Agile Project Management Introduction

Agile Project Management Introduction

• Competitive environments and rapid technological change are driving organizations to become more agile and adaptive.
• Traditional project management approaches often struggle due to their need for upfront planning, making adjustments difficult.
• Agile approaches offer more flexibility by allowing frequent iterations and rapid feedback from customers.
• Agile is a guiding philosophy with principles implemented by methodologies like Crystal, Kanban, Scrum, and eXtreme Programming.
• Organizations are increasingly using a DevOps approach to manage information systems (IS) projects.
• The DevOps approach is based on agile principles and involves collaboration between development and operations engineers throughout the system's lifecycle.

The Agile Manifesto

• Its a declaration specifying the aims of agile approaches, which emphasises the following
• Individuals and interactions are more important than processes and tools.
• Working software is more important than comprehensive documentation.
• Customer collaboration is more important than contract negotiation.
• Responding to change is more important than following a plan.

The Predictive vs Agile Project Management Life Cycle

• All projects balance time, costs, and scope to deliver a product with specified performance & quality.
• Predictive lifecycles go through the stages of analyzing, designing, building, testing and deploying the system based on requirements.
• Scope is defined early and drives time and costs, requirements are assumed to vary and change in an agile approach.
• Intended features of the final product are prioritized, then the team works on the most important feature first.
• Iterations are development phases (typically timeboxed) where all work for a specific deliverable is performed.

Predictive vs. Agile

• In each iteration, the team analyzes, designs, builds, tests, and deploys each feature before moving on.
• Iterations are usually timeboxes of equal duration, such as 7 or 14 days, with the goal of delivering a working feature each time.
• Depending on the project, a hybrid approach is sometimes beneficial.
• Agile approaches may be used to build the software, but predictive approaches are used for later phases.
• The choice of a life cycle depends on the specific project needs, such as size, scope, timeline, and number of people involved.
• Methodologies under the agile umbrella include Crystal, Kanban, Scrum, and eXtreme Programming.

Scrum – Key Terms

• Scrum is a widely used agile methodology that uses short sprints to deliver software at regular intervals.
• Sprint: Lasts 1-2 weeks -> sprint planning meeting, daily stand-ups, sprint demo, sprint retrospective
• Sprint Planning Meeting: Team jointly decides feature to implement
• Daily Stand-ups: Fifteen-minute stand-up meetings to discuss issues faced during the previous day and the current day's goal.
• Sprint Review: The team presents the work completed during the sprint.
• Sprint Retrospective: Identifies process positives and negatives, and agrees on changes for the next sprint.
• Product Owner: Conveys vision, guides priority of features to deliver
• Scrum Master: Facilitator aiding the Scrum team to maximize effectiveness.
• Scrum Team: Five to seven cross-functional members jointly responsible to deliver product on time and at quality
• Servant Leader: Serves the team, helping them succeed

Managing Agile Project Teams

• Its important to use agile methodologies but also manage a team with an agile mindset.
• Teams should understand value of early & continuous delivery, how to timebox to minimize distractions & focus.
• Ideally, project team members should be 100% dedicated to the team.
• Agile teams must be cross-functional with designers, developers, & testers which allows them to produce the finished product.

Agile Team Roles

• The agile team includes 3-9 dedicated and collocated members, who are self-organizing, work towards successful completion.
• The team requires agile mindset.
• Scrum teams are made of cross-functional members.
• Typically Includes a Product Owner (often with business background)
• Team Facilitator (called Scrum Master in Scrum)
• Servant Leader

Managing Communication in Agile Projects

• Agile teams require close collaboration, daily standups, and dedicated space with minimal interruptions.
• Collocation is preferred, though Agile is being used amongst distributed teams.
• Distributed teams use communication such as always-on videoconferencing and repositories.
• Distributed teams often struggle with time zone differences.