Is there hope for a certified Project Manager in an agile world? Inspecting behavioural competences of Project Managers and Scrum Masters

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1 Abstract Is there hope for a certified Project Manager in an agile world? Inspecting behavioural competences of Project Managers and Scrum Masters Karin Kroneder (Certified Projects Director, Certified Scrum Master, Certified PMP) Project Manager, Siemens AG Austria, Vienna, Austria karin.kroneder@siemens.com Dr. Ralph Miarka (Certified Project Manager, Certified Scrum Professional) Scrum Consultant, Vienna, Austria ralph@miarka.de At Siemens Austria we are determined to improve our project management across all business units. As part of this initiative we train and certify our key project managers according to the IPMA Standard. However, the increased rate of change in our markets - and the fast-changing requirements that result - demand that we look also to agile principles and values for faster delivery of valuable products. We see that some line-managers appoint trained project managers to the new role called "Scrum Master". In this paper we investigate whether this instinctive procedure can be backed up by the qualification of the project manager. The objective of this paper is to provide you with a stone in the bridge that connects the classical project management and agile worlds by discussing some aspects of the compatibility of IPMA and agile values, exemplified by Scrum as the dominant agile framework at the moment. Based on the ICB3, we select some core behavioural competences of project managers and inspect how they relate to those needed by a Scrum Master. We find that many behavioural competences support the proposed skill-set of a Scrum Master, e.g. Engagement & Motivation as well as Values appreciation. Others, like Leadership and Efficiency, need to be scrutinized by the project manager turned Scrum Master, up to the point of apparently going against some of the behavioural patterns as described in the ICB3. A project manager that turns Scrum Master without adapting the skill-set would potentially fail in an agile environment. Keywords ICB 3.0, Scrum, Behavioural competences, Scrum Master, IPMA 1. Introduction Susan is an experienced Project Manager, certified with IPMA Level B. Unfortunately her colleague Sven left the company and Susan s boss decided that she should take over his project. To handle the risk around uncertain requirements the company decided to manage the project according to Scrum. Motivated and full of energy Susan started to plan the project and initiated her first Scrum meeting. She prepared the project plans, informed herself about the status, took a look at the documents and spoke with the relevant stakeholders. After the meeting she told me what happened: I started the meeting with a clear agenda, collected the status and asked for current open issues. Then I told the participants that I have now a clear overview about the project and that I will come back with a structured plan and a defined delegation of the open tasks. After the meeting Gaby, a team member, came to me and told me that the project will definitely fail if I continue in this way. What is the problem? Susan is acting like an experienced project manager. She has a concrete vision and can bring it to life by taking over the responsibility, planning the implementation in a structured way and delegating tasks very clearly. She is definitely showing leadership, a particular type that fits less easily in an agile framework. Leadership is a worthwhile competency a project manager shall have. In the ICB3, IPMA (2006), it is the first competency described among the behavioural ones. Although there are many articles and blog-posts on the work of project managers and Scrum Masters, e.g. Loeser (2006), Strickler (2008), Aguanno (2009), Grant (2010), and Deemer (2010), we found no comparison of the 1

2 behavioural competences of a Scrum Master and project manager. Most articles focus only on the differences in tasks. Deemer (2010), for example, provides a guideline on redefining the role of a project manager and converting it to the role of a Scrum Master for a team by listing all the tasks of a project manager and identifying the ones in conflict with Scrum. Thus, we will address the similarities and differences of behavioural competences of the roles of an IPMA project manager and a Scrum Master. 2. Behavioural competences of a Project Manager Several literatures on project management, like Barry (2009) and Sommer (2008) are referring to top skills for project manager. They identify that areas like communication, team building, problem solving are key success factors, even more than the technical ones. This has also been addressed by the IPMA (2006). The eye of competence as described in the ICB3, IPMA (2006), covers those areas in 15 behavioural competences. The identification, definition and documented description of these competences are factors, which differentiate the ICB3 from other project management standards. According to GAPPS (2010) the ICB3 is, for instance, the only standard, which has a full mapping in all components of the element Promote effective individual and team performance. The 15 behavioural competences directly support performance for both, the project manager s and the team s performance. The relevance of those competences in everyday practise at Siemens Austria and the fact that they are part of the IPMA standard was for instance an important influencing factor of the decision of implementing a combined certification together with the IPMA (Raschka (2009)), where behavioural competences are a major part of the assessment. 3. The Role of the Scrum Master Scrum is a simple empirical framework to work on complex projects, where requirements, implementations and interactions emerge during the project. It is based on an iterative and incremental approach by demanding a potentially deliverable outcome every constant time-box, which is called a sprint (Schwaber (2004)). Basically, Scrum consists of three roles (Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Scrum Team), three ceremonies (sprint planning, daily standup, and sprint review and retrospective) and three artefacts (product backlog, sprint backlog and burndown chart). It is particularly popular in the Information Technology industry. Scrum is based on self-organizing teams. The teams decide on the amount of work to commit for a sprint and the means of achieving the given commitment, including on how to distribute that work amongst each other. This gives the teams more responsibility and leads to increased focus, motivation and drive. The teams are composed of people such that all capabilities are present to turn the product requirements into a potentially deliverable increment. Additionally to the roles of Scrum Team and Product Owner, in Scrum there is the role of the Scrum Master. The Scrum Master is responsible to coach and empower the Scrum Team to focus on the product increment within the agreed framework. Schwaber and Sutherland (2010) state that the Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring that the Scrum Team adheres to Scrum values (commitment, focus, openness, respect, courage), practices, and rules. teaches the Scrum Team by coaching and by leading it to be more productive and produce higher quality products. helps the Scrum Team understand and use self-organization and cross-functionality. helps the Scrum Team do its best in an organizational environment. is one of a servant-leader for the Scrum Team. 4. Competences needed by a Scrum Master Scrum relies on the competences of the Scrum Team to focus on regularly delivering valuable software increments. The Scrum Master is there to empower the team to work in a self-organizing and responsible way to achieve the development goal. To fulfil this task according to the Scrum values, the following behaviours are advantageous: Collaboration with the Scrum Team, the Product Owner and all other stakeholders. For example, the Scrum Master spends a lot of time with the Product Owner helping to understand the real requirements, and helping to express those in a way that's useful for planning. Uses communication skills, including active listening, facilitation, and presentation to manage the Scrum meetings, to address the Scrum values, practices and rules. Applies coaching and empathy as the main means to support the Scrum Team. The Scrum Master is aware of 2

3 the personal and professional dynamics between the members of the team, and between the team and the organisation, and works to help the team maximise its effectiveness within these constraints. Is supportative and helpful to the members of the Scrum Team as (s)he assumes that everyone tries their best «given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.» (Kerth (2001)). Supports a learning culture and sees failure as learning opportunities and helps the team to design improvement experiments for each sprint. Able to reflect on own behaviour and helps the team to reflect on theirs to encourage change. The metaphor of the Scrum Master as a mirror of the team applies. Assertiveness and negotiations w.r.t to the product owner when (s)he demands more work than the team is capable of doing and w.r.t. the organization to remove impediments, however not w.r.t. the team. There the Scrum Master should use coaching and teaching techniques to gather support from the team for changes. Does not make decisions, instead guides the team, though identifies when decisions need to be made, if the team is avoiding commitment. Is disciplined and goal oriented. Addresses conflicts and helps the parties to resolve the conflict. As Scrum Master, Susan talks to the Product Owner to initiate the working relationship. Together they inspect the Product Backlog, consider the team's velocity and identify - on the basis of estimations in which the whole team participates - what might be delivered at the release date. Then Susan would talk to the team to prepare for a retrospective. Facilitating the retrospective, Susan would learn very much about the interaction of the team and the current issues the team has and the next experiments to improve the current process framework. Then she would facilitate a planning session, where the team commits to a certain amount of the highest priority work for the next sprint. On a daily basis, Susan would help the team to fulfil their commitment by removing obstacles, encouraging communication and facilitating the relationship with the Product Owner. 5. Adapting competences rightfully At first sight all of the competences of the ICB3, IPMA (2006), could fit to Scrum Master competences - and most of them obviously do. Going deeper in the definition and in daily practise we find some competences not needed or to be adapted on the way to Scrum. Figure 2: Supporting competences for Scrum Masters Here, we extract four behavioural competences and their definitions according to the ICB3, IPMA (2006) and explain the reason for not perfectly fitting to the Scrum approach Leadership According to the ICB3, IPMA (2006) leadership involves providing direction and motivating others in their role or task to fulfil the project s objectives. Displaying leadership with the project team and other interested parties is seen as a vital competence for a project manager. This indicates a person-centric approach of managing a project and is shown in delegation 3

4 of tasks, natural authority and performing award and recognition. Deemer (2010) refers to the project managers job responsibility of Assign the work to team members not needed in Scrum or even in conflict with Scrum Assertiveness According to the ICB3, IPMA (2006) assertiveness is the ability to state your views persuasively and authoritatively.... What has to be avoided in Scrum in combination with this competence is the approach of using this competence to strengthen the Project Managers own authority in the sense of being the one who makes all the decisions. One the other hand the concretion of assertiveness defined as the project manager avoids being led or manipulated by others into taking or recommending decisions not in the interest of the project (IPMA (2006)) is also what Deemer (2010) refers to be fine in Scrum as Help remove blocks that the team is not able to resolve by themselves. The personal interpretation and use of this competence in everyday s life has a major impact on the fact if this competence supports or conflicts with Scrum Efficiency According to the ICB3, IPMA (2006) efficiency is the ability to use time and resources cost-effectively to produce the agreed deliverables and fulfil interested parties expectations. Efficiency in the sense of extent to which time is well used for the intended task is definitely a needed competence for a Scrum Master. But in the adequate behaviours defined in the ICB3, IPMA (2006) the project manager is responsible for managing the efficiency in the way that the tasks are planned, delegated, monitored and resource-optimized. The Scrum Master is not responsible for planning the project and delegating the tasks. In Scrum organized projects the team is an integrative part of the planning and is self-optimizing using their own resources it is not the Scrum Masters task to manage the team or to decide which works needs to be done (Deemer (2010)) Reliability According to the ICB3, IPMA (2006) reliability means delivering what you have said you will to the time and quality agreed within the project specification. Reliability is a key competence in project management covering responsibility and consistency. According to the adequate behaviours to this competence there is one important sentence, which indicates a difference to Scrum. According to the ICB3, IPMA (2006) the project manager feels responsible for project success on behalf of all the interested parties. This could be interpreted in the way the project manager is the project (- >ICB) vs the project team is the project (->Scrum). The ICB often refers to the project team and the team is clearly a key party in the ICB approach but more in the sense of to be managed than in the sense of being self-organized. Leadership (2.01) is the competence, which contradicts Scrum values the most. The competences 2.04, 2.09 and 2.13 are not per definition incompatible with Scrum but in combination and close connection to Leadership it is necessary to adapt them. Nevertheless, as stated by Aguanno (2009) -the PM role (when done properly) pretty much covers the job of a Scrum Master. The vast majority of the IPMA behavioural competences fairly support the Scrum idea. Figure 3: Closeness of IPMA behavioural competences according to ICB3 with respect to Scrum 4

5 6. Conclusions The 15 behavioural competences are an excellent and valuable basis for bridging IPMA and Scrum. The main difference between Project Managers and Scrum Masters seems to be in managing a process by one person versus managing a process in a team-centric way. Managing a project via a central person-approach needs competences like leadership and assertiveness in a much stronger sense than in a team-centric approach. Competences of the ICB3, IPMA (2006) that are forcing leadership and connected skills are therefore to be reflected upon and adapted before acting as a Scrum Master. Values are key. Applying most of the behavioural competences of the ICB3, IPMA (2006), with Scrum values in mind and the awareness of subtle difference would enable a project manager to become a successful Scrum Master. Additionally, the Product Owner also performs many tasks of a project manager. Thus the role of a Product Owner could also be a good fit for a project manager. In the ICB3, the IPMA has shown that behavioural competences are as valuable as technical and contextual competences. The guideline that is provided for project managers is very valuable. During our research for this work, we have not found an equivalent for the Scrum roles. By investigating this topic further, the IPMA could further engage with the agile and Scrum community and offer complementary insights and practices. 7. References Aguanno, Kevin, (2009), Project Managers vs. Scrum Masters; Agile Project Management Matures, Online: Barry, Timothy, (2009), Top 10 Qualities of a Project Manager, Online: Deemer, Pete, (2010), Manager 2.0: The Role of the Manager in Scrum, InfoQ, July 23rd, Online: Gfrörer, Stefan G., (2009), PMP & CSM: Was ein Scrum Master vom Projectmanagement Professional lernen kann!? (und vice versa!?), Online: GAPPS - Global Alliance for Project Performance Standards, (2010), Mapping ICB3.0 to GAPPS standards, Online: Grant, Lisa A., (2010), How Does a Scrum Master Compare to a Project Manager?, PMI Community Post, March 26, Online: Master-Compare-To-PM.html IPMA, (2006), ICB IPMA Compentence Baseline Version 3.0, International Project Management Association, Online: Kerth, Norman, (2001), Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews, Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, February Loeser, Anne, (2006), Project Management and Scrum A Side by Side Comparison, October Online: Raschka, Wolfgang, (2009), Combined certification IPMA PM@Siemens. Online: Schwaber, Ken, (2004), Agile Project Management with Scrum, Microsoft Press. Redmond, Washington, Schwaber, Ken and Sutherland, Jeff, (2010), The Scrum Guide, scrum.org, February Online: Sommer, Dennis, (2008), The next Generation Project Manager, Online: Strickler, Jon, (2008), Project Manager to Scrum Master, April 17, Online: Watson, Jeff, (2010), Project Manager, Scrum Master, or are they one in the same?, Discussion on LinkedIn, Online: 5

6 8. Appendix A Relating Leadership Behavioural Patterns The ICB3, IPMA (2006), contains for each competence also behavioural patterns for a project manager. Table 1 lists the recommended behavioural patterns for the competence 2.01 Leadership of a project manager and relates those to the required behaviour of a Scrum Master. Adequate Behaviours for a Project Manager Can delegate tasks, has confidence in others and coaches them to develop and live up to others expectations Has a vision, expresses it very clearly, supports it well and brings it to life Has natural authority, people listen to him and have confidence in him Delegates SMART (Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) work packages appropriate to a team member s capabilities and gives them the freedom to do it their way Is a skilled moderator Combines power and charisma Is inspiring, makes people proud to work with him Knows how to reward and take corrective action in ways acceptable to the team members Takes total responsibility, delegates responsibilities and tasks accordingly Secures the project s objectives and protects team members in negotiating changes Controls team members behaviour in a conscious and constructive way, has discipline and allows time for communication Engages the team members in decisions or has valid reasons for making decisions alone Adopts a leadership style appropriate to the specific team and work situation, is open to feedback Acts as an example and is acknowledged as a leader in the team and by other interested parties Acts and speaks calmly, formulates responses well and with authority Keeps calm during a crisis, avoids visible panic Relation to a Scrum Master Does not delegate, however, has confidence in others and coaches them Product Owner w.r.t. the product, Scrum Team w.r.t. the way of doing the work It depends, what authority means here. people listen to him and have confidence in him Does not delegate work packages, however, gives them the freedom to do it their way Needs to be a skilled moderator and facilitator Does not have power though charisma is helpful. Is inspiring, makes people proud to work with him is helpful. Does not reward nor takes corrective action. Helps the team to find corrective actions. Not applicable. Supports the team and Product Owner in fulfilling their responsibilities Partly applicable. Protects the team members when negotiating changes demanded by the Product Owner Does not control behaviour. Acts like a mirror to enable the team members to control their behaviour. Facilitates communication. Does not make decisions alone but engages the team members to make decisions Is open to feedback and provides feedback to the team members. Acts as an example is a good behaviour for a Scrum Master. Behaviour helps a Scrum Master Behaviour supports a Scrum Master Table 1: Relating behavioural patterns of leadership of a project manager and Scrum Master 6