Teaching Agile Project Management in an Agile Way

HEA BMAF workshop

University of Hertfordshire

24 June 2011

Colston Sanger

HEA BMAF Teaching Research and Development Award, 2009-10

Faculty Learning and Teaching Fellow 2008-9, 2007-8

sangerc@lsbu.ac.uk

Agenda

1. How it all began

2. Teaching agile project management in an agile way

3. Contributions, questions

1. How it all began …

How it all began …

Returning to HE

At University of Surrey, 2002-3

Within the BSc WBL and MSc CASS programmes

Working in an experiential, Gestalt-informed way

Self, peer and tutor assessment

At London South Bank University, 2006-

Within the MBA programme

The opportunity to develop a Managing Projects unit

A series of funded informal experiments

Faculty Learning and Teaching Fellowships, 2007-8, 2008-9

HEA BMAF Teaching Research and Development Award, 2009-10

2. Teaching agile project management in an agile way

Managing Projects

Managing Projects

Not Project Management

… as a team sport

Requires

involvement, engagement

Working on real or „near real‟

projects

Staying alive to change

Frequent decision points

Communication, simplici

ty, feedback, courage

Intended learning outcomes

Knowledge and

understanding

Describe …

Identify

similarities, differences, conn

ections …

Intellectual skills

Evaluate…

Analyse …

Exercise appropriate

judgement …

Practical subject-specific

skills

Develop …

Demonstrate …

Transferable skills

Manage own learning …

Communicate effectively …

Work with others …

Recognise and support

followership, and be

proactive in leadership

Calibrating the process of

learning

Learning

agreement

Check-in

Weekly project

progress reviews

End of unit project

retrospective

Staying alive to change

Frequent decision points

Communication, simplicity, feed

back, courage

And also forms of congruent or

„authentic‟ assessment

Near real projects

You are members of the Special Projects team at the London Borough of Cross River

Your Chief Executive had a GREAT IDEA …

A summer Street Ski Jump Festival!

Ski jump

San Francisco 29/9/05

A summer ski festival

The great glass elevator

Landmark urban

regeneration

A solution to the inner

London housing crisis

Unlimited student

residences for Cross

River University…

Castle House,

Elephant & Castle

The “Elevator”

A London village fête?

2010-11 Project Challenge

Team Olympia

End of unit project

retrospective

What they said

Being asked what we had learnt

about managing projects at the

start of every class was

something I learnt a lot from. It

helped me reflect on experiences I

had with several formal and

informal groups I have been

involved with at LSBU this

semester.

But the main lesson, both for the human

and managerial side, has been that a very

high percentage of a project success

comes from the team coordination and

cohesion. Personally speaking, I believe

team members' motivation to achieve the

goal came from trust, perceived equality

in hierarchical terms, and pleasing work

environment. Sometimes this

atmosphere comes naturally, some other

times it needs to be created …

In this unit we were taught to find

many of the answers ourselves,

which I have personally learned

much more from... I learned to be

less dependent on teacher advice

and more dependent on my own,

which has given me more

confidence. I think this was a

really good learning experience.

Sometimes teachers answer far

too many questions easily when

they really need to let the student

search for their own answers.

Regarding my own learning

on the Managing Projects

course, I have to say that I

have really enjoyed the

classes, and the outcome

has been greater than I

would have expected...

Contributions, questions