Understanding Agile Project Management

June Tucay
Mar 30, 2017
13 min read

What is agile project management?

Agile project management is the process by which projects can be managed and implemented in small chunks of work as projects deliver value to the business in frequent small deliveries of product features in the traditional waterfall methodology the requirements for the project would be documented upfront than the design of all solution would be completed filed by the development testing and finally implementation of the product if this whole process takes a your complete the business does not see any tangible value and told very end of project without your project I am is created by a small logical chunks of work called orations spreads agile using the technique to use when business needs are frequently changing when the business was to receive private benefits Purulia with agile you can focus on what the business needs now is that changes the new business needs can be accommodated in the next iteration agile is frequently used to manage IT projects but can also be used to manage non-IT projects examples of non-IT projects that are suitable for agile or the Sony moves company reorganisations are changing business processes with another partner just about any project can your lies agile of deliverables can be produced and implemented in a short period of time and can be expanded or added to with future capabilities just like building blocks coming together agile projects build capabilities one-piece or a few pieces at the time lets talk next about the characteristics of successful agile projects first sprinter orations are typically for 12 weeks more face-to-face communication is emphasised over documentation with Microsoft product not product documentation business and technical team members are: located or use very rich virtual tools to simulate being together in addition to these a sponsor who is 100% committed to the agile processes vital and Lasley requirement changes are anticipated and accommodate the other items required for agile projects to work that do not differ from traditional projects these include having a vision frilly endgame following a universally understood project life-cycle your requirements must be understood you should use a share and manage schedule you have a dedicated team that is focused on getting the job done and Lasley communication with all stakeholders is critical there are several agile methodologies and processes in use today for the purposes of this course we will describe and explain an agile methodology that uses the farming life-cycle stages Invision defines the boundaries of the project you then look through the speculate explore and adapt stages you perform a close phase wants the end knowledge of her about the common characteristics and benefits of an agile project lets go deeper and explore all of these in greater detail

Overview of the agile life cycle

Pedro project management five stages of the agile life-cycle the stages are envisioned speculating explore adapt and close was take a look at the highlights of each of the stages during the envisioned stage you will your customer will determine what it is you're trying to build you will also confirm who needs to be an team and determine the team values and norms you don't use you go through the envisioned stage of an agile project wants at the end of the envisioned stage you should have a document a project charter describing your scope and overall objectives in your defined stakeholders for the project you should also have your team collaboration tools set up an working and you should have established team norms examples of team norms your working hours and how the team will work together to solve issues you will then psychothriller next three stages speculate explore adapt to complete each brand speculate stages of planning exercise yes agile really does have planning during the speculate stage you will develop or revise the feature-based delivery plan estimates fridge feature an risks you need to manage a feature is a piece of functionality or outcome that is valued by the client one or more features are completed as per Ditchburn at the end of the speculate stages should have a set of requirements for the sprint a list of features to be developed based on those requirements you also create effort estimates fridge feature in your risks will be identified or updated for the features you working on during the explore stage actually develop the product was how quickly we went from project initiation the envisioned stage to developing real results activities during the explore stage include your daily stand-up meanings and frequent and totally honest peer reviews of the features as they are developed the reviews come from daily or nearly daily interactions between business and technical personnel and frequent and focus testing now that the features for this innovation abend developed its time to pause and reflect this is the purpose of the adapt stage of great benefit of agile is you get feedback frequently it's easy to remember what worked and what did not fix things quickly and move forward common activities during the adapt stage include a final review of the features by the customer and documented meaning of team members to reflect on their performance from these lessons are captured in shared in future sprint plans are reviewed and adjusted the adapt stage can happen very quickly often been completed in just one day the project will now look through the speculate explore and adapt stages until all sprints for the project are completed once the orations complete the features of implemented the close stage can occur during this stage you ensure all of your deliverables are completed and a final set of lessons learned are captured from the project now that you know what is supposed to happen during each agile stage during the next set of videos we will describe how to make it all happen

The Envision phase

The invasion fazes the first of five phases in the agile life-cycle and provides the foundation for the project at the end of the Invision stage you should have a documented project charter describing scope and overall objectives and you define stakeholders for the project you should also have your team collaboration tool set up an working initiative established team norms but go into the details for each of these items the project charter should contain the scope of the project is go crazy overall boundaries from the project included in the scope should be the product vision which is a summary statement about the final product this includes the target customer key benefits and purpose of the project such as cost savings a competitive advantage in addition the project charter should identify the project sponsor in project manager responsibilities authorise the project manager to perform the responsibilities and the final will also be given to the project manager team collaboration tools are essential to ensure project medication is easy and understood by all team members these tools can track and reports staters facilitate joint future development and push information out to team members the key is having tools are easy to use there are many collaboration tools on the market the size of the project number stakeholders in the amount of collaboration desired will determine how advanced you need to get with your collaboration tools my suggestion is to start with a small number of low complexity tools and add other tools if and when they are required during Invision phase all stakeholders. Working together on the overall design the project at this time it's important to establish the team norms how the team will work together including where they will physically work is agile projects involve close collaboration is important team understand how will operate that is the critical element of team norms example team norms include actively listen to what others are saying attack the problem not the person seek to understand first only focus on this point in future if you see a problem say something and make suggestions from resolution actively participate in the daily meanings be engaged south conflict with the other person when possible is not achievable both parties must come forward for help from management email as a low touch communication vehicle and should not be used to solve problems the respond to text messages during meaning provide your full attention to the matter at hand be respectful one another at the best interest of the project is your first priority sure and respect the roles and responsibilities of each team member at all teams your best if they have 15 are less people border teams are possible but I recommend you split them into smaller some teams to stay within the 15 or less guideline Madre teams introduced risk is the coordination between larger numbers of people in the features they produces much more difficult most of the risk without projects comes from having to ambitious schedule for future production or not having people on the team they can make decisions without waiting for management approval these situations should be avoided with the proper project charter documented collaboration tools readily using the team in place with minimal risk almonds the project is now well positioned to commence the planning for the first oration in the first speculate phase we will discuss the details of their in the next video

The Speculate phase

The primary purpose of the speculate phasers from the business and technical teams to identify the features evisceration if this is not the first-generation you should also need to review has features that have not been completed soul in the speculate stage you will the business need to consider new features features from the backlog list the list features on your to-do list of features not completed from the Priory oration which get added to the backlog list before we move forward lets review the characteristics of a future of features similar to requirement but instead focuses on a specific business need a features a small client valued function expressed in the form action result the allows the user to satisfy your business objective need to show you what I mean here are some examples of features calculate tax first supplies were display the name and address of buyer on the invoice despite the shipping name and address on the invoice and roll the student and course and track course completions the typical on simple agile approaches to write each feature an index coral pink sticky note using a physical card that you can move from one category to another and back again can make organising and prioritising very easy for larger projects agile collaboration tools can simulate the index coral approach once you have a complete set of features organise them logically and groups you can then have the business review and prioritise features with advice from the technical team during this process business stakeholders typically as questions about existing features and handsome features is well this conversation about additional features is great and is partly agile process is is prioritising all these good ideas if yours is like most agile projects you will have discussions about features that have to be considered in the future project because your Rahmani time or both once the feature list has been reviewed prioritise and agreed by the business and sponsor you are ready to roll remember you get review the feature list at the beginning of each oration so you only done from now now the features of been agreed you'll need estimate the work effort required to complete each feature in this is your first-generation you should do the estimates from all features make sure you work with the team members in business subject matter experts to obtain accurate estimates once this is completed you can now create your oration milestone in release client the oration milestone release plan will list all features to be completed when they will be completed and when the features will be implemented from the business typically the speculate phase does not take a long time for example if your oration was eight weeks coral you should only be spending approximately 5 days so in the speculate phase to any agile project were the first oration of the speculate phase will take longer as you need to identifying estimate the features of all project not just the first-generation the speculate phasers about careful planning for each oration every prioritising new features along with the backlog this considering planning helps you keep the next stage explore sharp and focused

The Explore phase

Here is the phrase most people get excited about we now get to produce the product fortunately with agile doesn't take very long to go from the Invision and speculate phases to lead authors this phase is all about collaboration between the business and technical team members are daily stand-up meanings of all wants about all our job project stages played most substantial role during explore phase but examine would typical stand-ups like the meaning should be around 15 minutes long 40 minutes max each team member assures what they achieved yesterday but they plan to achieve today in a discuss anything they need help with to progress the work the still the meaning is not the place to resolve issues decisions are identified the should be noted addressed after the stand-up meaning and reported back to the group the next day that did nothing to document other than items you may want to put into an issues register for the purpose of building lessons learned so what is the project manager doing these meanings the project manager fulfils an observer role allowing the team to take the lead as project manager you should watch for issues that are not being resolved in remove roadblocks for the team also you should ensure risks are decreasing over time and after the stand-ups communicates that is to key stakeholders so they are informed of progress listen carefully during the stand-up meanings the job during explore stages to protect and enhance the productivity of each team number by letting them get on with the job of building and heavily organisational distractions that may slow them down the stand-up meanings help you understand hundred do this by giving you a view toward the teams facing a daily basis that also gives you a basis to maintain control project tracking progress against the plan features for the sprinters your control mechanism complete features are noted in the stand-ups as well as on a future board in the team room so the team can see the progress that has been achieved if features are behind schedule find out why make adjustments as quickly as possible and take good note soul lessons learned can be applied similar to 9 agile projects maintaining an issue register is necessary what is important is addition to being resolved in a timely fashion your issues register will provide the mechanism to determine if open issues are growing in volume this can indication that something is wrong in changes should be considered is the pertains to get so caught up in building the product the time gets away from everyone timekeeping and sprint schedule tracking is a central and each explore phase when the plan features further spread have been completed or when the time allocated for this explore phase has been consumed it is critical that you and the phase under one of these two conditions if you plan to be any explore phase for seven weeks in the plan features are not complete stop the phase according to your schedule and proceed to the adapted at that time capture apply lessons learned ensure all team members understand the lessons learned changes and Sarah just expectations with your stakeholders that is the purpose of the adapt phase would files explore I will sure more about the adapt phase in the next video

The Adapt and Close phases

The adapt phase occurs at the end of each brand immediately following the explore phase in its adapt phase you will review the team what has been deliver compared what was planned for the spring discuss what is and is not working and agreed any changes that will be applied is also wise to review the prior adapt phase lessons learned to see of trends are occurring the adapt phase is also the time to review the project with the customer and confirm the features are working is expected determine if anything is changed in the business the reducers changes the effectiveness of the features you also want to take the time to verify the features of producing the intended business benefits is critical for you to facilitate a lessons learned discussion in each adapt phase for feedback to be openly sheer all importers valuable and should be considered you can then brainstorm ideas to resolve issues or eliminate potential roadblocks your team success you will find a number of typical adjustments result from these adapt phase feedback sessions these adjustments include adding and removing features adjusting the estimates for features prioritise the features on the backlog list mollifying the daily standard meanings agenda to maximise effectiveness changing team members based on project need availability and team effectiveness updating the risk register mollifying removing processes the effective and Lasley adding processes but only if there is central to progress the project it's important to all stakeholders know about the changes that will be applied future spreads along with why those changes are being made if the team is working especially hard this is the perfect opportunity to celebrate the successes of the prior brands any malice specific achievements some team members meaning a mental break before the start the next plan is project manager you'll need to ensure the team is ready for the next plan and arouse positive and ready to go for longer projects I suggest occasionally giving team members holiday from whole spread to allow them to complete the work activities are take vacation this allows them to return to the project rejuvenated assuming this is not the end of the project when you complete the adapt phase you proceed to the speculative phase for the next brand remember is the original agreed cost schedule had been consumed is now time to end the project and proceed to the close phase if this happens to be your last spring the project is now ready to be closed the close phase now begins the administrative activities in the close phase include ensuring offenders have been invoiced in payments received reconciling any project financials working with managers and team members to redeploy people to other projects to work activities communicating the overall project results to the project team and other key stakeholders now is the time to your horn next ensure business benefits continue to be monitored and achieved is important to transition is monitoring to the customer and last is adult project management is new your company provide special be On why the job process worked and what lessons you learned you should resist the temptation to skip ashore in the close phase activities project closure is important to ensure the project does not linger unnecessarily and also gives everyone the chance to appreciate the significance of what has been achieved

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