Mentoring & Profesional Development

Have you been told recently to start using Agile? To be more Agile?  What does that even mean?  Although more yoga would probably be a great thing for your wellness, that type of flexibility is likely not what they are referring to by Agile.   Agile is a style of managing and accomplishing your work.  It is more than just "scrum" and more than just developing a flexible to-do list (backlog).  It's a means of operating that embraces the unknown.  It's saying, we have the appropriate skills and training on our team that will allow us to get to the end, without knowing every facit and detail at the beginning. Recently, the directors for my work group wanted to develop a new high level strategy, goals and objectives to guide us for the next five years.  I suggeted using an agile framework to get us where we have a working document that can be improved, iterated on, developed, and detailed out as time allows, as the programs and leadership demand. Anot...

 Just got an amazing new job as a program manager? Congratulations!  Welcome! The first thing I would say is give yourself room to grow and learn.  Give yourself room to change.  Give yourself room to get better in your program area.  Whether you've been promoted from the inside or totally new to the team, you'll need to learn all the things you aren't expected to know just quite yet.   Never are you expected to be the expert at all things you manage, but rather, to be able to manage the experts on your team.  Your skills are in being able to use the tools of your team to be able to accomplish the goals.  Remove obstacle for your employees and insipire them to work efficiently and effectively to accomplish the tasks! Be prepared to lead from behind.  Promote the wellness and work of your teammembers.  Help them be the best of the best in their field of expertise.  The more they succeed, the more the program succeeds.  The ...