four friends started building the LEGO Voltron set. We’d break it down by having each of you work on one of the 5 lions. As each of you completed each step, you’d check your work, or have someone else check it, to make sure it was right. After you completed all the little steps, you’d each have built a single lion, which is valuable already. However, when you all come together and combine the lions, you’ve now formed Voltron, a giant robot who defends the universe from evil! Had you started by building one lion, then the next one, and so on until all 5 were done, it would have taken you much longer to form Voltron, and the universe would not have been protected. — Marc Morell, United States

21

Agile is what you do at your (Montessori) school, where the motto is: “Help me do it myself.” Many people haven’t been at such schools, therefore they still have to learn how to do things themselves, and then they need a word for that. Don’t worry about that word. You are already doing it. — Niels Malotaux, Germany

22

It’s like a group science/ social studies project assignment at school where you brainstorm, plan, assign or take up the work deciding who will do what, build, test in case if it’s a science project, finally submit your work with the presentations. And just like your grades, cumulative of data/fact, display, presentation, and how happy everyone felt looking at your project, etc. all this is done by teamwork. Or playing candy crush with your friends having to finish a level with at least one star (which is horrible) before moving to the next level. — Aneeta Gupta, United States

What is agile? It all depends on who you ask. Let’s enrich this collection of thoughts. Leave your ideas in the comment section below and don’t forget to subscribe to be the first to get project management insights of an even higher caliber.

Illustration: Copyright © Zhenya Oliinyk

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Last year’s Global Leadership Forecast 2018 performed by Ernst & Young has shown that only 14 percent of CEOs have the leadership talent to execute their strategy. According to the researchers, the toughest nut to crack for business owners, in spite of 50 billion annual investments, is to develop “the bench leadership strength” to meet future business goals. Leaders have to learn to redefine competencies.

We either know the formula or we fail. Task delegation, executed efficiently, is a path to a successful work process and a way to offload many of your tasks to be able to do the strategic work.

Project management communities tend to be a goldmine for new methods, techniques, and lessons. I’ve asked PM experts to share their opinions on the subject of task delegation and they came up with up-to-date formulas and methods that will likely help leaders learn to let go of their work in a less painful, but professional way. The approach you’ve chosen to delegate the tasks to your subordinates will influence the relationships between you and your co-workers and create a balance at the workplace.

Creating a Healthy Delegation Environment

Task delegation is the first step to getting work done. As a leader, you need to delegate your power and authority. The question is how to do it in a less painful way. Kiron Bondale, trainer, coach, trusted advisor and speaker in the project management domain, reveals three contributing factors to delegation from his experience.

Successful delegation has three prerequisites — a willingness on the part of the delegator to truly delegate the activity and to do so without micromanaging, the ability on the part of the delegatee to do the work and the wisdom to know when they need to circle back with the delegator, and organizational culture to support efficient and effective delegation.

Many project managers support this opinion. Chris Dees, an experienced IT Engineer and Project Manager agrees that delegation is not delegation if you hover and you will not build your team up with micromanagement. According to Dees,

If you must, you can use iterative activities and tasks to prepare an inexperienced, but worthy subordinate, for heavier responsibilities. Have them shadow you on an activity and then work together on it until you think they are ready for it to become their responsibility, but don’t drag it out. Quality people can do some of their best work when they are trained briefly and “thrown to the wolves” with you or another expert as an advisory “lifeline.” No one experiences real professional development until they are forced to stand on their own two feet.

Structuring Task Delegation Process

The most practical and easy-to-use formula in task delegation is a 20/70/10 rule. Jorge Gamas Ortiz, an executive-level Project Manager and Functional Manager with 11 years of Information Technology (IT) and business management experience, considers this method to be the most effective. According to Ortiz,

Once you have a task defined, spend 20% of the task time with the delegate explaining and defining what to do and what are the expected deliverables. Let the delegate to do the job by themselves the 70% of the expected task duration, and finally the 10% remaining use it to review results, provide feedback and answer questions. You can adapt it according to the delegate experience/knowledge.

Structuring the delegation process this way, you dedicate a sufficient amount of time to prepare an employee to perform the task. These tactics will help the worker understand that you approach task delegation in a disciplined and systematic way, where specific time slots are purpose-built and that you will not stand over their shoulders.

The formula will likely work well in combination with tasks that are more predictable and less volatile, in finance, tech, and manufacturing environments. Ricardo Bethencourt, Electrical Engineer and Project Manager with 28+ year of experience admits that as a leader, project manager has to build the trust, provide the direction, and give the feedback needed to keep the machine well oiled. The above formula is the first step to reach this goal.

Read more: Tools to Effectively Manage the Task Delegation Process

To ensure that the work process doesn’t knock your people off balance, Tony Markatos suggests logically breaking the product down into smallish “chunks” that are loosely coupled and highly cohesive. Without such a logical partitioning, in Markato’s words, the tasks have a tendency to soon get out of balance.

Overcoming the Challenges to Effective Delegation

Participating in such a highly cooperative process, like delegation, is always challenging. Sarah Hoban, a leading opinion maker, strategist, and project management blogger admits that it is important to resist the urge to problem solve on behalf of your team.

If the person to whom you’ve delegated returns to you too often with questions or issues that are within their power to answer, you need to make it clear to them that they are fully capable of answering these questions themselves. Some techniques might involve using the Socratic method (answering a question with a question), leaving the decision up to them, or asking for their recommended solution and why. As a last resort, make yourself temporarily unavailable for questions, so the team has no choice but to forge ahead without you.

Corey Freedman, a collaborative Program and Project Manager is convinced that trust and verification is an accepted approach that makes task delegation less painful. As a PM, Corey needs to trust that his subordinates know how what, and when the task is to be done and done well. Corey believes that the verification is just as important: “PMs must be sure that processes are in place to validate the work is done well and a team member must be comfortable with that process. Sometimes, the process is a peer review, sometimes it is a QA resource, sometimes it is something that I was a PM review.”

Leaders who have learned how to create healthy delegation environments, structure the delegation process, and, eventually, let go of work, can concentrate on their goals without spending too much time in the operational wheel. Are you still running around?

Illustration: Copyright © Oksana Drachkovska

The post Project Managers Reveal Tricks That Make Delegation Successful appeared first on PM Column.

Canada

Susan McIsaac, PMP, ITIL, Board Director at PMI Toronto

Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown

Kiron Bondale, Senior Project Management Consultant at World Class Productivity Inc.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink

Daryl Uhrin, Project Manager at Standard Machine

Under One Roof by Barry Martin and Philip Lerman

United States

Barbara Chatzkel, President at New River Group, LLC

New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World–And How to Make It Work for You by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms.

The age of unprecedented connectivity is an age of new power. Not only does the book explain the “what” is happening, it also provides valuable “how” explanations of how to use the new power today. A good read.

Gregory Christensen, Project Director at GlaxoSmithKline

Assholes: A Theory by Aaron James

Markham Beverly, Project Coordinator at PwC

Developing the Leader Within You 2.0 by John C. Maxwell

Jenell White, Senior Project Manager at Fiserv, Inc.

Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant and Sheryl Sandberg

In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs by Grace Bonney

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

I mentioned the last book not because it’s about business, but about life and time. Often as project managers it is imperative for ourselves and our teams to remember that there is more to life than work and to remind our teams to truly disconnect and/or appreciate the small things/ accomplishments.

Brenda Peschel, Project Manager at State Farm

Tribal Unity: Getting from Teams to Tribes by Creating a One Team Culture by Em Campbell-Pretty

Paridhi Singh, IT Project Manager at Freedom Mortgage

The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle

Valorie Anderson, CV Section Head Manager and Data Manager at BAE Systems

Sachin Shah, Strategic Planning Coordinator at FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

I’ve been thinking a lot about the actual small changes my project asks people to make – open the new application instead of the old one — and the big changes. I’ve began identifying behavioral requirements that functional and technical requirements have to support.

Bob Tarne, Agile Coach and Public Speaker

Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy by Amy C. Edmondson

The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Maribel Canino, Experienced IT Professional and former Project Manager

Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland

Suzanne Dunn, Project Manager at Suzanne Dunn Consulting

The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves by The Arbinger Institute

The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict by The Arbinger Institute

Fred Massabki, Managing Engineer at Anchor QEA

The New Alpha: Join the Rising Movement of Influencers and Changemakers Who are Redefining Leadership by Danielle Harlan

The Art of Persuasion: How to Influence People and Get What You Want by Juliet Erickson

Stefania Forner, Project Manager for the UCI Alzheimer Disease Modeling Project

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Mexico

Eric Adrián Ramírez Corona, Project Manager and Facilitator for Innovation at Autónomo, Mexico

The High-Impact PMO: How Agile Project Management Offices Deliver Value in a Complex World by Philippe Husser

Straight-Line Leadership: Tools for Living with Velocity and Power in Turbulent Times by Dusan Djukich

Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t by Verne Harnish

David Levine, Project Manager at Sunpower

Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio

Tim Jerome, Project Management, Advisor, Consultant

The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company Hardcover by Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, James Noel

The book gives one a great framework for leadership development, that goes beyond just ‘here’s what a leader does.’

Guatemala

Rodrigo Baccaro, Executive Coach and Team Coach

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

It is a fairly complete story about the origin of homo sapiens to this day. It is a book with excellent common sense, a lot of depth in historical details and a clarity that allows us to understand the why of our days.

Brazilia

Paulo de Tarso Bittencourt Cunha, Project Manager at Mais2X

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

Jamaica

Oldane Graham, Project Management Consultant

The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim

United Kingdom

Toby Quirk, Project Manager at Taylor Wimpey

The Obstacle is the Way: The Ancient Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage by Ryan Holiday

The reason I have enjoyed this book so much is that we, as project managers, face new and difficult obstacles on an almost daily basis and this book provides real tips and strategies to allow the reader to see the advantage in every unforeseen situation that occurs and particularly those that seem problematic.

Reece Bowman, Programme Lead at Capita

The Silent Deep: The Royal Navy Submarine Service Since 1945 by James Jinks and Peter Hennessy

The sections on the coordination and programme management required to develop and put to sea our nuclear deterrent in the 1960s are particularly relevant. Close military and industrial collaboration with the United States against the strategic backdrop of an escalating cold war with the Soviet Union. Political controversy with the Labour Party stance on the deterrent – it’s probably one of the biggest, most significant and difficult programmes we’ve delivered as a nation.

Sue Slater, Change Management and Local Government Consultant

Agile Change Management: A Practical Framework for Successful Change Planning and Implementation by Melanie Franklin

Germany

Daniela Villarroel, Project Engineer at 3M

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About The World by Hans Rosling

Ukraine

Nataliya Hromova, Project Manager at HYS Enterprise

The Art of Systems Thinking by Joseph O’Connor and Ian McDermott — to improve your problem-solving skills.

Management 3.0 Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders by Jurgen Appelo — about healthy, sensible and down-to-earth management.

Peopleware. Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister — if you think “people first” as it really is.

Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision Making by Sam Kaner — how to lead the groups to the best decisions.

Romania

Adrian Zamfirescu, Administrative Manager at Tiriac Auto

NLP at Work: The Essence of Excellence by Sue Knight

Paid to Think: A Leader’s Toolkit for Redefining Your Future by David Goldsmith

The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action by Jeffrey Pfeffer & Robert Sutton

Russia

Anton Tsvetkov, VP of Project Management in Financial Technology Industry

Never Split the Difference by Christopher Voss and Tahl Raz

The book explains great and very applicable principles or tools used by professional hostage negotiators supplied with real life examples.

Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni

An easy reading yet highlighting some fundamental team-building principles.

Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by Chris Fussell, David Silverman, Stanley A. McChrystal, and Tantum Collins

The book respects existing challenges of large organizations and provides a view of how it all should work together.

India

Anil Sharma, Project Manager at BT Telecommunications

The Power of Project Leadership by Susanne Madsen

It’s an end-to-end practical guide shared from 20 years of experience. The book is exhaustive in every practical sense from People, Programme, and Project Management to successful Delivery perspective.

Vishwas Mahajan, Founder of the Enterprise Project Management Suite at Whizible

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling

As Project Managers there are so many biases we can steer clear of and these books open our perspectives.

Prabhat Pant, Associate Director at PwC India

Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities by Adam Kahane

Indonesia

Steve Robson, VP of Project Management at TRIPATRA

Working with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

Iran

Vahid Farahdoust, Project Manager at Dana Energy

The CEO Difference: How to Climb, Crawl, and Leap Your Way to the Next Level of Your Career by Debra A. Benton

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Payam Ghanavati, Technical Manager at Aria Civil

Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t by Simon Sinek.

Pakistan

Khadija Saeed, Senior Project Manager at Zameen.com

The Startup Way: How Modern Companies Use Entrepreneurial Management to Transform Culture and Drive Long-Term Growth by Eric Ries

This book will help you inculcate entrepreneurial management skills in project management for transforming culture and driving growth in an organization.

Nigeria

Emmanuel Iziomoh, Programme Officer at Riplington Education Initiative

Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle by Dan Senor and Saul Singer

It postulates unconventional approaches to solving real problems, a skill every Project Manager should possess. One of the most important thing of this book is the power of imagination, it is absolutely free. Most of the time, as Project Managers, we don’t need to see to believe. All we have to do is to imagine it and believe.

South Africa

Doug Kirchmann, Project Management Consultant at ProjectLink

Social Media for Project Managers by Elizabeth Harrin

The Power of Time Perception: Control the Speed of Time to Slow Down Aging, Live a Long Life, and Make Every Second Count by Jean Paul Zogby

How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business by Douglas W. Hubbard.

Australia

Pete Adams, Senior Project Manager at Innodev Pty Ltd

The Founder’s Mentality by Chris Zook

The value for me was finding the ‘sweet spot’ of just enough governance to get the job done without losing the company’s agile edge. It also stresses the importance of maintaining a founder’s vision throughout the project life cycle. A great book for any expanding business, particularly in the consulting realm.

Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers by Geoffrey A. Moore

I have a strong interest in innovation (blockchain in particular), so it’s been a valuable resource in terms of the challenges of bringing change to the masses; a vital aspect of delivering successful projects.

Brett Seriani, Senior Project Manager at CommTel Network Solutions

The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less by Richard Koch

Deeksha Rastogi, PMO Manager

Project Management Metrics, KPIs, and Dashboards: A Guide to Measuring and Monitoring Project Performance by Harold Kerzner

New Zealand

Shane Riley, Capital Project Manager at Dairy Goat Co-operative

The Conscious Project Leader: How to Create a Culture of Success for Your Projects, Your Team and Yourself by Collin D. Ellis

The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Programme to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and Happiness by Steve Peters

The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stanier

The article does not intend to promote or advertise any of the above-mentioned books. It’s based on real feedback from project managers collected via the following LinkedIn Group discussions:

Discussion 1 in The Project Manager Network – #1 Group for Project Managers

Discussion 2 in PMI Project, Program and Portfolio Management: #1 group for career advancement.

Also, you might want to have a look at Elizabeth Harrin’s review of project management books or check these 5 new books to succeed as a digital project manager.

Anything missing? You’re a project manager who couldn’t make it to tell the world about a favorite book of yours? Leave it below in the comments section and we’ll make sure that it becomes the part of our list.

*The countries are sorted in no particular order. 

Illustration: Copyright © Zhenya Oliinyk

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