Preface

As the agile movement hits the 20-year mark, the role of middle management remains undefined and the traditional project manager is denounced as antiagile in many quarters. Project managers are often made out to be villains, draconian keepers of the “plan” and blockers of organizational agility.

In the midst of a lot of snake oil being peddled, the project management field and project managers in particular are being needlessly ostracized. Project managers are not the destroyers of all things agile. In fact, the agile community has often missed opportunities to make use of the unique skill sets of project managers and the strengths of the players in the project management office (PMO).

We are executive consultants who have been in the heart of agile for two decades. We have heard from senior leaders across industries that “project managers are running for their lives,” and have seen hundreds of project manager positions being thoughtlessly eliminated. We believe that this is a big mistake and will have many negative ramifications down the line.

We have a history of holding project manager responsibilities and have been a part of the Project Management Institute—Agile Certified Practitioner movement since its inception. We understand the plight of the project manager in agile, and with our unique point of view, we feel the burden and a pull to represent this part of the business community.

We have been helping the PMO evolve since the early 2000s, when two of us wrote “The Lean-Agile PMO,”¹ then suggesting how to combine agile project delivery at the project level with lean thinking at the portfolio level. Building on that through the years, we have seen that whichever methodology is being implemented, success at all levels is inextricably linked back to a clear understanding of customer value and customer-driven outcomes across teams.

In all kinds of organizations, executives have told us over and over that this is where they struggle—this cross-team layer is a clear and unfulfilled need in their organizations. They have agile teams, they have agile initiatives, leadership has bought in, but the barriers are many. They can’t tie initiatives back to customer value and outcomes. In short, they can’t get value to flow across teams, programs, and portfolios.

Project managers and the PMO have a valuable new role to play in this space through an exciting organizational construct—the Agile Value Management Office (Agile VMO®). Rather than running for their lives, organizations that embrace the skills of their project managers and PMOs have a well-equipped VMO team ready to decide the best ways to connect processes to value and to get value flowing rapidly. This is especially urgent as organizations across the world have embraced virtual work in a big way during the pandemic and are likely to continue large-scale virtual work well into the future.

It’s impossible to go anywhere without a vision and a road map. We hope this book helps you envision a reality where project managers and middle management are leveraged for their strengths and for the benefit of all—individuals and organizations alike. We have provided as many real case studies and step-by-step paths as possible for you to visualize and implement this new path: where middle management and the VMO are valued leaders in the age of business agility.

Sanjiv, Roland, and Audrey Alexandria, Virginia; Arlington, Virginia; and Tucson, Arizona Spring 2021