Agile Project Management: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners

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Regarding project planning and execution, teams are always cautioned to stick to the plan during a crisis. This rigid approach doesn’t always yield the desired outcomes as there’s little or no adjustment to changes that arise while implementing it.

Agile project management, on the other hand, takes on a continuous development methodology when executing a project. It promotes collaboration and flexibility, breaking down the cycle into small, manageable tasks to cultivate continuous development.

This approach makes agile project management the go-to methodology in various industries. Statistics show that nearly 71% of companies use agile project management in their operations.

Are you a beginner wondering what this methodology entails? This comprehensive guide explains Agile project management in detail.

What is Agile Project Management?

This is a methodology that breaks a project cycle into small, manageable processes called sprints to help developers focus on continuous improvement in product development. The premise is to help teams release segments as they complete them while identifying flawed segments to improve or fix them.

This approach reduces the risk of large-scale failure because there’s continuous improvement throughout the project’s lifecycle. It also eliminates the need to develop and test a product only to discover that it doesn’t satisfy a user’s needs. Instead, the project is divided into small product segments developed and tested into 2-4 week cycles.

Agile project management uses cross-functional teams that work closely with other stakeholders, e.g., customers, to formalize feedback loops and make adjustments at the end of every sprint. This collaborative nature of project management means responsibilities are divided into three roles only:

• The product owner: This is the person responsible for developing project goals, managing its scope, and adapting it to changes
• Development team: These are the individuals who handle most of the project’s assignments, including daily management, reporting on the team’s progress, and quality control
• Scrum master: This is the person who guides the team, prioritizes a project’s tasks, and eliminates impediments

Agile Project Management Manifesto- Its Values and Principles

To better understand the Agile Project Management methodology, it’s important to learn about its manifesto, which highlights its core values and principles. APM is based on four values and 12 principles.

Agile Project Management Values

These are the founding guidelines project managers and companies use when applying the methodology to their projects:

Individuals and Interactions Over Tools and Process

Agile methodology values people and interactions more than software and technological tools. Remember, people are more responsive to change than any tool could.

Collaboration with Customers Over Negotiating Contracts

Traditional project management methodologies follow strict contractual requirements which don’t always represent the user’s needs. That’s why APM prefers working with the customer, which makes adding requirements as deemed fit easy. This flexibility ensures that the customer gets exactly what they need.

Working Software instead of Comprehensive Documentation

While documentation is essential, Agile guides the team to focus on delivering the desired product or service to the customer instead of getting stuck in producing paperwork.

Responsiveness to Change Rather than Following a Plan

Agile methodologies require teams to respond to change to ensure work aligns with business priorities. The product owner still makes a plan but may need to deviate from it to address customers’ values and needs.

Agile Principles

These principles describe an Agile team’s culture and how they align with business and customers’ needs. They include:

1. Satisfying a client’s needs throughout the project early and continuous delivery
2. There may be a need for teams to change the project’s requirements at any time in its lifecycle
3. Consistently deliver a functional product
4. Embrace face-to-face communication whenever possible
5. Units should be able to organize themselves to provide the best software
6. Teams must evaluate themselves regularly to enhance effectiveness
7. Focus on simplicity when designing a product to maximize the work done
8. Develop projects around motivated team members working within an environment they love and feel supported to get the work done
9. Identify ways to improve the product or service and adjust the plan accordingly
10. A working product should be the basis for progress
11. Team members must work together every day throughout the project
12. Create a sustainable work environment to allow team members to work at a consistent pace

How Agile Project Management Works

Agile project management redefines how projects are planned and executed. It eliminates the typical project plans in traditional project management methodologies, substituting them with five simple steps:

Envision

The customer submits a request or story of a product they want to the agile team or product owner. The team then conceptualizes the product, aligning it with customer needs. At this stage, the team also determines who works on the project.

Speculate

Next, the team and the product owner determine the product’s initial requirements. Members brainstorm ideas, develop product features, and outline the project’s timeline milestones.

Explore

The team begins developing the product while exploring alternatives that could improve it. The teams work on individual milestones and iterate before going to the next step.

Adapt

The results are reviewed at this stage, and teams adapt to the required changes.  The premise is to change or correct the product’s features based on customers’ feedback. Customer feedback is critical to every project step as it helps meet the end-user’s needs.

Close

Here, the final results are reviewed, and teams adapt the product to the desired changes. Also, the team members, product owners, and project managers review mistakes and problems they encounter to avoid repeating them.

How Agile Project Management Compares with Traditional Project Management

Notably, traditional project management methods like Waterfall differ from agile project management in the following ways:

Linear Management vs Iterative Development

First, Waterfall takes a more rigid and linear approach as the plan is laid out from the get-go. Agile project management, on the other hand, emphasizes iterative development, allowing flexibility and adaptability throughout the lifecycle.

Collaboration vs. Individualism

Another notable difference is the collaborative nature of agile project management. It uses customer feedback to align the product or service to the user’s needs. Waterfall hardly focuses on customers’ needs; it only focuses on providing the deliverables required at the end of the project.While Waterfall assigns specific roles to team members, agile project management takes on a cross-functional approach where members take on more than one role.

Minimal Participation of the Project Manager

Also, the role of a project manager is reduced to that of a coordinator in APM, unlike in traditional project management methodologies where their positions are esteemed. This is because his role is distributed among team members.

For example, a product owner sets the project’s goals, while the team members take on reporting, scheduling, and quality control roles. That’s why companies using APM use the phrase agile teams.

Need to Evaluate Time & Cost Continuously

Agile teams must continuously check the project’s time and cost while working to identify and correct any flaws. Teams use burndown, velocity, and burnup charts to evaluate progress rather than project milestones and Gantt charts.

Conclusion

This guide can help you understand the basics of Agile Project Management methodology and its application in real-life scenarios. Remember, as much as it’s hailed for its outcome and effectiveness, it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. Teams may adapt and combine practices to suit their specific needs. The key is to prioritize flexibility, collaboration, and continuous improvement.