AUD 1301

MODULE 4: AGILE PROJECT

MANAGEMENT
 • Understand what are the differences between traditional project
management and agile project management.
• Identify core Agile principles
• Understand the basic methodology used in Scrum.
• Recognize the limitations of Agile project management.

Learning Objectives
• Process of planning, communicating, organizing, adjusting, and managing
resources.

• It involves identifying and balancing the project's scope, time, cost, quality,
and resources.
AGILE METHODOLOGY
• Agile project management is an iterative approach to delivering a
project throughout its life cycle.

• Iterative or agile life cycles are composed of

several iterations or incremental steps towards the completion of a
project.

• Iterative approaches are frequently used in software

development projects to promote velocity and adaptability since the
benefit of iteration is that you can adjust as you go along rather than
following a linear path.

• One of the aims of an agile or iterative approach is to release benefits

throughout the process rather than only at the end.

• At the core, agile projects should exhibit central values and behaviors
of trust, flexibility, empowerment and collaboration.
AGILE METHODOLOGY

• Gives prominence to teamwork, customer collaboration, and flexibility.

• It is an iterative approach that focuses more on incorporating customer feedback

and continuous releases with every iteration of a software development project.
 AGILE vs TRADITIONAL
1. Flexibility and Adaptability

AGILE TRADITIONAL
• Agile project management focuses on flexibility • Traditional project management focuses on
and adaptability, allowing adjustments planning and predictability. Focusing on
throughout the project. following a strict plan and meeting project
• The approach uses repetitive and gradual requirements.
development, with short planning and delivery • The approach uses a linear, sequential
sprints to allow for regular feedback and development process with longer project
adjustments. phases for planning and delivery.
• Allows quick response to changes in customer • Allows a clear understanding of the project's
needs, market conditions, or other factors that progress and a better ability to predict the
may affect the project. outcome.
 AGILE vs TRADITIONAL
2. Project Requirements

AGILE TRADITIONAL
• Agile project management emphasizes • Traditional project management prioritizes
customer satisfaction and working following a strict plan. Meeting project
software. requirements as outlined in the project scope.
• Permits an interactive and collaborative • It places less urgency on customer satisfaction
approach between the development team and working software. It focuses more on
and the customer. meeting the requirements and deliverables
outlined in the project plan.
• Allowing for a controlled and predictable
outcome but may need to be more responsive to
changing customer needs.
 AGILE vs TRADITIONAL
3. Communication

AGILE TRADITIONAL
• Traditional project management
• Agile project management encourages
relies on written documentation and
face-to-face communication and
formal communication to convey
collaboration among team members.
information about the project's
• Regular meetings, such as daily stand-
progress and requirements.
ups, keep team members informed of the
• Meetings and conversations are less
project's progress and any addressable
frequent and more formal.
issues or obstacles.
• This allows for more detailed records
• Project managers get a more cohesive
of the project's progress and a better
and efficient team and a more
ability to hold team members
transparent and open process.
accountable for their deliverables.
But, it may need to be more efficient
for real-time problem-solving.
 AGILE vs TRADITIONAL
4. Project Phases and Planning

AGILE TRADITIONAL
• Uses short sprints, 2-4 weeks, for planning • Longer Project Phases for Planning and
and delivery. Delivery
• With an Agile approach, the team plans • Traditional project management takes longer to
achievable goals and delivers working plan and deliver, months or even years.
software. • Traditional project management plans all
• An Agile approach lets the team work on deliverables and milestones for the whole
the project in small steps, making changes project and delivers them at the end of each
and improvements as needed based on phase.
feedback. • Traditional project management allows for a
clear understanding of the project's progress
and a predictable outcome. Still, it may need to
be more flexible to changes in customer needs
or market conditions.
 AGILE vs TRADITIONAL
5. Changes and Adjustments

AGILE
TRADITIONAL

• With Agile project management, adjustments are • Traditional project management has a
made throughout the project as necessary. rigid plan that is difficult to change.
• With regular feedback and adjustments through an • The linear, sequential approach and long
iterative and incremental approach, and the ability project phases make it harder to
to incorporate changes through short sprints, Agile incorporate changes, and any deviation
project management allows for flexibility in from the plan is seen as a failure.
response to changes. • This allows for a more predictable
• The Agile approach allows for a more responsive outcome but may need to be more
approach to changing customer needs or market responsive to changes.
conditions and more efficient use of resources.
 AGILE vs TRADITIONAL
6. Team Functionality
AGILE TRADITIONAL
• Agile project management uses cross- • Traditional project management uses
functional teams, where team members organized teams, where team members
have different skill sets and can work on have a transparent chain of command
many aspects of the project. and report to a manager or supervisor.
• This allows efficient use of resources and • This allows for a more controlled and
a better understanding of customer predictable outcome, as the manager or
needs. supervisor can make decisions and solve
• This promotes a more collaborative and problems on behalf of the team.
holistic approach to the project. • This leads to a lack of engagement and
ownership among the team members
and flexibility to adapt.
 AGILE vs TRADITIONAL
Parameters Agile Project Management Traditional Project Management
Flexibility and Adaptability Emphasizes flexibility and adaptability Emphasizes planning and predictability

Project requirements Prioritizes customer satisfaction and Prioritizes following a strict plan and
working software meeting project requirements

Communication Encourages face-to-face communication Rely on written documents; formal

and collaboration communication

Project phases and planning Uses short sprints for planning and Uses longer project phases for planning
delivery. Allows for changes and and delivery. Has a rigid plan that is
adjustments throughout the project difficult to change

Team Functionality Cross-functional teams Functionally divided teams

Organization Self-organizing teams Hierarchically organized
Organizational Structure Linear Iterative
Project Scale Large-scale Small and Medium scale
Development Model Life cycle model Evolutionary delivery model
User requirement Clearly define before coding or Interactive inputs
implementation
 AGILE or TRADITIONAL?
Scrum, Kanban, and Lean agile project management methodologies allow teams to adapt

BUT

traditional project management is better suited for projects with well-defined and stable requirements,
such as construction projects or projects where regulatory compliance is essential.

Methodologies like Waterfall, PRINCE2, and PMBOK framework are more suited for
such projects.

Depends on the specific needs and constraints of the project

The decision of which approach to use should be based on the project's specific
requirements, the team's experience, and the available resources.
 AGILE PRINCIPLES
1. Early and continuous delivery of valuable software – when developing a
product, speed and precision is key

2. Embrace change - project development is becoming increasingly

unpredictable

3. Frequent delivery – smaller, more frequent releases mean less

chance of error

4. Cooperation – agile requires that stakeholders, customers and

developers work in unison to achieve project goals

5. Autonomy and motivation – given the correct agile trainings, tools and
resources, developers should be given total autonomy to complete tasks

6. Better communication – face-to-face; information gets lost in

translation, emails and memos get buried in inboxes, etc.
 AGILE PRINCIPLES
7. Working software - A working product is more valuable than a checklist.” Requirements
analysis documents, models and mock-ups may be useful, but they aren’t very useful if you can’t convert
this information into a working product; remove unnecessary documentation

8. Stable work environments - When everyone involved feeds information into an agile
framework, it becomes very easy to create accurate forecasts, budgets and timelines

9. Quality assurance - Many businesses prioritize speed or quantity over quality. In some
cases, this makes a lot of sense. Sometimes customers don’t care as much for quality so whether or
not a product works. But, if development teams neglect quality for too long, their ability to adapt the
product to suit current consumer demands diminishes and it becomes less agile.

10. Simplicity – remove bloated processes that do not contribute to the overall quality or progress of
a project
 AGILE PRINCIPLES
11. Self-organizing teams - agile development teams often include
stakeholders, managers and consumers as core team-members. This allows them to
work independently as a unit without the need to look to others for assistance. This
not only minimizes the need for upper management to micro-manage development
but also ensures that processes such as quality assurance and adaptation are an
inherent part of agile development and thus occur naturally and autonomously

12. Reflection and adjustment- This final principle is almost a proof-of-concept

principle that indicates whether or not agile methodologies have been adequately incorporated into
business strategy. Reflection on past success or failures and responsibly changing approaches to
compensate is what makes agile so successful. Doing so requires communication, feedback, an
understanding of agile methods and an environment that encourages both innovation and learning from
mistakes. No team acts perfectly but a mature, informed and responsible team can improve itself by
taking both pro-active and reactive measures to improve development.
 • Scrum is precisely an evolution of Agile Management.
• Scrum methodology is
Ø based on a set of very defined practices and roles that
must be involved during the software development
Scrum process.

methodology
Ø used mainly for software development, but other sectors
are also taking advantage of its benefits by implementing
this methodology in their organizational models such as
sales, marketing, & HR teams etc.
Ø a flexible methodology that rewards the application of
the 12 agile principles in a context agreed by all the
team members of the product.
• Scrum is executed in temporary blocks that are short and
periodic, called Sprints, which usually range from 2 to 4
weeks, which is the term for feedback and reflection.
• Each Sprint is an entity in itself, that is, it provides a
complete result, a variation of the final product that must
be able to be delivered to the client with the least possible
effort when requested.
 Scrum methodology
• Scrum is an agile development methodology used in the development of Software
based on an iterative and incremental processes.

• Scrum is adaptable, fast, flexible and effective agile framework that is

designed to deliver value to the customer throughout the development of the
project.

• The primary objective of Scrum is to satisfy the customer’s need through an

environment of transparency in communication, collective responsibility
and continuous progress.

• The development starts from a general idea of what needs to be built, elaborating a
list of characteristics ordered by priority (product backlog) that the owner of the
product wants to obtain.
 Different Roles in Scrum

PRODUCT OWNER - the SCRUM TEAM - A

representative of the group of
stakeholders and professionals with
customers who use the the necessary
software. They focus on technical
the business part and is knowledge who
responsible for the ROI of develop the project
the project. They Translate jointly carrying out
the vision of the project to the stories they
the team, validate the commit to at the
benefits in stories to be start of each sprint.
incorporated into the SCRUM MASTER - The person who leads the
Product Backlog and team guiding them to comply with the rules and
prioritize them on a processes of the methodology. Scrum master
regular basis. manages the reduction of impediments of the
project and works with the Product Owner to
maximize the ROI. The Scrum Master is in
charge of keeping Scrum up to date, providing
coaching, mentoring and training to the teams in
case it needs it.
 LIMITATIONS OF AGILE PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
Poor resource planning
1 Because Agile is based on the idea that teams won’t know what their end result (or even a few cycles of delivery
down the line) will look like from day one, it’s challenging to predict efforts like cost, time and resources
required at the beginning of a project (and this challenge becomes more pronounced as projects get bigger and
more complex).

Limited documentation
2
In Agile, documentation happens throughout a project, and often “just in time” for building the output, not at the
beginning. As a result, it becomes less detailed and often falls to the back burner.

3 No finite end
The fact that Agile requires minimal planning at the beginning makes it easy to get sidetracked delivering new,
unexpected functionality. Additionally, it means that projects have no finite end, as there is never a clear vision of what
the “final product” looks like.

4 Fragmented output
Incremental delivery may help bring products to market faster, but it’s also a big disadvantage of Agile methodology. That’s
because when teams work on each component in different cycles, the complete output often becomes very fragmented rather
than one cohesive unit.
5 Difficult measurement
Since Agile delivers in increments, tracking progress requires you to look across cycles. And the “see-as-you-go” nature
means you can’t set many KPIs at the start of the project. That long game makes measuring progress difficult.
 REFERENCES
https://www.knowledgehut.com/blog/agile/agile-project-
management-vs-traditional-project-management

https://www.knowledgetrain.co.uk/agile/agile-project-
management/agile-project-management-course/agile-
principles

https://www.nimblework.com/agile/scrum-methodology/