One of the leadership tasks in an agile organization is to develop a framework for value determination and use. Both the Agile Manifesto and the Declaration of Interdependence identify business value as a key ingredient in agile projects, but going from the concept of focusing on value to a reality of making it happen takes effort and thinking within the context of your organization.

What kind of project manager do you need to be in an economic downturn? Project management, especially in the changing world of a recession, is challenging work. Just when you are feeling most pressured and vulnerable, you need to be strongest and most generous in mind and spirit. Indeed, as leadership guru John Kotter notes, "More change always requires more leadership." Effective project managers cannot be reduced to merely what they know (e.g., certification) and do (e.g., processes). So what makes a great project leader?

In this third and final Update in the series, we will discuss how the causes of project failure have changed and how those changes together with problems in project planning have guided software developers toward new agile development methods. We will see how other areas, such as testing and quality assurance, have also influenced the move toward agile, and we will consider whether Zhou Enlai would have waited more than 10 years to appreciate the effect of the turbulent software decade that has just ended.

If agility is about delivering customer value by being flexible, then how can adherence to a traditional scope, schedule, and cost plan be the best way to measure performance? It can't be. With pervasive change the norm, we can no longer "follow the plan with minimal changes." Instead, our focus needs to be on successfully adapting to inevitable changes. We need to move beyond the classic Iron Triangle measures to an Agile Triangle that focuses on Value, Quality, and Constraints. In this webinar, Cutter Agile Product & Project Management Practice Director Jim Highsmith will explore the necessity for and the rationale behind moving to this new set of agile performance measures.