A Project Manager's Survival Guide to Going Agile: Application Development and Integration Services, Business Process Management Software, Collaboration, Database Management Software, Project Management Software, ROI, Software Development Tools

Agile software development methodologies such as Extreme Programming (XP), Scrum, Crystal, Lean, etc., are becoming more prevalent in the industry. What is it about these approaches that have companies all over the world casting out their traditional plan-driven methods in favor of an agile process? And how do project managers fit into the new archetype, which favors self-managed teams?

When software development project teams move to agile methodologies, they often leave project managers behind. Traditionally trained project managers are confused as to what their new roles and responsibilities should be in an environment that no longer needs them to make stand-alone decisions. This paper focuses on re-defining the job of project manager to better fit the self-managed team environment, one of the core agile principles. Special emphasis is placed on the shift to servant leadership, with its focus on facilitation and collaboration. Mapping of PMBOK knowledge areas to agile practices is discussed at length. After reading this paper, project managers should have a better understanding of what changes they need to make professionally, and how to make these changes in order to survive the transition to an agile software development approach.