Are new PM skills required to manage Agile Projects ?

It’s safe to say that Agile projects are in some fundamental ways different from traditional projects.  Agile projects are more likely to adapt rather than control. Agile has release plans as opposed to an end to end plan.  Agile projects also tend to embrace the concept of self organization.

In traditional projects, the project manager directs and manages the team by assigning tasks, tracking deliverables and maintaining an up to date plan. The management style is often characterized as “command and control” and are often accompanied by higher degrees of formality.

Agile projects on the other hand encourage the collective participation of the full team for planning, tracking, and providing status. The management style of the project manager might be best characterized as facilitator or leader.  The Project Managers primary responsibilities on an Agile project are to create an environment that is conducive to high productivity and to remove obstacles that prevent progress.

Project Leaders on agile projects rely on facilitation, issue management, problem solving, coaching, communication and collaboration skills and less on planning, scheduling, and directing skills because those responsibilities are shared by the team collectively.

I am currently working on a very large business system replacement project that is anything but agile.  While most of the project is organized in a very command and control style; our team is moving to a more collaborative and cross functional approach. Our team recently reorganized to allow individuals to determine what subject areas or technologies they will focus on, and to agree on approaches to adopt to perform work.  As new work emerges we will form teams to select the approach, plan the work and deliver. My responsibilities are to clear any obstacles that prevent the team members from being productive and block distractions from the team wherever possible.

This approach increases our ability to adapt to the very fluid environment on the project in terms of scope and focus of efforts.  We are working with new technolgies are are hoping that this will allow us to quickly respond when we find better ways to get things done.  

I am convinced that you can successfully use an agile style leadership approach on traditional projects.  Despite having no first hand experience with it I am equally convinced that you cannot use a command and control style of management on an agile project.

So to answer the question I would say that the set of skills used to manage projects is the same regardless of whether the project is traditional or agile in nature. Where the difference lies is in the importance that particular skills and tools have.  This very likely means that not all traditional project managers will make good agile project managers (and vice versa).  The characteristics of the particular project, the project team,and the project environment will dictate what project management style is required.