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What Is Agile Project Management
What Is Agile Project Management
Agile methodology centers around an iterative approach to software development, which helps teams deliver value to their
customers more quickly and minimize glitches. Agile development acknowledges the uncertainty that accompanies changing
technologies in a fast-paced world, and it proposes iterative, short-term planning to overcome this. Work is split into sizable
chunks, also known as sprints, which are then completed at different intervals over a period of one to six weeks. Agile
development recognizes that change is unavoidable when working on projects. It also recognizes that projects are a
partnership between the company and the customer.
• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's
competitive advantage.
• Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter
timescale.
• Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
• Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get
the job done.
• The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a team is face-to-face conversation.
• Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers and users should be able to maintain a
constant pace indefinitely.
• The best architectures, requirements and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
• At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior
accordingly.
Thus the agile approach to project management advocates constant learning and adapting in order to produce quality end
products that perfectly satisfy the customer’s requirements while keeping up with current technology trends.
Waterfall Methodology
• Linear and sequential approach
Agile Methodology
• Incremental and iterative approach
• No unpredictable delays
The agile approach, which started out as an experiment for software-practitioners, has insinuated itself into every industry as
a productivity mantra. Marketing, advertising, event planning, publications, and even food distributors have used agile
knowledge to turn their luck around. We could almost call it a New Age Movement.
What are the frameworks within the agile methodology?
Agility is the umbrella term beneath which many frameworks have mushroomed over the years. It's a mindset, and a
framework is a set of rules with which you can convert lofty principles into tangible practices that you can incorporate in your
work.
There have been many frameworks over the years, the most popular being Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming (XP), and
Lean.
What is Scrum?
Scrum is an iterative incremental approach to software development under agile project management and is the most popular
framework under the agile methodology. In Scrum, you split your work into chunks on which you work for set periods
of time. These time boxes—called sprints— are tracked on a Scrum board and should result in a working piece of software.
Scrum prescribes an inspect-and-adapt approach. So with each sprint, they adapt by incorporating lessons from previous
sprints.
Scrum has 3 roles - Product Owner, Scrum Master and the development team. They each have distinct roles to play. The
Scrum process starts with the "backlog" —a list of requirements—where each requirement is broken down into user
stories and their corresponding tasks. These user stories are prioritized in order to plan the next sprint. There are
several reports in Scrum that help a team measure the performance of a sprint - velocity, burnup, burndown, cumulative flow
diagram. Scrum also emphasizes in face-to-face communication and small feedback loops within the team which is why
meetings play an important role in the Scrum process.
What is Kanban?
Kanban is a method to visualize your workflow that lets you identify bottlenecks and increase productivity by limiting the
amount of work in progress. It's based on the Japanese philosophy Kaizen, the idea that small continuous changes result in a
substantial movement over time.
A basic Kanban board typically has three columns - "To do", "In progress", and "Done." Each work item is written on a
Kanban card which also holds details like the description of the work item and the assignee. The Kanban cards are placed in
their respective columns on the board. Each column has a work-in-progress limit which prevents the team from becoming
overburdened and lets them focus on delivering quality work.
Kanban is a flow-based agile project management method which advocates continual delivery. Performance is usually
measured by how long a work item takes to go from "To do" to "Done" on the board. This method focuses solely on preventing
capacity overload and enabling quality and continuous delivery.
Kanban vs Scrum: How to pick one?
The "Kanban vs Scrum" is quite a popular debate within agile project management circles. While there are some key
differences between the two, both are fundamentally based on agile principles like adapting to change, transparency and
constant, consistent improvement.
Scrum is more prescriptive of the two with strict time boxes, ceremonies and artifacts. Kanban is favored by teams who
deliver continuously and are working on optimizing their workflow. If you don't like either, there's a third option Scrumban,
which combines the structure of Scrum and the flexibility of Kanban.
Each team operates differently. The framework you choose for your team depends on your work, your organizational culture
and your team dynamic. That being said, the framework you choose will directly influence your team's productivity and job
satisfaction. So choose wisely :)
Going agile with Zoho Sprints
Agility is a concept, and an agile tool is merely a catalyst that helps you convert your ambitious principles into tangible
metrics. You must decide what you want out of a tool before the evaluation process.
Visibility is good, but it should come with better collaboration. Extensive reports are great but they should incite better
reflection. Accountability is essential, but it should also help team motivation. A tool should help standardize a process but
not stay married to it.
An indispensable part of the agile process is change. That includes the process itself. So customization is great, but you need
to go easy on the frills if you're going to keep tweaking your process after every retrospective. It's important that your tool
needs to be flexible.
We kept all of that in mind as we developed Zoho Sprints, a lightweight, flexible tool that can be used equally well by teams
large and small, industries IT and non-IT, and seasoned agilists as well as beginners.