How to Lead Agile Projects with No Experience

This blog was inspired by this post on Reddit, and is an expansion on the comment I wrote in response.

This month, my company—accustomed to projects with a waterfall or hybrid methodology—started running its first intentionally agile projects. I've been delighted to watch a project manager on my team structure and support these projects while I lurk in meetings to support him and make suggestions.

Introducing agile methodologies to an organization for the first time takes work. One of the sessions I attended at the 2023 PMI Global Summit was titled "Feeling Conflicted? Implementing Agile Practices in an Un-Agile Organization." The room was packed. (The presenter, Mike Griffiths, is very thoughtful and likable; if you're introducing agile to your organization, I recommend you follow him and check out his materials!)

But implementing agile is achievable. Here are the resources, strategies, and approaches I've encountered in my years as a project manager that will give you the best chance of successfully introducing agile practices.

Find mentors with agile experience.

Having someone in your corner to show you where to start and talk through challenges that come up is a huge asset, and if it's in the form of a mentor, you'll often have access to this person for free.

Your local PMI chapter is a great place to start; local chapters commonly run mentorship programs.

Get the support of a consultant.

If you need more in-depth help, or if you need somebody on the outside to make credible-sounding recommendations or validate yours, hiring an agile consultant may be worth exploring. It is common for organizations to engage consultants to help them deploy agile effectively.

A consultant on one of our programs recently recommended we try agile sprints for content production—this was the catalyst for us to finally try them.

Brush up on the basics of agile.

The study materials I used while preparing for the PMP gave me a great foundation of agile concepts and illustrated them with stories of deployment on real projects.

Understanding these concepts will be critical to your understanding of how agile can work at your organization, and to your ability to cast a vision for everybody working on or endorsing your projects. The Agile Manifesto is important philosophically, but your team will also need a shared understanding of terms like daily standup, sprint, retrospective, backlog, and story points.

If you aren't pursuing your PMP, plenty of shorter agile-focused courses are available online.

Nobody knows your people and projects like you.

While I've emphasized outside advice so far, no agile element or process can be implemented without intimate knowledge of your team and company. Even as an agile novice, you bring this to the table. Which agile practices will work best in your setting? How should they be tailored? Should they be rolled out all at once, or a few at a time? You, as the project manager, can best answer these questions.

When you implement agile, there isn't such a thing as "doing it right." There is only "finding the right fit." And you know you've found the right fit if your projects are working. If they aren't working, and if you've run out of ideas to try next, talk to your mentor or consultant, try Google, ask a chatbot, ask project managers on Reddit or other forums, or...

Use the Disciplined Agile Browser from PMI.

This tool is designed for people like you, who work in agile with limited experience. It breaks down every possible decision point you'll face while structuring an agile project. Then it gives you the most common options for each decision point, with explanations. It's like having the advice of lots of experienced agile project managers in your pocket. If you're interested, there is a small DASM certification to go with it. I have this certification and found the learning process valuable.

If you pick a few of the tools above (you know which ones are the right fit for you!), you should be well on your way to a promising agile implementation.