Agile practitioners must demonstrate strong leadership skills to guide agile teams effectively. This involves understanding agile principles and methodologies, fostering a collaborative environment, and encouraging innovation and continuous learning. Agile leaders use systems thinking to analyze situations, assess risks, and apply the right agile methods. They also interpret agile suitability tools, develop high-performing teams, and use retrospectives for improvement. Strong leadership means building consensus, supporting team decisions—even when there’s disagreement—and tailoring approaches based on the team’s agile maturity.
Recommended Reading from the PMI Agile Practice Guide
Before diving into the Leadership domain, review these sections from the PMI Agile Practice Guide:
4. Implementing Agile: Creating an Agile Environment
Current PMI Members can download the PMI Agile Practice Guide PDF.
Tasks in the Leadership Domain
Below are short descriptions of each key task you should master for this domain (click on task name for detailed information):
Task 1: Empower Teams
Create a trusting environment where team members feel motivated, supported, and responsible for collective goals. Encourage learning through coaching, mentoring, and emotional intelligence.
Task 2: Facilitate Problem Resolution
Help the team identify the root causes of issues and collaborate to find timely, valuable solutions.
Task 3: Promote Knowledge Sharing
Encourage capturing and sharing lessons learned, leverage organizational knowledge, and make time for continuous improvement.
Task 4: Promote Agile Mindset Principles and Practices
Raise awareness of agile values and principles, nurture continuous improvement, and celebrate agile behaviors.
Task 5: Promote Shared Vision and Purpose
Ensure everyone understands the team’s purpose and vision, keep work aligned with organizational goals, and communicate the vision regularly.
Task 6: Facilitate Conflict Management
Identify sources and levels of conflict within the team, and promote collaborative approaches to resolve them constructively.
Summary
The Leadership domain focuses on developing the skills to effectively lead agile teams. Successful agile leaders empower and motivate their teams, resolve problems collaboratively, promote knowledge sharing, champion agile values, foster a shared vision, and manage conflicts constructively. Mastering these tasks ensures agile practitioners can drive high performance and deliver value in any agile environment.