Is Traditional PM Holding You Back from Agile Transformation?

Today when more and more Agile transformations take place, “successful managers” often turns out to be the ‘cancer’ for their organisations. And even though we get accustomed to the fact that successful PMs are seen as heroes who make things happen and drive the team to accomplish the impossible, but the reality is quite different.

The truth is that most project managers take credit for any success, but when it comes to failures, they blame others. And this is how traditional PMs are gradually becoming Corporate Cancers.

First of all, it’s important to understand the mindset of the traditional PM. No doubt they all have good intentions when their performance is concerned. But the problem is the outcome of these “good intentions”.

When the traditional PM takes all control, team members get used to working under command and control. As a result, they neglect their responsibilities and simply wait for the PM to tell them what to do next.

In this situation, mature teams feel that no Agile transformation will take place, while immature teams adopt a laissez-faire attitude and simply go with the flow. The top level executives prefer to hide behind the traditional PM until the company falls back to the point that started this transformation. And here we go again…

If we look at the classical definition of a manager, this is “a person who controls the activities, business dealings, and other aspects of the group.” Even this definition shows the perverse nature of this role in the Agile environment.

Though it may not be necessarily true for all organisations, but for the majority of companies the traditional role of a project manager has a harmful impact on the Agile transformation by sucking the energy, accountability and responsibility from all other roles. This is the reason why the traditional PM is now often seen in Agile as a Corporate Cancer.

Does this sound like a familiar situation for your company? Do you agree or disagree?