How Project Managers Can Evolve Their Skills for Scrum

How Project Managers Can Evolve Their Skills for Scrum

Project Management isn’t going away; it’s just evolving.

As a project manager, you may feel pressured to abandon your identity if your company is moving to Scrum. The good news is you don’t have to do that—your skills and experience serve a valuable purpose in agile organizations; you may just need to evolve your approach.

Distilling the Myth: Scrum Replaces Project Managers

Scrum shouldn’t wave a magic wand and call all project managers Scrum Masters. Even though it’s what many companies have tried to do over the past 20 years, we’ve seen this approach backfire time and again. Companies still need structure, especially large, complex organizations with multiple teams, heavy project loads, and competing priorities.

The goal of Scrum isn’t to pretend that organizational complexity disappears. The framework doesn’t eliminate leadership, planning, coordination, and organizational alignment. It was designed to improve how those things happen.

We’ve seen project managers removed from Scrum teams because of the traditional command-and-control approach that was once the norm. That, coupled with some agilist’s perception of no bosses and free rein, caused a lot of conflict.

Today we’re coming to a mature place in the industry, recognizing that we need to meet in the middle. We can’t have 100 percent autonomy, but we can’t have 100 percent control either.

3 Ways PMs Can Evolve Skills for Scrum

#1) Focus on Business Alignment

Strategic alignment between what the business needs and what teams deliver is an ongoing need. While the teams’ Product Owners may take on some of this responsibility, it’s important to work with them to identify potential gaps and define roles and responsibilities within your company to avoid friction. However, here are some tangible ways you could foster business alignment:

• Facilitate project prioritization sessions to align business stakeholders and Scrum teams on what matters most.
• Connect sprint goals to business outcomes by validating that each team’s sprint goal ladders back up to a measurable business objective, not just a feature list.
• Create a stakeholder communication framework to report up across teams.

#2) Manage Cross-Team Dependencies

As a project manager, you’re accustomed to working with complex projects and managing dependencies. Often in Scrum, projects or programs span multiple teams, but Scrum doesn’t specifically address cross-team collaboration; rather, the framework focuses on single-team success.

As you know, one team may depend on another to get work across the finish line. It’s important to have someone who’s specifically tuned into how one team’s work may impact another’s.

While you’re managing these dependencies, you’ll want to find a single point of contact on each Scrum team with whom you’ll communicate. It will typically be the team’s Scrum Master, but sometimes the Product Owner may be the best person. Discuss with the teams how you’ll communicate project status and the best ways to get updates. The goal is communication, not micro-management.

If timelines are falling behind, you’ll want to work with the Scrum Master to find creative ways to unblock the team.

Pro tip: Never go directly to the team and get angry about work being behind. This is the fastest way to lose trust with a Scrum team. Instead, proactively problem-solve with the Scrum Master about how to help the team, but don’t try to be too heavy-handed in fixing the team’s problems yourself, as a self-organized team should be encouraged to solve its own problems first.

#3) Provide Change Management Support

If your organization is new to Scrum, there’s a lot of change management work happening. Work with leaders and Scrum Masters to identify where people are resistant to change and facilitate coaching conversations, training workshops, or other creative approaches to help people adopt change. Be sure to work closely with each team’s Scrum Master to carefully define roles and responsibilities to avoid any collisions.

The Next Wave of Project Management

Project management is evolving, but it’s never going to go away. Your skills as a detail-oriented person who can communicate with all levels of an organization are invaluable. We’re just entering a new era in the field. It’s more about collaboration and empowering people than it was before. While you’re still managing timelines and budgets, you’re not responsible for team members’ day-to-day tasks. And guess what? This is a good change! You can focus on bigger problems that are deeply rooted in the organization, giving your role a wider scope and a bigger impact.

Learn Scrum for Project Managers

If you’ve ever wondered how project management fits within Scrum—or how to remain an effective leader in an agile organization—our Scrum for Project Managers course was designed specifically for you.

You’ll learn how to work with Scrum teams, manage dependencies, communicate effectively with stakeholders, forecast delivery, and lead without relying on command-and-control practices.

Whether you’re new to Scrum or looking to sharpen your agile leadership skills, this course provides practical techniques you can apply immediately.

Learn more about Scrum for Project Managers, and get the skills you need to thrive in a Scrum organization.