Today we start with our short series about agile Project Management with this first article.
Nowadays almost everyone (at least in IT environments) talks about agile project management methods. Some already checked them out, but often enough there are some counter positions to these methods which are related to some unclear things within the methodology.
This small series will try to describe in detail what agile project management is and what are the success factors. First of all: agile project management is a methodology and a mindset! It is NOT a strictly designed process, which will solve problems magically. Key points of "agile" are:
Agile Project management works iterative, the product AND the process will be reviewed and optimized after each iteration
The highly collaborative structure focuses on teamwork and end user transparency as in showing actual project progress or problems which slowed down the progress
At the end of each iteration there will be a product increment which can be used by the customer, this creates actual value and ROI even before the end of the project
Agile Project management can be used in nearly all custom development projects.
If your project has 100% fixed requirements, which will surely not change during the project (by the way...just because they are written down, it does not mean they are fixed!)…
If you roll out "commercial off-the-shelf" software, which is already packaged and automatically distributed (think about MS Office for example)... If your project deals with upgrading or patching a system… … then agile might not be the right approach. If you are thinking about doing your own agile project it is highly recommended to involve an already agile-experienced colleague as an "Agile-Coach". He can help you to set up the process and working mode and help to get a clear understanding what agile is about. Here are some doubts which are quite common regarding agile methods:
This was the first part of our small Series about Agile Project Management. Look out for the next part which we are going to publish soon called "Agile Project Management – What is SCRUM"
The whole Series contains 4 pieces:
Agile Project Management – Basics (Part1) Agile Project Management – What is SCRUM (Part2) Agile Project Management – Agile Project Management in real Life (Part3) Agile Project Management – Agile on the next Level – Program Management (Part4)
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