“Why should I learn about Agile with Scrum? That is a good question with an important answer. As a PMP, you need to know the differing project management methodologies and when to apply the one that will give you and your project proven, effective results. It will save you and your team valuable team and will save money at the bottom line.

Unstuck Company is offering a new seminar where you will gain a clear understanding of Scrum in Agile Project Management and how it compares with the more traditional PMBOK^® version of project management. By attending, you will discover how to maximize your efforts for your project and your team with proven results. You will learn the inside track of agile with scrum.

Agile Project Management with Scrum

When—Saturday, June 25 – 8:30 a.m.—4:30 p.m.

Where—TCC Beautiful Trinity River Campus—Downtown—Fort Worth, Texas

Delivered by:   Dr. Tom Sheives, Chief Unstuck Officer, Unstuck Company and

Yvonne Kish, Associate, Unstuck Company

$ 327 —Early Bird register through to June 18

$ 377—After Early Bird

$ 277—Group Discounts of 5 or more—same organization

Register here:  www.unstuckacademy.com/scrum/

Contact:  Tom Sheives, 817-465-1318; tom@unstuckcompany.com for further information.

• what Agile Project Management really is and how it can benefit you, your team, and your projects by streamlining steps
• how to effectively implement Scrum
• exactly when to apply Scrum, when to apply traditional project management methods, and when to effectively use a blended version of both.

How You Will Benefit

The benefit of attending this seminar is enhanced knowledge of the different project management methodologies and the gained skill of knowing when to effectively apply the most effective method for proven results. You will gain the skill of knowing the inside track of Agile with Scrum.

Course Outline

You will learn the characteristics and benefits of Scrum and gain an overview of Agile Software Development and Scrum. Included are the details of planning and executing a Scrum as well as the culture change required to implement Scrum.  In addition, you gain an overview of Scrum tools, Scrum organizations and your next steps to implement Scrum.

Specific topics include:

• Visioning and Business Value
• Product/Selected Product Backlog
• Sprints, Sprint Backlog, and Sprint Planning
• Estimating, Burndown charts
• Daily Scrum Meeting
• Velocity, Sprint Review and Retrospectives
• Release Planning, and User Stories
• Product Owner, Scrum Master, Customer, Team Member, Pigs and Chickens

Exercises include experiential exercise simulating a real Scrum, writing  good user stories, epics, and themes, prioritizing the backlog, using and practicing the well known planning poker exercise for estimation, writing and executing a sprint exercise, and practicing a sprint planning meeting.

Who Should Attend…YOU!

Project managers, project coordinators, business analysts, project team members, functional supervisors and other business professionals working in projects

“Hey, I am already a project manager! Why do I need to get my PMP Certification?”

You may be working in a project, using project methods, and leading a project team. But are you the project manager expert with knowledge of proven methodologies sanctioned by the respected Project Management Institute? Do you have all of the project manager skills to rise to the top of your field? Do you want to make more money?

If your answer is “yes,” then you need to act now. The PMP Exam is changing by 30% on August 29th! Even those of us who are experienced PMP Prep educators do not know what elements are changing. You still have time to successfully sit for the Exam if you act now.

NOW is the right time for YOU!

This intensive seminar fully prepares you to pass the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam. Material is aligned with the current knowledge from the Project Management Institute’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide). We give you tips for successful test taking and study methods as we review crucial materials to enable you to pass the PMP exam. We also offer the most competitive pricing in the area…saving YOU money and providing YOU with proven results!

Where: Fort Worth, Texas – Tarrant County Community College, Trinity River Campus
When: Saturdays – July 9, 16, 23, 30 – 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
$950- Early Bird Registration through June 25
$1050- Registration after June 25
$850 – Special Group Rate – 5 or more from Organization through June 25 – Requires Promo Code

Register Here:  www.unstuckacademy.com/pmpprep4/

What You Will Learn

As a participant, you will discover:
• The requirements for a candidate for the PMP certification
• Current, critical material from the PMBOK found on the PMP exam
• How to break down PMBOK material for successful preparation
• Test-taking Tips and Exam Practice
• The common language and methodology of project management to improve your skills

Course Outline
• Benefits of PMP certification
• Certification prerequisites and process
• Project Management Framework (PMBOK)
• Project Integration Management
• Project Scope Management
  – Requirements, scope, Work Breakdown Structure
  – Work packages and cost accounts
  – Control scope creep
• Project Time Management
  – Estimating project resources and duration
  – Sequencing project activities
  – Developing project schedules
• Critical Path Method (CPM)
• Project Cost Management
  – Estimating costs
  – Cost baseline
  – Controlling costs
  – Intro to Earned Value Management
• Project Quality Management
• Project Human Resource Management
• Project Communication Management
  – Communications requirements and styles
  – Evaluating communications performance
• Project Risk Management
  – Planning and identifying project risks
  – Qualitative & quantitative risk analysis
  – Risk responses and monitoring and controlling
• Project Procurement Management
  – Processes and Planning
  – Contracts and calculating associated costs
  – Successful negotiation
  – Contracts
• Project Management: Professional Conduct, Values
• PMP Exam Preparation
  – Testing taking tips
  – Practice exams
  – Feedback and review

My question is, “What are you currently hauling around in the back of your business that just does not fit anymore?” If you are a project manager, maybe you are hauling around a bunch of processes that are not business driven or value based. Are you giving your stakeholders information in a form that is not preferred by them?

I suggest you take a quick look around your business. Decide now, whether waste or value is the primary load you are providing.

Tom Sheives, PMP, PhD, and Chief Unstuck Officer for Unstuck Company, presented the keynote address to open the conference. The Institute’s focus was “Excel as a Leader – Reach New Heights in Your Career and Life.” Tom presented compelling reasons for project managers to volunteer effectively in their profession. Tom was introduced by PMI’s President and CEO, Mark Langley.  He is shown here with Mark and with the Chairman of the Board for PMI, Beth Partleton. Interview of LIM Attendees

PMPs as Volunteer Leaders
In a recent company newsletter article entitled “Volunteerism in a Down Economy: Making a Difference in Business and in Lives,” Tom stated that “in the current economic era of restricted training budgets, volunteerism offers development and training absolutely free of charge and benefits the common good at the same time.”

About Unstuck CompanyAs Chief Unstuck Officer, Tom practices what he preaches in terms of volunteerism. He serves on the board of the Fort Worth Chapter of PMI and on the board of the North Texas Chapter of the National Speakers Association. He is a member of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce and volunteers in his local church community. Learn More

Project management can be an exacting discipline – except when it comes to dealing with people. Then it can be all over the place. Most project managers deal with the IT department and there are well known issues around the need for good people skills in this area. Great project managers are also great people managers because that is how they actually get the work done. When we consider that only one out of three projects are successful and one fourth are cancelled (Standish 2009) before they are finished we see that there is a lot of room for improvement. I would like to talk in this article about the people and communication side of the issue.

Good project managers have taken the time to get to know themselves well. They are aware of their assumptions and beliefs about people and how to do business. If you have not done this for yourself I suggest you get a good coach and begin working on this right away. Just improving in this area will make a ton of difference in your productivity and effectiveness.

Good project managers are able to establish rapport and build a trusting environment very quickly. They are adept at reading other people and getting on the same wave length with them and then at maintaining that connection. Even when negotiations are taking place or conflict is occurring they are able to stay in rapport and that helps create positive endings.

Good project managers are great at communication. They understand that behind every action is a positive intent of some kind and they seek that out. They are able to connect quickly and to stay “in the other person’s language” so that understanding and useful exchange takes place effortlessly. They also get that people are doing the best that they can at the time with the resources they have and that gives them great insight into how to move forward.

Another thing good project managers can do is to set clear compelling goals that draw people forward into meaningful action.Their ability to motivate through tangible, realistic goals helps people take ownership and assume responsibility and accountability for their share of the project and the project as a whole. This is huge in delivering a well-executed project.

Where are your skills in these areas? Is it time to get yourself a coach to help you develop the people skills you need to make a difference in your productivity, effectiveness and efficiency? What are you waiting for? It is your career!

We know that culture in an organization has deep roots. Roots that are deep down into the rights, rituals, and ceremonies of the organization; the company’s heroes, legends, and stories; and even an organization’s rules, policies, and slogans (I wonder if people internal to Nike, use the term “Just Do it” throughout the workday?). Our language and behaviors, our collaboration systems and financial systems all contribute to our “engrained” culture.  The contributing list is long and deep.

Now imagine a brand new strategy coming into an organization. This strategy could be precipitated by a new leader, a newly promoted CEO, or another big thinking individual. As Peter Drucker so wisely stated, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Instituting a new strategy that is not within the cultural norms of an organization has a very difficult job being supported by the existing culture. Another Drucker quote along the same lines reinforces the struggle, “Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you’ve got.”

Now take these ideas and scenarios down to your own level. Are you as leader or project manager asking too much of your team at times? Are you asking them to do things that are not supported by the culture? This process can be tough to say the least. Tough on you, tough on your team. If you haven’t built a trustworthy culture, you are going to struggle mightily when you go against the existing culture. Picture Michael Scott in “The Office” trying to institute a new sales strategy for Jim, Pam, Dwight, Stanley, Andy, and Phyllis.

In a recent blog post on Linked In by Jane Nelson from Change Guides , some excellent points are made relative to changing a culture. Think for a moment of Apple Computer where innovation is king. These guys have gone against the “normal” main stream flows for 10-20 years and pride themselves in innovating different products… Mac, IPAD, I-phone, and others. If someone within their company was trying to set a strategy to blend in more and do less innovation, they would probably be thrown out of Apple headquarters.

How about Southwest Airlines? The friendly airlines. Can you imagine some new project in customer service that was a subtle deviation from this culture? No way would this strategy work.

Change management initiatives can move or shape a culture. But change has to be incremental, in essence, “eating an elephant one bite at time.” Remember that you are messing with the existing “operating system!” and it just might go “blue screen” on you!

Jane gives some ideas for shaping a culture in her BLOG  http://linkd.in/hAbi87. “For example, if the organization lacks the needed focus on customers, then insist that every manager and above spend at least one day a quarter out in the field with customers. Or if your organization makes decisions on the fly in the absence of adequate data (not a good thing for, say, a pharmaceutical company), then insist that all projects use Six Sigma or similar tools. Or if your organization is too cautious and can’t move quickly enough to respond to new demands (not a good thing for, say, a software company), verbally encourage teams to make decisions faster and try new things… and then throw a big party the first time one fails, as a visible demonstration that we appreciate and value risk-taking and new ideas.”

So whether you are a Project Manager, a CEO or COO, take it easy on your strategy and learn the finer points of change management. Make sure that your strategies are not so radical or you could find the headlines in the company newsletter or local newspaper reading “Culture eats Leader.”

Yvonne and Tom presented at the Annual SEE Software Engineering Process Improvement Conference.  The ASEE organization is a SPIN affiliate and this was their 21st Annual Conference.  The conference was a huge success with a great turnout. 

Mark Paulk from the Institute for Software Research at Carnegie Mellon University kicked off the conference with a wonderful presentation about the issues of adopting agile methods.  Agile is not a silver bullet to solving problems but it is a more tactical approach. Agile can be challenging to initially implement on projects.  The keys to success in agile adoption are: 1) early training of the team on the agile principles to ensure that all team members have a consistent understanding of agile methods and 2) having a very engaged client.  Yvonne and Tom presented on agile methods by first comparing agile methods with traditional project management methods.  There are many similarities between the two but there are big differences that agile offers: 1) agile provides the highest business value items to the client as early as possible and 2) change to product scope is acceptable and actually encouraged during the project.

Agile methods are well suited for more than just software development projects.  Yvonne presented a case study on how agile scrum was used effectively to improve the processes of a new product.  Tom and Yvonne were able to show the benefits of utilizing agile for a process improvement project for this company and contrasting that with more traditional methods.  These benefits include:

1) Selecting the right methodology for the project, company culture, and product needs.  Agile was the right methodology for the process improvement project and was a huge success for improvement to new product development. 

2) Since this company never used agile, using a sprint zero as a planning sprint for developing a release plan, selecting the scrum team members, training the team on scrum, and populating the product backlog with items.  This was vital in order to define the highest business values items first, utilizing the quickest method possible. 

3) Agile scrum presents a different way of communicating than traditional project management with status reports and project reviews. Agile scrum has daily team meetings to discuss the work accomplished and to communicate if there are any impediments to getting work accomplished.  This helped get departments out of their silos, significantly improve cross team communication, and helped to develop the best process improvement solutions for the development of the product. 

Yvonne participated on the panel of agile experts for the panel discussion.  There was a very lively panel discussion using topics selected by the conference attendees which were ranked in priority order by the attendees as well.  The topic with the highest priority was to understand how the QA function, particularly testing, fits into the agile methodology. 

Yvonne explained the role of a team member on a scrum team and how no one person is responsible for a single area of focus. The strength of the agile team comes from members working cross functionally coupled with the team as a whole committing to the work for the sprint.  This flexibility and cohesiveness results in everyone on the team being responsible for the quality assurance and test activities that need to be completed.  It is important to staff the team with a range of diverse skill sets, and then have the team pair with other team members to share knowledge and cross train.

The team can ensure there is confirmation of acceptance tests for each user story committed to in a sprint.  They can add on XP principles to improve quality and testing by utilizing test driven development.  This will ensure the team is writing only the code needed to pass the test and not writing code for any additional functionality.  This will help to drive towards high quality, zero defects, and 100% testable, verified and validated user stories.

The feedback that was received on our presentations and panel representation was invaluable. It really helped the attendees starting to learn agile to gain a much better sense of the definition of agile scrum, and helped everyone learn useful tips and techniques to implement agile on their projects.

Does conflict bother you? Will you do almost anything to avoid conflict? Does it give you a knot in your stomach when dissent or conflict arises? Are you not only uncomfortable with conflict but actually fear dealing with it? If so then this article will help you get over your fear of conflict. I can’t promise that you will ever like conflict situations but you will at least be able to deal with it without the negative emotions you now feel about it. That will be a great relief to you.

1. First examine your beliefs about conflict. Chances are that you believe conflict is always a bad thing. Can you think of any times when it was a good thing? Conflict is necessary for us to grow. Conflict does not have to be threatening. It can be a matter of seeing things in a different light or having different opinions on something. When you think about it survival of the fittest in the plant world is a kind of conflict that results in us being able to grow the strongest and healthiest strains of plants. That is a good thing. When we learn from people who have different opinions and different knowledge and experiences than we have that too is a good thing.

2. Conflict does not have to result in one person winning and one person losing. There can be plenty of compromise around conflict and both parties can end up winning. If you work from common ground when managing conflict then win-win can be achieved.

3. Reframe your concept of conflict resolution to conflict management. We will always have conflict in our lives. It can not all be resolved and it can not all go our way. Conflict can be managed however. You can work for the best solutions for everyone involved.

4. Conflict does not have to mean negative confrontation. It can be a healthy dialogue between two thinking people. When you let emotions get involved conflict can get difficult to manage. Try to change your thinking about conflict as confrontation to conflict as a conversation between people with different points of view.

5. Be well prepared when you need to be involved in a situation where there is conflict. Know what you want and what you are willing to compromise on. Be totally prepared to compromise on some things so that you can get to a mutually acceptable solution.

6. Understand that sometimes conflict will be tough. You may have to stand your ground but be ready to do it with as little emotion involved as possible. Emotion clouds our thinking and often keeps us from seeing the larger picture which is a necessary ingredient to conflict management.
Hopefully these few guidelines will help you approach conflict with a different mindset and will help take some of the fear out of conflict situations.

About the Author:
Lynn Banis PhD, MCC is known as America’s High Performance Coach. She specializes in helping executives and entrepreneurs make the most of their opportunities and potential. Her years of working with small and large businesses have given her a depth of knowledge that is invaluable to her clients. Lynn is a valued associate of Unstuck Company.

System development involves various requirement types of which user requirements have the biggest share. Generally, user requirements are classified into two types – those specifying “what needs to be accomplished” or functional requirements and those which specify “how well the functions are to be accomplished” or nonfunctional requirements which include descriptions such as constraints, external interfaces, business rules and quality attributes.

Nonfunctional requirements may not seem important for the system, but these requirements have a hidden but impactful significance that needs to be considered thoroughly during every phase of development. For example, when we buy a car the most common factors that we think about before reaching a decision are the specifications of the car – its model, color, engine, horse power and features. These specifications are more the “what” of the car.  However, there are other factors that relate to “how well” the car works, such as reliability and the ease of maintenance of the car.  These factors are examples of the nonfunctional requirements of the car. 

Imagine the impact on the design process of the car when the customer desires a product that is twice as reliable as a competing model or one that allows relative ease of maintenance.  Engineering might spend years and years trying to achieve that simple difference which is complicated by the complexity of the elements. Likewise the development of the nonfunctional requirements is not usually clear-cut or simple, but they support the success of the finished project.

Nonfunctional requirements often occur in many forms; the most intangible and difficult to address are referred to as “-ilities.” These troublesome “-ilities” are generally emergent properties of the system, characteristics that are desired by the system in the development process. These characteristics  include usability, reliability, maintainability, availability, survivability, flexibility and many others. Inefficiency or absence of any of these discussed characteristics results in user dissatisfaction and can lead to project failure.

Some common nonfunctional requirements for development systems are business rules which include corporate policies, government regulations, industry standards, accounting practices, and computational algorithms. These rules usually restrict who can do what with the system or dictate the functionality of the system. Other nonfunctional requirements are important as well: the quality attributes which focus on characteristics of the product that are important to the users or developers, external interfaces which focus on linking the system with the outside world, and constraints which impose restrictions on the choices available to the developer for design and construction of the product.

During the 1990s, my development team was responsible for designing, building, and installing an automated mail out pharmacy that was responsible for delivering nearly 10,000 prescriptions on a daily basis through 10 pharmacists.  Although the system planning was excellent, we had a troublesome, nonfunctional requirement that caused us a significant delay in the development phase of this system.

This delay was in the scanner response time, which was the time it took for the system to retrieve the records from a scan of the bar code on a prescription vial. This response time or nonfunctional requirement  could not exceed the defined time of one second. During  the testing phase of the project, the response was a full four seconds.

Tests were conducted using various methods to overcome the issue with no success. Ultimately, the designers were compelled to redesign the infrastructure of the system from scratch, a costly delay. Although a three second delay might not seem significant, this one nonfunctional requirement cost losses to the organization. The delay in the final product completion  negatively impacted our  client, the developers, and the project managers.

Failing to consider the importance of specific, nonfunctional requirements throughout every phase can be problematic in the completion of the project.  Failure to do so not only results in delay, overruns as well as growing dissatisfaction by the stakeholders.