How Project Managers Can Stay Relevant in Agile Organizations

Much of traditional project management involved working along a pre-defined plan to achieve pre-defined goals. But in an agile environment, the concept of “done” is becoming increasingly obsolete. What does it take to effectively manage projects whose requirements are constantly shifting? In this piece, the author offers three key strategies to help project managers adapt to an agile world: First, managers should make sure they understand their organization’s goals when it comes to implementing agile workflows. Next, they must rethink their own success metrics: rather than meeting a set budget, timeline, or scope or work, project managers should focus on metrics like development cycle time and proportion of decisions made based on objective data. Finally, agile project managers must continuously examine their own processes and seek to adapt and improve themselves to meet the evolving needs of their customers and coworkers.