Extreme Project Management > Agile Technology

Despite this global recession, the competitive landscape keeps becoming more urgent and faster paced. You will be expected to keep managing new projects to keep your organization competitive--but will do so with less (and exhausted) resources, tight budgets and more scrutiny for success. How does one meet such challenges and succeed? One of the agile practices tailor made for such an environment is the Lean method.

Just being an expert on agile and focusing on delivery of “working software” doesn’t necessarily guarantee success. This article shows tips and techniques for those of you struggling with getting your team and your company to adopt agile.

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.

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.

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?

A new agile procurement process--one that can operate in conjunction with and alongside an agile software development methodology--should significantly improve both the procurement of software vendor’s services and and successful delivery of software projects. This article will explore the underlying principles as well as map the reconciliation points required to harmonize agile development and procurement methods.

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?

Agile vendors have done a good job providing project managers and product owners with planning and tracking tools. But the primary creators of project deliverables are software developers, and they have consistently been an afterthought. To scale across the enterprise, Agile work processes must embrace the individual contributors doing the actual work.

As Agile evolves beyond software development, its people-centric mandate is a natural ally to the social technology revolution transforming today’s enterprises. Here, a leading strategist in the social business landscape shares his thoughts on the interplay of these two movements, including how Kanban and DevOps fit.

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.

What are hyper-productive teams doing differently to achieve such extraordinary results? This article introduces you to the key practices used by Scrum teams around the world to achieve hyper-productive results--practices your team can apply right now.

The first decade of the new millennium brought agile software development to the fore. What was learned and what does the future hold? Agile innovator and observer David A. Thomas offers his opinions.

CA Technologies recently introduced a new version of its PPM solution. Among the updates is the integration of Chatter, a collaboration application from Salesforce.com.

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.

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.

There is a huge difference between using Agile practices and being Agile. Here, a chief engineer discusses his organization’s strides in creating an Agile mindset and a customized approach to producing high-quality work in short time frames. The journey offers practical advice and techniques to those getting started or struggling with Agile transformation.

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.

An anniversary event in Utah celebrates the Agile Manifesto, gathering five of the original authors and others to address future industry challenges.

Part 1 of this two-part series introduces the agile engineering principles and practices that, when implemented, enable some teams and their respective organizations to build high-quality software very quickly that will please customers. Organizations embracing these practices--when used in conjunction with agile and lean management practices--can gain delivery advantages on their competitors while managing lower maintenance and support costs in the long term.

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.

The first step in scaling agile is to move from partial methods to a full-fledged, disciplined delivery process. The second step is to understand eight scaling factors and determine which are applicable to the range of complexities your project teams face. Here, agile thought leader Scott Ambler presents his scaling model.

The Agile2011 Conference drew more than 1,600 attendees to Salt Lake City, where dozens of companies showcased new technology solutions and training offerings. Here is a recap from the busy exhibition floor.

This will be the first in a series of articles that will look to provide the background of issues involved with managing an agile software development project under a traditionally linear and sequential project procurement process. Software development has been deliberately chosen for the example industry since that’s the domain for which agile is most typically used, but for those using agile in other industry domains, the general issues and proposed solution should work equally well within your industry.

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.

International Institute of Business Analysis and Agile Alliance seek feedback from users of new Agile Extension to BABOK Guide.

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.

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?

Gartner’s new report on the state of the PPM market evaluates 30 technology providers and identifies important trends, including the infiltration of the SaaS deployment model and increasing support of Agile.

A wide variety of technology solutions and services are available to help organizations implement, customize and improve their project portfolio management processes. Here is our April roundup of recent announcements from Daptiv, HP, Oracle, Planview and PowerSteering.

As a manger or coach, if you don’t change a pacesetter’s behavior you run a high risk of being held hostage by one person’s abilities--and pay a cost in team productivity. This article is about a pacesetter as a team member on an agile software development team. We will explain what a pacesetter is, why it’s a problem and the effect that a pacesetter has on agile software development.

QA in an Agile environment is very different…are your teams ready? Here we look at how QA needs to evolve in order to best support Agile development practices.

The project management blogosphere is weighing in on the upcoming Agile certification from PMI. Here’s a recent sampling along with an interview with PMI vice president of IT Frank Schettini, who discusses the development of the certification and what it can offer the profession.

Organizations and teams must come to understand why they need agile before choosing a methodology or tool to implement it. A mandate alone will not work. It is the overarching goals, values and principles of Agile that must ultimately guide teams in the adoption and adaptation of its practices.

Agile says less is almost always better — less documentation, less process, less intrusion from management. So how can a “less is more” approach be applied to complex projects with larger teams? By creating sub-teams that still work independently, but do much more of one thing: collaboration.

An agile methodology can help bring about intrinsic changes in an organization--especially when an organization figures out the right “flavor” of agile that works best for them. Here are few things that an agile project can foster.

This two-part article wraps up our long-running series and highlights valuable lessons for today’s projects--and what you can take away from them.

There’s plenty of pressure to try to finish projects faster. Sometimes that pressure comes from outside the team, from our managers. When it does, the team can succumb to two common agile schedule games: “Double Your Velocity” and “Everyone Start Your Own Story.” If you face these games, you do have options before they destroy your project.

Agile practices are not intrinsically “value-adding” — they must be aligned to business needs and goals in order to provide true value. By measuring their agility based on compliance with a particular method, organizations may prevent their teams from adapting practices to suit projects with different characteristics and needs.

Adult children. Jumbo shrimp. Seriously funny. I’m sure you recognize these expressions as oxymorons — self-contradictory phrases, often with an ironic meaning. Should we add “agile requirements” to the list? Does agile development fit in with traditional requirements practices? And if so, how?

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.

HarperCollins needed an intuitive solution that could manage and track its Digital Technology Services work for over 100 global users. With Innotas’ on-demand IT Governance solution, the publisher was able to manage both strategic projects and sprints with the same tool.

An event celebrating the 10-year-anniversary of the Agile Manifesto brought together 33 members of the agile community and sparked discussion about what agile has solved, what is unsolvable and what remains to be solved. Here, we talk to attendee Ryan Martens, CTO of Rally, about some of his and the group’s conclusions.

Does the process of scaling Agile in large organizations destroy its value? What can be done when its principles clash with corporate culture? Applying simple rules that reinforce Agile values can sow seeds of change and produce far-reaching results. Let’s explore, including suggestions from Diana Larsen and Esther Derby.

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.

Acquisition of Scrum project management tools and training provider helps position CollabNet to expand presence in application lifecycle management market.

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?

These fundamental aspects of Scrum's functionality make it an easy match with software development projects. But the wonderful nature of Scrum and the agile methodology is that it is highly adaptable to many technologies and other types of efforts--and doesn’t have to stay locked into one project type.