PMI-ACP Course Notes

Think empirically: learn quickly, make work and risk visible, and adapt based on evidence. Use agile values and principles, but tailor the approach to the situation rather than forcing one framework everywhere. Build collaborative, psychologically safe teams; involve stakeholders early; shorten feedback loops; and treat change as information that can improve the product.

• Treating agile as 'no planning' instead of adaptive planning with frequent inspection.

• When two answers both sound agile, prefer the one that produces learning sooner with the least irreversible commitment.

Agile leadership enables people instead of directing every action. Build trust, coach for capability, create collective ownership, solve problems with the team, and make knowledge flow. Model agile behaviors, keep everyone aligned to a shared purpose, and handle conflict collaboratively by addressing root causes rather than personalities.

• Equating empowerment with abandoning the team or removing all boundaries.

• Agile leader = enable, coach, align, facilitate.

Product work is about turning needs into a visible, ordered flow of value. Keep the backlog clear and appropriately decomposed, deliver increments aligned to business priorities, demonstrate them early, and measure whether they create the intended outcomes. Make work visible and define value broadly enough to include customer results, quality, sustainability, security, privacy, and compliance where relevant.

• Treating the backlog as a fixed requirements document.

• Backlog question? Think clarify -> prioritize -> decompose -> size.

Delivery turns agile intent into a reliable flow of customer value. Deliver in small increments, collect feedback early, use metrics for decisions, manage risks and impediments proactively, remove waste, and verify that improvements actually help. Keep customers engaged and optimize flow by limiting WIP, protecting focus, and using evidence such as cycle time, lead time, throughput, defects, and work aging.

• Using velocity or any single metric as a universal measure of productivity or individual performance.

• Feedback problem? Make the increment smaller and the loop faster.