Agile Project Management — Beginners Guide to Agile Project Management

According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), the world’s top Agile Project Management certification authority, the global economy would require 25 million additional project management professionals by 2030. To keep up with demand, 2.3 million workers will need to enter project management-oriented employment (PMOE) each year.

According to Glassdoor, managers can end up making a pay scale of $90,890 per year. A Scrum Master’s average base salary is $99,492, with the low end at $72,000 and the high end at $137,000. However, when you begin your research into which methodology is best for you, you’re likely to come across one term that appears again. Traditionally, project management has been approached in a linear way.

Project managers have traditionally been educated to work towards specific and pre-defined deadlines, budgets, and scopes, based on the idea that projects have a clear meaning of “done.” However, such notion is becoming more incorrect. As agile becomes the norm, the systems that power many of our enterprises are transitioning from fixed to continuous. The moment we declare a system to be “done,” it begins its spiral into usefulness.

Agile methodologies have swept the project management industry, both in IT and non-IT businesses. In this article we will discuss all about Agile project management and will be covering the following topics:

• What is agile project management?
• A brief history of agile
• The 4 core values of agile
• The 12 agile project management principles
• What are the benefits of agile project management?
• Agile Project Management Tools

What is Agile Project Management?

Agile project management is an iterative approach to software development projects that guarantees input is immediately acted upon and responsive changes are made at each level of a sprint or product cycle.
This enables project teams to use agile project management approaches to operate swiftly and collaboratively within a project’s deadline and budget.
Many agile project management approaches were created with software in mind, however the underlying agile ideals and agile project management concepts may be applied to a wide range of teams, from product teams to marketing teams.

Here’s a good agile project management definition if you’re only seeking a definition of agile project management.

“Agile project management is a collaborative, iterative project management approach that incorporates continuous testing and responsiveness to change.”

A Brief History of Agile Project Management

Back in the 1990s, software teams discovered that the highly organized “heavyweight” traditional project management approaches (such as Waterfall) just weren’t cutting it when it came to the way they needed to work. They discovered that the drawbacks of these heavyweight approaches, such as a lack of flexibility, adaptability, and even autonomy, made it more difficult for them to respond to change and apply their learnings as they worked. There was no space for surprise because the project plans were specified from the start, and deviations may be expensive.
It all began in the spring of 2000, when a group of 17 software professionals, including Martin Fowler, Jim Highsmith, Jon Kern, Jeff Sutherland, Ken Schwaber, and Bob Martin, gathered in Oregon to explore how they might shorten development periods in order to get new products to market more quickly.
They identified two important possibilities that would be made attainable by fulfilling this goal:

reducing the time it takes to deliver benefits to consumers in order to overcome product-market fit and development graveyard issues
Receiving input from users as soon as possible to validate the utility of new software and continue to enhance it as needed.

While this conference did not result in the Agile technique that we know today, it was a watershed moment in the history of Agile, as speed to market, fast feedback, and continuous improvement are all trademarks of the Agile methodology.

The 4 Core Values of Agile Project Management

Whether you’re creating software or something totally different (like a marketing campaign), there are lots of takeaways you can apply, no matter what industry you’re working in. The original Agile Manifesto declares that agile has 4 core values:

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.

These core values are at the heart of all agile project management approaches. What becomes clear from the core values is that agile approaches are, above all, collaborative and people-driven.

That applies not only to the working processes (progress is made through “individuals and interactions” and “customer collaboration”, putting the human element front and center), but also to the finished products. That is, the goal is to create something functional that delivers the most value to the end-user.

The 12 Agile Project Management Principles

According to the Agile Manifesto, there are 12 key principles of agile project management. In the manifesto’s own words, they are:

1. The number one priority is customer satisfaction through the early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing developments, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity — the art of maximizing the amount of work not done — is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

When it comes down to it, whether you’re talking about actual software or using it as a metaphor for whatever you’re creating (let’s call it “The Thing”), agile methods encourage you to deliver iterations of “The Thing” quickly and often — because it’s better for “The Thing” to exist in flawed reality than in perfect theory.

What are the benefits of Agile Project Management?

Superior quality product:

Testing is an integral component of the project execution phase in Agile project management, which implies that the overall quality of the final product is higher. The client is still active in the development process and can request adjustments based on market realities. Because Agile is an iterative process, self-organizing teams continue to learn and develop over time, and they continue to improve.

Customer satisfaction:

The consumer is constantly included in the decision-making process in Agile, which leads to higher customer retention. The client is only involved in the planning phase and has no effect on execution, which reduces flexibility and adaptability. You give value to the customer and guarantee that the final product is actually suited to their expectations by keeping them in the loop and making modifications based on their input.

Another advantage of Agile Project Management is that the time to market is greatly decreased. This enables the product owner to capitalize on the opportunity and, in some situations, enjoy first-mover advantage.

Better control:

Because of its openness, feedback integration, and quality-control features, Agile gives managers more influence over the project. Through modern reporting tools and procedures, quality is assured throughout the project’s implementation phase, and all stakeholders are involved in the process with daily progress updates.

Improved Project Predictability:

With better visibility, forecasting hazards and devising efficient risk mitigation strategies becomes easier. There are many approaches to detect and foresee hazards inside the Agile framework, as well as prepare to guarantee that the project runs successfully.

Scrum approach, for example, employs sprint backlogs and burndown charts to boost project visibility, allowing managers to forecast performance and prepare appropriately.

Reduced risks:

In principle, every project that follows the Agile process will never fail. Agile is implemented in tiny sprints with an emphasis on continuous delivery. Even if a certain technique does not go as anticipated, there is always a tiny element that may be saved and used in the future.

Increased Adaptability:

When Agile is properly applied in a project team, it provides them with unprecedented flexibility. Teams work in shorter spurts, complemented by the product owner’s continual input and engagement. Changes in other project management approaches are typically time-consuming and costly.

Agile, on the other hand, breaks the project into small sprints that are both manageable and flexible enough to allow the team to adopt changes quickly. One of the primary reasons why dynamic firms want to employ Agile in their projects is its unrivalled adaptability.

More relevant metrics:

Agile teams employ more precise and relevant metrics in predicting time and cost and monitoring project performance than traditional techniques. The Agile technique focuses on creating outcomes and optimizing performance, whereas the Waterfall methodology focuses on how closely the project is tracking against the expected cost and time.

Agile generates critical metrics like as lead time, cycle time, and throughput, which aid in measuring team performance, identifying bottlenecks, and making data-driven choices to address them.

Increased Team Morale:

Agile teams have enhanced autonomy and power over their decisions since they are self-organized and self-managing. The project manager protects the team from the influence of sponsors and management.

The teams’ cross-functional structure also allows members to learn new project management skills and advance in their present jobs. The team meets often to discuss difficulties and situations, allowing them to interact more effectively. Because team sizes are limited, Agile fosters a close-knit atmosphere in which teams can have flexible team configurations.

Agile Project Management Tools

Let’s now look at a list of the best Agile project management tools for small and large enterprises.

ProofHub

ProofHub is a smart and feature-rich agile project management software that is utilized by major companies. With this collaborative application, teams can easily exchange ideas, assemble papers, start debates, and move ahead. The program includes all of the tools and capabilities you’ll need to successfully complete your projects utilizing Agile technique. It is also suitable for managing your projects utilizing other project management approaches such as critical path method (CPM), getting things done (GTD), and so on.

Wrike

Wrike is great for centralizing and linking numerous projects, as well as increasing team efficiency. It has a negative reputation for having a utilitarian UI, but much as with team week’s tool, setting up your project tasks will be a piece of cake. Although Wrike keeps their releases and features up to date, their mobile versions suffer from a slight latency in the process. This may be inconvenient if you expect to see updates on your mobile devices at the same time they occur on your desktop.

Smartsheet

Smartsheet describes how teams cooperate on projects and activities such as operations management, marketing campaign tracking, and event planning. Smartsheet analyses many business solutions, including diverse roles and sectors. It unifies cross-functional goals, allows for free and open cooperation, and allows you to form teams with no constraints.

Active Collab

Active Collab is created as a fantastic business solution. You will no longer have to keep your clients waiting with Active Collab. You can control what each user sees and accesses, keep them informed, and share what’s essential with them. It provides for project planning, file sharing, time monitoring, expenditure tracking, brainstorming, and discussion of critical topics, among other things.

Asana

Asana is the ultimate cloud-based project and task management application for task planning, organization, and tracking. From Boards to Timelines, Asana provides the features your team requires from start to end. Asana track launches and iterations, project and sprint planning, and communication with coworkers for Agile project management.

We can conclude by saying that agile project management methodology enables your firm to be more adaptable and to respond to emergent developments. When the following characteristics like Transparency Customer Service, Adaptability, Ownership Feeling (Shared Leadership), Continuous Enhancement etc are present in a project, it is deemed.

If you want to become an expert in Project Management, do check out Edureka’s Project Management Program Certification Training which will train you in Project Management from certified Project Managers!

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Do look out for other articles in this series which will explain the various other aspects of Project management

Originally published at https://www.edureka.co on March 15, 2022.