Skills and Knowledge that Agile Team Members Need
Agile projects rely on different skills than those of traditional waterfall projects. The required skills vary based on team members’ roles. Here are vital skills and knowledge the people on your agile team need.
- Communication, especially listening skills. Agile involves the constant exchange and implementation of ideas. As a result, agile team members need refined communication skills. Balancing business needs with technical constraints is important so the team can manage the product backlog. Specifically, the product owner must be able to discuss overall business processes and the implications of process changes needed for accommodating technical tool improvements. The SCRUM master must have good coaching and facilitation skills. At the same time, testers and designers must be able to listen to and translate requirements and user preferences so that designs and implementations meet project goals.
- Breadth of knowledge about the business. Beyond business processes, the agile team must understand the implications of their solutions to the business as a whole. For example, improving processes for the finance organization might change procedures for marketing, sales, and manufacturing. In this case, it’s crucial to ensure the changes the agile team makes for the finance organization don’t negatively impact other business functions. So, the product owner and other business representatives on the team need a broad understanding of procedures and policies across the business. Of course, this knowledge is essential for all projects, but agile’s focus on speed of implementation requires this knowledge to be embedded in the team itself rather than verified through others.
- Breadth of technical knowledge. Agile projects often create standalone applications that can be built quickly. This requires knowledge of current tools, coding practices, and the data stores from which information is extracted. With legacy systems, to ensure technical and business processes aren’t inadvertently altered , teams need in-depth knowledge of those systems, as well as the states of data as it passes through the systems. For example, suppose you extract profit information from existing systems. In that case, you need to know where to get the specific profit state data you want (like before taxes, after taxes, or other versions of profit) in the databases. The agile team must know this to avoid delays arising from quality assurance issues.
- Creative (and in-the-moment) problem-solving skills. One of the benefits of agile is…..it’s agility! Although the project’s intent is understood, how that intent will be satisfied isn’t always known. Customers learn as features are produced, which means what they ask for can and will change during the project. Those changes can present problems to solve, often quite spontaneously! As a result, all team members need keen problem-solving skills, because new requirements can mean challenges for business team members, technical team members, or both!
What other skills do you think are needed from agile team members? Share with us in the comments section.
For more about agile projects, check out Doug Rose’s Agile Foundations course.
Coming Up
My updated version of Learning Microsoft Project is now available in the LinkedIn Learning library. To celebrate, I’m holding an Ask Me Anything (AMA) Office Hours on October 8, 2024, at 1pm MT. Whether you take this updated course now or you’re an experienced Project user, this hour is for getting answers to questions you have about MS Project. (If there is a wild outpouring of questions, I will host another event in November.) To sign up, click here.
_______________________________________
This article belongs to the Bonnie’s Project Pointers newsletter series, which has more than 76,000 subscribers. This newsletter is 100% written by a human (no aliens or AIs involved). If you like this article, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article posts.
Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library and tune into my LinkedIn Office Hours live broadcasts.