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MIS608: Agile Project Management

Learning Outcomes

Reflect on the Agile process and the influence on the individual’s professional development within the method used in this subject with particular emphasis on Agile roles within teams.

Task Summary

You are required to write and submit a 1500-word individual reflection about Agile ways of working and Agile teams in preparation for your group assignment. The aim of this assessment is to maximise your team performance through practical project experience with learnings you can take to your future workplace (some people in your team may annoy you now, but they are very likely to represent the people you will work with in future – so learning these lessons now gives you a head start in the soft skills required for your career).

You will be expected to examine and reflect upon Agile Ways of Working in your team – working towards Assessment 3 as a project with your team, specifically on the following conceptual areas:

1. The Agile Mindset
2. Psychological Safety
3. Servant leadership

Please refer to the Task Instructions for details on how to complete this task.

In professional life, while some parts of a job require individual contribution but progressively more work requires collaboration and group work.

Group learning is designed to help you to learn about the process of collaboration in preparation for your career.

Agile teams and agile ways of working are becoming ubiquitous in workplaces, and you will likely be a part of an agile team in your career.  However, agile is very different from the more traditional ‘command and control’ management methods to which many people are accustomed. It requires self-organisation and teamwork, rather than being told what to do.

This assessment is made up of three questions that will guide you to think about how your team are working together:

Question 1 – Servant Leadership

“….The great leader is seen as servant first…” – Robert Greenleaf

Leadership is often conflated or associated with a ‘command and control’ culture with people who ‘take charge’. Robert K Greenleaf saw a different way – to understand read this brief article about Servant Leadership before answering this question:

White, S. K. (2022). What is Servant Leadership? A philosophy for people-first leadership. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/executive/resources/articles/pages/servantleadership-.aspx

Looking at the seven pillars of servant leadership in the article, select two of the pillars and give an example for each of how you have demonstrated this way of working with your team members.  Describe how your behaviour aligned with what is described in each pillar and the outcome that it helped you to achieve.

Now describe an example where one of the pillars was not used, but how using that

particular pillar would have helped the team to achieve a better outcome.

Question 2 – Mindset

Survey your mindset: Review this article and video to answer this question: Dweck, C. (2016. What Having a “Growth Mindset” actually means. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-having-agrowth-mindset-actually-means

Looking at these dimensions, answer the following questions:

1. Consider a team member that is working with you on the group assessment that demonstrates characteristics of a growth mindset:
   1. Which characteristics stand out as good examples in their ‘ways of working’ of their growth mindset?
   2. How do these characteristics help the group to move forward as a team?
   3. Has this team member had to respond to criticism? How did they receive the criticism, and how did they respond?
2. Consider a team member whom you feel is demonstrating a fixed mindset in working together:
   1. Share an example to describe why you think they have a fixed mindset. What characteristics, in particular, seemed to demonstrate a fixed mindset in action?
   2. Why do you think this team member is behaving this way?
   3. Do you see any examples where this team member may show some signs of a growth mindset – share an example.
   4. What actions do you think you can take to help this team member bring their growth mindset to the fore more often?

Question 3 – Psychological Safety

You will need to read Chapter 4 – Dangerous Silence in Edmondson, A. C. (2018). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.  Retrieved from

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/think/reader.action?docID=5596894&ppg=101

There are parallels between the Andon cord from Lean and Edmondson’s discussion about psychological safety in workplaces.

1. Describe a time when you have found it difficult to speak up – explain what you did or did not do and what the impact was to you and others for the choice you made to either speak up – or not.
2. How does a culture of ‘command and culture’ stifle psychological safety? Can you give an example of this from your personal experience and what was the outcome?
3. Select one of the examples in Chapter 4 of the reading – how would you have ‘pulled the Andon cord’ in this situation? How do you believe that knowing how catastrophic the outcome was going to be would have given you the courage to speak out?

Task Instructions

1. Write a 1500-word reflective report addressing the concepts of agile teams and agile ways of working.
2. Please structure your report as follows:

Cover page: Include a cover page with the subject code and subject name, assignment title, student’s name, student number, enrolled program (master of …) and lecturer’s name.

Table of Contents:

Introduction (100-150 words): This will also serve as your statement of purpose for this report – this means that you will tell the reader what you are going to cover in your report.  You will need to inform the reader of:

1. In brief – what you have reflected on.
2. What the reader can expect to find in the body of the report

The body of the report (1000-1200 words) – word distribution is something you need to consider in your assessment response design:

1. QUESTION 1 – Servant Leadership
2. QUESTION 2 – Mindset
3. QUESTION 3 – Psychological Safety

Conclusion: Summarise the one important element from each question as the most important action that you can take to make sure that your group optimise their performance and achievement for Assessment 3.

Format and Layout

Please use font Arial or Calibri 11 point, should be line spaced at 1.5 for ease of reading and page numbers on the bottom of each page.

If diagrams or tables are used, due attention should be given to pagination to avoid loss of meaning and continuity by unnecessarily splitting information over two pages. Diagrams must carry the appropriate captioning.