Agile Project Management

IPM 6050
 The material presented is based on

The Project MANAGER’S

GUIDE TO MASTERING
AGILE
By Charles G. Cobb

Chapters : 8 – 10,
8. Agile Project Management Role
9. Agile Communications and Tools
10. Tools Overview
AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT SHIFTS IN THINKING
EMPHASIS ON MAXIMIZING VALUE VERSUS CONTROL
PLAN-DRIVEN / AGILE COMPARISON
PARADIGM SHIFT BETWEEN WATERFALL AND AGILE
 MAXIMIZING VALUE VS. CONTROL
AGILE “IRON TRIANGLE”

Value
(Releasable Product)

Quality Constraints
(Reliable, Adaptable Product) (Cost, Schedule, Scope)

Primary Emphasis is on Producing Value (Change is the Norm)

”WATERFALL” PLAN-DRIVEN COST/VALUE CURE
“AGILE” ADAPTIVE COST/VALUE CURVE
EMPHASIS ON MAXIMIZING VALUE VERSUS CONTROL
EMPHASIS ON EMPOWERMENT AND SELF-ORGANIZATION
LIMITED EMPHASIS ON DOCUMENTATION
MANAGING FLOW INSTEAD OF STRUCTURE
POTENTIAL AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT ROLES
The role of a project manager in an agile project is not well-defined; and officially, there is no role for a project
manager at the team level in an agile project. However, there are a number of potential roles that a project
management with the right skills and training to perform the agile project/program manager role can perform.
These roles include:
◾ Making agile work on a team level
◾ Managing hybrid agile projects
◾ Enterprise-level project/program management role

1. Team-Level Role

• There is no defined role for a “Project Manager” but there is a lot of Project Management going on:
• Team 5-8 people
• Scrum Master and Team (Developers) have small scaled back “Project Manager” responsibilities
• Product Owner is the “key role” that has overall responsibility for the success of the project and for planning and
prioritizing the business value to be Delivered

When you see organizations transition from traditional to Agile project manager you may see “Project Managers”
transition to Product Owner….
3 Roles
• Product Owner: Typically comes from a business role and may have no project
management or product management experience. Cares primarily with the delivery
of the product. Continuously prioritize the items to be delivered, controls the
costs and overall time required to complete the project.

• Scrum Master: Probably has Agile training but little or no project management
experience. Scrum Master is facilitating the review and discussion of the information
in Daily Stand-ups (Daily scrum) and other agile meetings (Sprint Ceremonies).

• Team: Each team member typically has experience as a developer but has not had
to take responsibility for planning, estimating, and managing tasks. Team is
responsible for the quality of the product it produces. The team is expected to be
cross functional and self organizing without a significant need for functional direction
from outside of the team.
 ENTERPRISE-LEVEL PROJECT/PROGRAM ROLE
• The Agile Project Manager becomes more involved at the enterprise level when projects have these characteristics:
• Large, complex initiatives
• Planning and leading enterprise-level Agile transformations
• Scaling Agile practices to an enterprise level and implementing enterprise level agile frameworks.
 HYBRID AGILE PROJECT ROLE

Agile Project Manager

• An Agile Project Manager is not someone who only knows how to practice Agile (Different mindset than just passing the PMI-ACP)
• An Agile Project Manager understands both traditional plan-driven project management and Agile principles and practices
• And he/she knows how to blend them together in the right proportions to fit a given situation.
 COMPARING PMBOK AND AGILE
PMBOK AGILE
PMBOK is designed around a much more prescriptive, defined AGILE : The Agile Manifesto is designed around a much more
process approach adaptive and empirical approach
Knowledge Areas
• PMI has divided managing a project in 10 Knowledge Areas

1. Integration Management
2. Scope Management
3. Time Management
4. Cost Management
5. Quality Management
6. Human Resource Management
7. Communications Management
8. Risk Management
9. Procurement Management
10.Stakeholder Management
 PROJECT INTEGRATION MANAGEMENT
PMBOK is very much oriented around a plan-driven project and is also very document-intensive:
◾ Develop project charter.
◾ Develop project management plan.
◾ Direct and manage project work.
◾ Monitor and control project work.
◾ Perform integrated change control.
◾ Close project or phase
 Typical Plan-Driven Approach
Project Scope The approach discourages and controls changes
Management to manage scope in order to manage the
project costs and schedules.
Project Time The project approach is based on a “contractual”
Management commitment between the project team and the
customer to deliver the specified requirements
in an specified amount of time.
Quality testing is typically done sequentially
after development is completed.
Quality testing is typically the responsibility of
Project Cost an independent group whose responsibility is
Management to validate the level of quality.
Final acceptance testing typically occurs at the
end of the project.
Typical Adaptive Approach
Changes are expected and encouraged in order
to maximize the value that the project provides to the
user.
he approach is based on a partnership between
the project team and the customer to
collaboratively make tradeoffs to maximize the
value delivered against time required as the
project progresses.
Quality testing is done concurrently with
development.
Quality testing is the responsibility of the entire
team who produces the product—any quality
testers should be an integral part of the
project team.
Acceptance testing is done incrementally at the
end of each sprint on the items produced in
that sprint.
 Typical Plan-Driven Approach
Project Human Resources are loosely knit and may be brought
Resource in-and-out of the project as needed at
Management different times to fulfill commitments.
Functional managers typically provide direction
to the resources that they are responsible for
in a project. A project manager usually
provides a coordination function to manage
commitments among all the participating
groups to meet overall project goals.
A significant amount of communications to
groups outside of the project team is
controlled and funneled through the project
Project manager
Communications
Management Bad news may be guarded and provided to
people outside of the project team on a
need-to-know basis
Typical Adaptive Approach
An agile approach typically is based on a
dedicated team of resources who are
committed to a project for the duration of the
project.
The team is expected to be cross-functional
and self-organizing without a significant need
for functional direction from outside of the
team. If a project manager is engaged in the
project, he/she should be a strong,
cross-functional leader and not just a
coordinator.
There is an emphasis on openness and
transparency information is much more freely
shared without a project manager becoming an
intermediary and a bottleneck in releasing
information
All information (good and bad) should be
disclosed in the spirit of partnership,
openness, and transparency
 Typical Plan-Driven Approach
In both a plan-driven and adaptive approach, risks are generally related to uncertainties
in the requirements
In order to provide some level of predictability
Project Risk over project costs and schedules, traditional
Management plan-driven projects tend to be very risk-averse
and treat risk as something that has to be
controlled and avoided.
A traditional plan-driven project many times
attempts to reduce uncertainty to a minimum
in order to minimize risks.
Procurement is typically based on having very
well-defined requirements and specifications
that must be met by the vendor delivering the
products or services.
Project
Procurement The relationship between the customer and the
Management vendor is typically based on a very well-
defined
contract, and it may be competitively bid
among multiple vendors to get the lowest
Typical Adaptive Approach
In order to provide a level of adaptivity to user
needs, an adaptive approach recognizes that it
may be necessary to live with uncertainty that
will be resolved as the project progresses
rather than attempting to resolve it all upfront.
As a result, it may be necessary to take a more
aggressive approach to managing risks and
defer the identification and resolution of some
risks until the project is in progress.
There may be more of a spirit of partnership with
the vendor who is delivering the products and
services with some level of flexibility to work
out details of requirements and costs and
schedules
The contract may be high level, with some
latitude provided for working out details and
the vendors selected to participate in the
contract may be limited to enable more of a
partnership relationship.
 Typical Plan-Driven Approach
The project manager, supported by a business
analyst, if necessary, is responsible for
engaging stakeholders in the project and
ensuring that their interests are adequately
Project represented.
Stakeholder Requirements of the stakeholders are
Management documented and consolidated and approved
by the business sponsor as necessary.
The project manager plays a coordination role
in gathering and consolidating the requirements
for approval by the business sponsor as
necessary.
Typical Adaptive Approach
The product owner is responsible for representing
the interests of all stakeholders in the project.
He/she may be assisted in that role by a
business analyst.
There is a much higher level of reliance on direct
face-to-face communications in the project.
The product owner is a decision maker and
should be able to approve stakeholder
requirements within the scope of his/her
responsibility. (He/she may escalate decisions
to a business sponsor as necessary.)
AGILE COMMUNICATIONS
AND TOOLS
 AGILE COMMUNICATION
FACE-TO-FACE: THE MOST EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE METHOD OF CONVEYING
INFORMATION TO AND WITHIN A DEVELOPMENT TEAM IS FACE TO FACE
CONVERSATION

COMMUNICATION PRACTICES:
• INFORMATION RADIATORS (KANBAN BOARDS / BURNDOWN CHARTS)
• DAILY STANDUPS
• CO-LOCATION (TEAM ROOMS)
• COLLABORATION TOOLS (SHAREPOINT / WIKI PAGES)
• DISTRIBUTED TEAMS (TELECOMMUNICATIONS)
INFORMATION RADIATORS
Information radiators promotes customer collaboration and helps to build a spirit of trust and partnership
between the development organization and the business users.

KANBAN BOARD
AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS

Agile methodologies used according to the 14th Annual State of Agile survey
• DAILY STANDUPS
• THE SCRUM MASTER FACILITATES THE MEETING.
• THEY TAKE PLACE DAILY BUT THEY ARE LIMITED TO 15 MINUTES, AND EACH PERSON IN THE MEETING TYPICALLY
• STANDS UP TO ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO KEEP IT BRIEF.
• THE MEETING IS FOCUSED ON THE TASKS AT HAND AND IS TYPICALLY HELD IN FRONT OF A PROGRESS BOARD.
• THE MEETINGS ARE STRUCTURED SO THAT EACH PERSON ANSWERS THREE PRIMARY QUESTIONS:
• DISTRIBUTED TEAMS
• VIDEO CONFERENCING MIGHT BE USED IN LIEU OF FACE-TO-FACE COMMUNICATIONS.
• ONLINE STATUS BOARDS MIGHT BE USED IN LIEU OF PHYSICAL WALL BOARDS.
• WIKIS MIGHT BE USED FOR SHARING OF INFORMATION.
• DAILY STANDUPS MIGHT NEED TO BE EXTENDED OR SUPPLEMENTED WITH OTHER
• MEETINGS TO PROVIDE MORE COMMUNICATIONS.
BURN-DOWN CHARTS
• A SPRINT BURNDOWN REPORT THEN TRACKS THE COMPLETION OF WORK THROUGHOUT THE
SPRINT.
• THE X-AXIS REPRESENTS TIME, AND THE Y-AXIS REFERS TO THE AMOUNT OF WORK LEFT TO
COMPLETE, MEASURED IN EITHER STORY POINTS OR HOURS.
• THE GOAL IS TO HAVE ALL THE FORECASTED WORK COMPLETED BY THE END OF THE SPRINT.
BURN-UP CHARTS
A BURN-DOWN CHART IS A CHART OFTEN USED IN SCRUM AGILE DEVELOPMENT TO TRACK WORK COMPLETED
AGAINST TIME ALLOWED. THE X-AXIS IS THE TIME FRAME, AND THE Y-AXIS IS THE AMOUNT OF REMAINING WORK LEFT
THAT IS LABELED IN STORY POINTS AND MAN HOURS, ETC. THE CHART BEGINS WITH THE GREATEST AMOUNT OF
REMAINING WORK, WHICH DECREASES DURING THE PROJECT AND SLOWLY BURNS TO NOTHING.