Does the use of agile project management require new contract models in order to be successful? Can agile project management be used with traditional fixed-price contracts? Does agile project management require a new type of contract (and if so, what kinds)? Furthermore, wouldn’t a new type of contract discourage the use of agile PM?
At the heart of agile methods is the key tenet that teams and teamwork are better than individual contributions and effort. Here we explore the key factors and attributes of teams and teamwork for agile project management.
What is the business value of agile project management for creating new products and services? What are the costs and benefits--or what is the ROI of agile project management? Has anyone ever measured the benefits? If so, what are the results? Furthermore, is there a measurable difference between agile and traditional project management? Some studies shed light on these crucial questions.
Agile projects are optimized for different constraints than traditional ones. To truly understand how to design a performance measurement system for agile PM, we need to dig a little deeper into the value system underlying agile methods.
RMC has partnered with Agile thought-leader Mike Griffiths to create a PMI-ACP exam prep guide, which will be available early next year.
Collocated teams are the heart and soul of agile project management, but there's one small dilemma: The world’s supply of human talent is not aligned for a PM model based on collocated project teams; the marketplace is better aligned for one based on virtual teams. So how do you adapt the agile project management model?
As agile methods continue to gain in popularity and Project Management Institute events offer more and more agile content, the demand for agile-related offerings has increased substantially. Is this new certification offering a good idea, and what does it mean for you?
Does your PMO Produce Multiple Obstacles for your project or Promote Many Opportunities for success? PMOs often get a bad reputation on agile teams, but it need not be that way--they can also add tremendous support and be a great help.
Agile methods are powerful approaches that bring many benefits to how we undertake project work. However, they are not immune to misuse or failure. The following list of five common pitfalls is often seen in organizations switching to agile.
Agile methods deliver many benefits in terms of their flexibility to cope with changing requirements and priorities. However, this adaptability and reluctance to be tied down on scope can create contract problems when trying to form supplier agreements or outsource work. Part 1 of our two-part series covers the challenges of agile contracting and offers some of the packaged solutions created so far.
The next time you start a project, consider the obituary exercise. It might be just the right tool for giving the naysayer’s their voice--and then uniting the team around appropriate risk mitigation and avoidance strategies.
There is lots of great information available on how to use agile methods for custom software development projects, but less so for package implementations. Commercial-Off-The-Shelf solutions make up a large percentage of the IT projects undertaken by companies each year, and many organizations are missing out on benefits that an agile package approach can bring.
The new PMI Agile Community is set to launch soon. To some people this may seem an unlikely alliance, but it will bring useful connections to many.
The agile experiment has been a failure for many people. Is agile PM just a bad idea? An agile approach to executing a project can be extremely successful and can deliver benefits to customers, team members and the organization as a whole--but it needs to be conducted in the right environment.
While there are advantages to keeping Stand-Up meetings focused and short, there is more to the process than the typical ritual. Here we present five key things you should keep in mind before and after each meeting.
Those with solid agile project management experience and knowledge--coupled with an entrepreneurial vision to see the trends and navigate incubating startups to launch--are poised to take great advantage both monetarily and professionally in years to come.
Some managers are not accustomed to the management transparency that agile requires--it can push managers past their comfort zone. When that happens, the product and the project team’s process is at risk. Who better to fight for the team than an agile project manager?
As the paths of traditional and agile project management merge, there are some bumps and scrapes as the two groups come to terms with each other. This article explores the circumstances that ease integration.
Ever stop to ponder all the different PM frameworks that have been developed over the years and which one you should be using in your organization? Is there really one best framework out there? The options are dizzying, so here we take a look at four of them in depth. What can they do for you? Remember, one size does not fit all...
In the PM world, much is being made about the concepts of agile and extreme project management. But how agile is agile? And how agile do we need to be, anyway? And, to be clear about the real question that we should be asking, how unique is agile from what most of us understand project management to be?
CollabNet updates its TeamForge platform and ScrumWorks project management application, focusing on scaling agile to the enterprise through flexible reporting, ease of use and other enhancements.
The PMI Agile Community of Practice is seeking agile project management success stories in an online video competition.
Agile methods emphasize and encourage the creation of empowered teams, but is empowerment enough? No...but the good news is that agile teams are halfway there. The stepping stone to autonomy that empowered teams have is a huge leg up on those people caught in command-and-control hierarchies.
As businesses enter the "new normal" era of economic uncertainty, program and portfolio management offices that remain tactically and administratively-focused will struggle. Successful PMOs in 2012 will move towards a strageic, holistic view that embraces agile methods and increases visibility for executives.
Thousands of years ago, humans developed a sophisticated system of navigating at sea--a methodology that is nothing if not agile project management. Their skill and their wisdom, known as wayfinding, have much to teach us as we navigate the challenging waters of the agile project.
Who knew that a seemingly simple effort in rewarding workers would turn into its own agile exercise? An energy company assignment led this writer to another unexpected lesson in evolutionary design and the rewards of prototyping. Read on as we explore one of the core benefits of agile methods.
How do we get team members to a state of wanting to proactively pull work from a backlog of features at a high pace? If they are not there already (and many might be closer than you think), then it will likely require some coaching and a little team motivation.
With less emphasis on upfront specs and higher rates of change, how are agile projects contracted? Part 2 of this article outlines building blocks for creating agile contracts.
Agile methods make the most of closer ties to the business and customer to get rapid feedback on functionality. This works great when customer engagement is high--but runs into problems when engagement is lacking. Learn about some warning signs and engagement models that can help.
Are agile methods really as innocent as they appear, or really just a cover for some dodgy dealings? This exposé blows the lid off agile’s real motives.
Agile adoption outside of software is nothing new--it dates back very close to the origin of today’s agile methods, predating the term “agile”. However, what is new and noteworthy is the rate and scale of non-software agile adoption being witnessed today. Now--as more companies than ever are exposed to agile methods in their IT practices--these methods are being employed beyond the regular IT domain.
From cross-functional to cross-dysfunctional, a big part of project management is working to grow a high-performing team and then caring for it. Agile concepts around empowered teams and team decision-making support these goals, so there should be no surprise that agile PM aligns well with team development best practices.
Agile methods are all about delivering value. We work on the high-value items first and prioritize the backlog based on business value. Everything is value driven, aiming to maximize value delivered. Risks, on the other hand, are like anti-value--they have potential for value-robbing down time, rework and even project failures. Here we look at how to use Risk-Adjusted Backlogs and Risk Burndowns to illustrate and prioritize risk within agile projects.
Agile methods recognize the increased need for communication and provide a variety of tools and checkpoints to help avoid the classic project mistakes of mismatched expectations and confusion. In the absence of a visible physical product to point at and measure, we need to be constantly confirming understandings and aligning ideas against increments of the final solution.
Recently launched PMI Agile Community of Practice officially welcomed at reception hosted by IT & Telecom Special Interest Group at PMI North America Global Congress.
Even if your current IT organization hasn’t adopted agile software development, your project team can still benefit from these agile project management best practices.
Consider for a moment the roadblocks we encounter on projects. The most common and toughest to resolve are always people related. A large portion of the missing part of project success is Emotional Intelligence, and the EI skills most needed by project managers are explored here.
Agile and earned value are inherently different approaches to managing projects, but they can complement each other in support of flexibility and bottom-line value. Here are three practical tips to help you bridge the gap between an agile approach and the earned value reports and measurements many organizations require.
The science behind Scrum is the notion of Empirical Process Control, which that is derived from (and firmly rooted in) industrial process control theory--and applicable to the complexity of human process management that often derails project schedules. This article is outlines the foundations of EPC and how it drives empirically based team management.
It’s not enough to manage a good agile project, you have to be seen managing it. In this article, we explore why this is the case--and look at how to provide better visibility on what’s happening on your agile initiative.
Agile team dynamics are crucial, but most people don't have the time they want or need to read about and practice these topics. Luckily, this list of the Top 10 Team Practices will remind you of some of the basic points.
Kanban is gaining popularity in project management circles as more teams relate to its principles of visualizing workflow, limiting work in progress and balancing demand. Here, a self-described “pragmatic Agilist” explains what drew him to Kanban, where it delivers benefits, and how it differs from other agile methods.
Acquisition of Scrum project management tools and training provider helps position CollabNet to expand presence in application lifecycle management market.
Need some PM magic? The Merlin Exercise can help project managers benefit from engaging the team in backward planning from the desired end goal--making it great for iteration and release planning where the end goal can be described.
Are you helping others to keep you in the dark? If organizations want to realize the benefits of agile methods, managers need to act on the problems that bubble up from teams, deal with unexpected events on projects and proactively find and fix problems that derail projects.
Does your team have an agile personality? There are six important principles to keep in mind about personality preferences and how they apply to project work.
Since agile project management is closer to leadership best practice than traditional project management, it is useful to search leadership techniques for additional approaches that could also assist on agile projects.
There is no doubt that agile project management has hit the mainstream--with Scrum being the leader of the pack. Now that it has “crossed the chasm“, how successfully is it being implemented? Some experts argue that Scrum has become flaccid in many organizations due to its dysfunctional implementation. So how do you know if you have soft Scrum? Let’s look at some major areas of concern.
If the usual “on time” and “on budget” success criteria seems to be missing that secret sauce of stakeholder alignment, see how Actor Network Theory can get a handle on the intangible. Here, we take a look at agile methods viewed through ANT.
A good project vision does more than unite the team toward a common objective--it also helps with making decisions when faced with difficult choices.
