{"id":2014,"date":"2016-06-28T17:59:24","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T16:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yanado.com\/blog\/?p=2014"},"modified":"2019-01-22T11:34:10","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T10:34:10","slug":"the-ultimate-introduction-to-agile-project-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yanado.com\/blog\/the-ultimate-introduction-to-agile-project-management\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ultimate Introduction To Agile Project Management"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published on Toptal\u00a0Engineering\u00a0Blog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Our good friends from Toptal<\/a>\u00a0wrote this masterpiece introduction to Agile Project Management, and we were more than pleased to have it shared with Yanadoers.<\/p>\n

So, here it is.<\/p>\n

The Brief<\/h2>\n

You\u2019re in charge of delivering your company\u2019s latest and greatest initiative that\u2019s going to change the face of \u201cWidgets International\u201d forever. It\u2019s a software project that\u2019ll engage and enthrall your customers, make your colleague\u2019s lives easier, and make the company millions in revenue. There\u2019s a great deal of anticipation, fervor, excitement, and expectation. You need to get it done as quickly as possible, so your business can start to reap the benefits. The future success of the company depends on you. All eyes are on you. You cannot fail.<\/p>\n

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At first, you\u2019re thinking to yourself \u201cawesome, I\u2019m up for the challenge. Let\u2019s get this thing done!\u201d. You pause for a moment, step back, and think to yourself \u201cokay, so how do we do this?\u201d. You start to talk to your colleagues and peers. You spend time searching for the best practice software development<\/a> and project management<\/a> techniques, but the options and approaches are countless. There are acronyms and methodologies aplenty. Notable ones rise to the top. Doubt creeps in. Which one should we use? How can I guarantee success? What if I make the wrong decisions?<\/p>\n

When it comes to managing software projects, there\u2019s a heady mix of options supported by a myriad of opinion. Voices from the corners of the room whisper \u201ctry doing it this way\u201d, others shout \u201cthis is the only way to do it\u201d, and the rest just whimper \u201cdon\u2019t manage it at all, just get on with it\u201d. In reality, all those voices speak some truth. But what\u2019s important is working out what\u2019s right for your needs, your team, your business, and your customers.<\/p>\n

Setting the Scene<\/h2>\n

There was a time when software project management sat squarely in one of three camps. There were the heavy frameworks that let you make decisions on how you execute and deliver, while offering a structure to maintain control and governance. There were prescriptive sequential methodologies like Waterfall<\/a> that forced you to plan lengthy projects, understand and commit to all your requirements, design and sign off complex systems, write lots of code, and then test (all before your customer gets to see it for the first time). And finally, the less prescriptive but iterative software development life cycles (SDLC<\/a>) that encourage rapid prototyping or larger systems to be designed, built, and delivered in incremental steps, each building on top of the other.<\/p>\n

Agile software development<\/a> and Agile project management were born out of the inadequacies of the waterfall and the benefits of the iterative approaches to software delivery. They can trace their roots to the 1950\u2019s, thought leadership in the 70\u2019s, maturity in the 90\u2019s and adoption through the 00\u2019s. In 2001, a group of practitioners and experts created the agile manifesto<\/a>, aimed at defining 4 values and 12 guiding principles that seek to embody the spirit of Agile software development and to encourage its evolution. And it has definitely evolved.<\/p>\n

Now, simply calling something Agile isn\u2019t particularly helpful. The word, even in a software context, means different things to different people or organizations. There are many facets, definitions, implementations, and interpretations. Each body that embraces agile tends to try to give it its own definition.<\/p>\n

<\/div>Simply calling something Agile isn't particularly helpful.<\/span>Click To Tweet<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/a>\n

Suffice to say that Agile software development and project management are a group of related behaviours, frameworks, techniques, and concepts that fundamentally favor the delivery of the right working software as early and as frequently as realistically possible.<\/p>\n

I mentioned earlier that Agile, as applied to software development or project management, are different things. In a nutshell, Agile software development takes care of developing great software in a business as usual (BAU) or project context. Agile project management, on the other hand, takes care of the governance and control required to deliver complex projects including but not limited to software.<\/p>\n

There are many Agile software development methods available, such as Scrum<\/a>, Kanban<\/a>, XP<\/a>, and Lean Software Development<\/a>. But just as the game of rugby is about more than the scrum, so is Agile. In isolation, these Agile paradigms do not address the full lifecycle of project management required in complex projects such as governance, resourcing, financial, explicit risk management, and many other important project management concepts. For these, you might want to consider PMI Agile<\/a> or PRINCE2 Agile<\/a> – think of it as \u201cGoverned Agility\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Why Do We Need To Be Agile?<\/h2>\n

Long ago, we roamed the land to gather food and shelter to survive. They were simple needs, but pretty agile. Some time later, countries and economies grew and prospered on the back of the Industrial Revolution<\/a>. This was the birth of management and control and the loss of agility. Now we\u2019re in the Information Age or Revolution<\/a>, where businesses employ knowledge workers. Knowledge workers are you, your partners, your colleagues and peers that endeavor to create great solutions to customer, business, social, economic and world problems. Knowledge workers apply analysis, knowledge, reasoning, understanding, expertise, and skills to often loosely defined and changing needs. These businesses and workers need methods and techniques that cannot be met by old Industrial Age processes and procedures. Agile supports interactions.<\/p>\n

Virtually no software project can confidently set out at the beginning and know all that it needs in order to deliver valuable working software without change. Change presents both opportunities and risks to the success of a project. Unmanaged opportunities can mean the difference between a great company and an awesome company. Unmanaged risk spells disaster and ruin. Agile manages change.<\/p>\n

Adopting agile allows you to be responsive to changing or new requirements. It empowers development teams to be the experts and make decisions supported by an engaged, trusting, and informed business. It enables you to deliver to customers what they really want. Ultimately, it puts you and your organization in control of delivering high quality valuable software that delivers on customer need and expectations whilst extracting a return on your investment dollars as early as possible. Agile creates value.<\/p>\n

There is a cost to adopting agile. It doesn\u2019t come for free. Transforming to an agile approach for software delivery can be a hard path to follow. However, if you internalize the agile philosophy, tread carefully, engage the right team with the right attitude, break things down, make it achievable and realistic and respond to feedback, you will reap rewards. Agile emphasizes collaboration.<\/p>\n

The following lists some benefits you can expect:<\/p>\n