A successful project-oriented company or organization usually has a Project Office responsible for establishing the standards, policies, procedures, processes, structures, patterns and methodologies that are applied during the life cycle of such projects. These companies and organizations have created and strengthened over time a "Project Culture" aligned with the methodology used during the initiation, planning, execution, control and monitoring, and closing of projects.
Changing a project organization oriented to the use of the Waterfall methodology towards an organization oriented to the use of Agile Methodologies, Scrum, etc. requires time and dedication, it is not as simple as it seems because it requires adapting the processes, structure, people and culture towards a new approach to projects.
Here the “Achilles heel” is presented with the cultural change and the formation of Project Teams. It is quite a paradigm shift to go from Directed Teams to Self-directed, Self-regulated Teams.
The formation of Self-directed Teams requires individual and collective maturity and commitment that is achieved through continuous interaction, management of emotions, oriented to teamwork, leadership and orientation to achievement, to results.
During this transition process, the team must build relationships of trust and friendship among its members, a fraternal environment must be created that breaks down communication barriers so that the team accepts each individuality and is open to cooperate to achieve the project objectives.
Many companies have understood this complexity in their attempt to apply the Agile methodology, which have adopted different approaches as a hybrid between the methodologies known as Scrum-Fall or Agile-Scrum. Others have adopted pilot plans selecting small, low complexity and priority projects in order to experiment with the application of the Agile methodology.
All these strategies or application and transition approaches are valid but the point, in my modest opinion, is in the formation and training of work teams, in unlearning and learning the new way of working, and in accompaniment during use. and application of the methodology, in gradually adapting the processes, standards, patterns, policies and procedures hand in hand with the maturity that the project teams have experienced, and the creation of a new culture of executing projects under the Agile methodology.
In this accompaniment the Project Office plays a fundamental role because they are the ones called to manage the transition and change process, it is responsible for the "coaching" of the teams together with the "Scrum Masters" or Scrum masters.
Remember that there are individuals who require little or no supervision, capable of producing quality results with very little supervision; but there are also others that require more attention and supervision to finish tasks. Also, let's remember that "Sprints" are short cycles (two or four weeks) to produce the deliverables and results. If there is no cohesion in the work teams, it is difficult to achieve the objectives and deliverables committed by the projects.
