What is Agile Project Management ?
Agile Project Management is a word coined by the modern day project management teams. When Agile was found back in 2000 by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, it was all about delivering value to the client by developing a high quality product in an efficient manner.
Agile introduced an iterative manner of delivering the product. Instead of surprising the client with an outdated product, developed on the basis of initial requirements, Agile decided to deliver it in chunks. Scrum in Agile is the most widely used framework. The application of project management with scrum adds great value to the overall product delivery.
To know more about Scrum, please follow Scrum Guide.
What are the Core Values of Agile apply to Scrum for Project Management ?
Agile follows 4 core values that help the team provide value.
Agile has always been an advocate of power of the team. It believes in skills of individuals over features provided by tools. Both can be upgraded, but humans have the power to cross skill each other and that becomes the strength of the team.
Agile has always encouraged focus on output and not on outcomes. It understands the fact that a detailed documentation is of no use without a working software.
Agile believes in collaboration across vendor and clients, rather fighting over contract negotiation. As contract negotiation is a time taking process and does not add value to the overall product development. agile marks it as low priority item.
Dwight D. Eisenhower rightly said, "Plans are useless but planning is indispensable". Agile does not believe in freezing a plan and blindly following it to end up creating an outdated product. It welcomes modifications and changes to the original plan. It ensures that the final product is at par with the market and is the best version of itself.
What does a project manager do in Agile?
Scrum framework is the most widely used among all the Agile approaches. Agile manifesto does not have a role called "Project manager". Yet in real world, a project manager(PM) in an agile project has his own set of defined responsibilities.
PM defines roles and expectations of a team member, and ensures timely feedback.
PM ensures the team members are trained and skilled as per project requirement.
PM is responsible for the overall development and integration of requirements.
PM measures and monitors progress at clearly defined points in the process and takes corrective actions to deliver the project on time, within budget.
PM, along with help from the team develops, implements, and maintains the Project Plan.
PM ensures all requirements, project plans, and changes to commitment are communicated to all affected stakeholders.
PM manages relationships and coordinates work between different teams at different locations.
PM manages relationships with all suppliers and subcontractors. Monitors their progress and adherence to the contract.
PM ensures that the project team follows all quality assurance processes, including periodic reviews and knowledge transitions with minimum impact on project delivery.
PM seeks management help to remove impediments being faced by the team.
PM ensures that the project’s assigned portion of the Business Case planned value is delivered.
PM collaborates with the Product Owner to coordinate project schedules and budgets.
PM collaborates with Scrum Master in identifying impediments being faced by the team and their resolution.
What are the steps of Agile Project Management ?
1. Project Planning
The first blueprint that is to be in place is the project plan. The client and the vendor stakeholders prepare the project plan. The team involved consists of a team of Business Analysts, Functional and Technical Consultants and Delivery Managers.
Example: A library management tool needs to be prepared. The project plan highlights details of what will be the features of the tool and how should it work.
2. Release Planning
Once the Project plan is ready, it is taken to the next level where a team of release manager, functional and technical teams decide on how to deliver the product across multiple release cycles. The plan is usually to cut a vertical slice. If you don't know what a vertical slice means, it generally refers to a combination of front end and backend. This is done to ensure the stakeholders are able to observe a working product after each iteration.
Example: The library management tool will have a User Interface(UI) and a backend database. The release plan is made such that in Release 1, the search feature is taken into account and when the Release 1 ends, we must have a product where the user can access the UI and perform search operations to access
3. Agile ceremonies
Agile ceremonies need to be followed diligently by the scrum team. It includes Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective. There is a fifth ceremony which is not there in Agile manifesto, but has been added lately by the teams, i.e. Product Backlog Refinement.
Sprint Planning is conducted on the 1st day of every sprint where user stories are taken from the product backlog and divided into smaller tasks. The tasks are then set as per priority and the sprint goal is set for that particular sprint.
Sprint Review is conducted at the end of every sprint where the product demo is presented by the scrum team consisting of the Product Owner, Scrum Master and Development team to the stakeholders. Based on the feedback from stakeholders, actions are taken.
Sprint Retrospective is an event conducted on the last day of a sprint. The purpose is to introspect the actions of the team in the completed sprint and take the lessons learnt for the upcoming sprint. This is mostly driven by the Scrum Master.
4. Artefacts
Artefacts in Agile refer to 3 major information databases: Sprint Backlog, Product Backlog and Product Increment. These artefacts are of much importance when it comes to keeping a check on the progress of the sprint.
Sprint Backlog is a result of sprint planning meeting. The development team is the sole owner of the sprint backlog. Sprint Backlog contains tasks that are derived after dividing user stories. There is a combination of functional and technical tasks. The tasks that do not pass into Done state are moved back to the sprint backlog to be carried forward for upcoming sprints.
Product Backlog is prepared by Product Owner. It contains the overall features in the form of user stories that are to be delivered. Based on discussion with the team and stakeholders, Product Owner prioritises the user stories.
Product Increment, or in other words Potential Shippable Increment is a part of the overall product that is ready after a sprint. Product Increment does not necessarily mean that the code is ready to be deployed to production environment. It depends on Product Owner, if the code is to be deployed or not.
5. Agile Reports
Reporting is the most critical parameter based on which the performance and progress of a sprint/release is analysed. The major reports that are looked into are Sprint Burndown Chart, Sprint Burnup Chart and Release Burndown chart.
Sprint Burndown Chart gives a clear picture of the number of story points remaining with respect to the time remaining in the sprint.
Sprint Burnup Chart gives a view of the number of story points completed in the sprint till date.
Release Burndown Chart gives a picture of the number of story points remaining with respect to the time remaining in the release.
What are the open source project management tools for agile teams ?
The major agile project management tools are:
1. MyCollab
2. Open Project
3. Phabricator
4. Gitlab
5. Odoo
6. Taiga
7. Tuleap
8. Trello
What certifications should I complete to become an Agile Project Manager ?
To become a qualified Agile Project Manager, one must complete the Certified Agile Project Manager Certification offered by IAPM.
What is the average salary of an Agile Project Manager ?
Check out the Average salary of a Scrum Professional.
Dated Aug 17, 2020:
Average annual pay for an Agile Project Manager in the United States is $116,225 per annum.
Average annual pay for an Agile Project Manager in the India is Rs.24,40,000 per annum.
Agile Project Management is one of the niche skills that every industry is heading to. For more career related content, check out https://www.sanjogsaran.com/career-guidance.
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