Agile Project Management

 

1.     AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Ø  Agile Project Management is one of the revolutionary methods introduced for the practice of project management.

Ø  This is one of the latest project management strategies that is mainly applied to project management practice in software development.

Ø  Therefore, it is best to relate agile project management to the software development process when understanding it.

Ø  From the inception of software development as a business, there have been a number of processes following, such as the waterfall model.

Ø  With the advancement of software development, technologies and business requirements, the traditional models are not robust enough to cater the demands.

Ø  Therefore, more flexible software development models were required in order to address the agility of the requirements.

Ø  As a result of this, the information technology community developed agile software development models.

Ø  'Agile' is an umbrella term used for identifying various models used for agile development, such as Scrum.

Ø  Since agile development model is different from conventional models, agile project management is a specialized area in project management.

2.           THE AGILE PROCESS

Ø  It is required for one to have a good understanding of the agile development process in order to understand agile project management.

There are many differences in agile development model when compared to traditional models:

Ø  The agile model emphasizes on the fact that entire team should be a tightly integrated unit. This includes the developers, quality assurance, project management, and the customer.

Ø  Frequent communication is one of the key factors that makes this integration possible. Therefore, daily meetings are held in order to determine the day's work and dependencies.

Ø  Deliveries are short-term. Usually a delivery cycle ranges from one week to four weeks. These are commonly known as sprints.

Ø  Agile project teams follow open communication techniques and tools which enable the team members (including the customer) to express their views and feedback openly and quickly.

Ø  These comments are then taken into consideration when shaping the requirements and implementation of the software.

3.           SCOPE OF AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Ø  In an agile project, the entire team is responsible in managing the team and it is not just the project manager's responsibility. When it comes to processes and procedures, the common sense is used over the written policies.

Ø  This makes sure that there is no delay is management decision making and therefore things can progress faster.

Ø  In addition to being a manager, the agile project management function should also demonstrate the leadership and skills in motivating others. This helps retaining the spirit among the team members and gets the team to follow discipline.

Ø  Agile project manager is not the 'boss' of the software development team. Rather, this function facilitates and coordinates the activities and resources required for quality and speedy software development.

4.           RESPONSIBILITIES OF AN AGILE PROJECT MANAGER

The responsibilities of an agile project management function are given below. From one project to another, these responsibilities can slightly change and are interpreted differently.

Ø  Responsible for maintaining the agile values and practices in the project team.

Ø  The agile project manager removes impediments as the core function of the role.

Ø  Helps the project team members to turn the requirements backlog into working software functionality.

Ø  Facilitates and encourages effective and open communication within the team.

Ø  Responsible for holding agile meetings that discusses the short-term plans and plans to overcome obstacles.

Ø  Enhances the tool and practices used in the development process.

Ø  Agile project manager is the chief motivator of the team and plays the mentor role for the team members as well.

5.           AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT DOES NOT

Ø  manage the software development team.

Ø  overrule the informed decisions taken by the team members.

Ø  direct team members to perform tasks or routines.

Ø  drive the team to achieve specific milestones or deliveries.

Ø  assign task to the team members.

Ø  make decisions on behalf of the team.

Ø  involve in technical decision making or deriving the product strategy.

Agile project management terms

Agile terminology can be confusing. We have compiled a list of the most common agile terms you may come across, and their definitions:

·         Agilea project management approach based on delivering requirements iteratively and incrementally throughout the life cycle.

·         Agile development – an umbrella term specifically for iterative software development methodologies. Popular methods include Scrum, Lean, DSDM and eXtreme Programming (XP).

·         Agile Manifesto – describes the four principles of agile development: 1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. 2. Working software over comprehensive documentation. 3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. 4. Responding to change over following a plan.

·         Backlog – prioritised work still to be completed (see Requirements).

·         Burn down chart – used to monitor progress; shows work still to complete (the Backlog) versus total time.

·         Cadence – the number of days or weeks in a Sprint or release; the length of the team’s development cycle. 

·         Ceremonies – meetings, often a daily planning meeting, that identify what has been done, what is to be done and the barriers to success.

·         DAD (disciplined agile delivery) – a process-decision framework.

·         Daily Scrum – stand-up team meeting. A plan, do, review daily session.

·         DevOps (development/operations) – bridges the gap between agile teams and operational delivery to production.

·         DSDM (dynamic systems development method) – agile development methodology, now changed to the ‘DSDM project management framework’.

·         Kanban – a method for managing work, with an emphasis on just-in-time delivery.

·         Kanban board – a work and workflow visualisation tool which summarises the status, progress, and issues related to the work.

·         Lean – a method of working focused on ‘eliminating waste’ by avoiding anything that does not produce value for the customer.

·         LeSS (large-scale Scrum) – agile development method.

·         RAD (rapid application development) – agile development method; enables developers to build solutions quickly by talking directly to end users to meet business requirement.

·         Requirements – are written as ‘stories’ that are collated into a prioritised list called the ‘Backlog’.

·         SAFe (scaled agile framework enterprise) – agile methodology used for software development.

·         Scaled agile – agile scaled up to large projects or programmes, for example by having multiple sub-projects, creating tranches of projects, etc.

·         Scrum – agile methodology commonly used in software development, where regular team meetings review progress of a single development phase (or Sprint).  

·         Scrum of scrums – a technique to operate Scrum at scale, for multiple teams working on the same product.

·         Scrum master – the person who oversees the development process and who makes sure everyone adheres to an agreed way of working.

·         Sprints – a short development phase within a larger project defined by available time (‘timeboxes’) and resources.

·         Sprint retrospective – a review of a Sprint providing lessons learned with the aim of promoting continuous improvement.

·         Stories – see Requirements.

·         Timeboxes – see Sprints.

·         Velocity – a measure of work completed during a single development phase or Sprint.

·         Waterfall – a sequential project management approach that seeks to capture detailed requirements upfront; the opposite to agile.

·         XP (eXtreme Programming) – agile development methodology used in software development; allows programmers to decide the scope of deliveries.