Hello!

Welcome to the fifth of the six courses in the

Google Project Management Certificate program.

Six icons of each course with the fifth course highlighted: agile project management
This course will explore the history, approach, and philosophy of Agile project management,
including the Scrum framework. You will learn how to differentiate and blend Agile and other
project management approaches. As you progress through the course, you will learn more
about Scrum, exploring its pillars and values and comparing essential Scrum team roles. You
will discover how to build, manage, and refine a Product Backlog, implement Agile’s
value-driven delivery strategies, and define a Value Roadmap. You will also develop the skills to
organize the five important Scrum events for a Scrum team, introduce an Agile or Scrum
approach to an organization, and coach an Agile team. Finally, you will learn how to search for
and land opportunities in Agile roles. Current Google project managers will continue to instruct
and provide you with the hands-on approaches, tools, and resources to meet your goals.

In this reading, you will learn about the Project Management Certificate program structure and
course functionality. If you already read this in the last course and don't need a refresher, feel
free to skip it. If you’re new to the program, welcome! We’ve specifically designed the program
you’re about to explore to help every type of learner successfully finish the certificate and get
ready for a role in project management. No previous experience is required.

Become job-ready
In this Google Project Management Certificate program, you will learn the foundations of
traditional project management and gain insight into Agile project management. According to
the Project Management Institute, the project management labor force in seven project-oriented
sectors is expected to grow by 33 percent, or nearly 22 million new jobs, by 2027*. We are
excited to join you on this journey as you learn the skills to begin a career in one of today’s most
in-demand professions.

Course 5 covers four weeks of material. Each week includes a series of lessons with many
types of learning opportunities, such as:

Videos with a Google employee as your instructor.

Readings to introduce new ideas and case studies and to build on the concepts from the videos.

Discussion forums to explore course topics for better understanding and chat with peers in the
program.

In-video questions that will pop up from time to time. They’re designed for you to check your
learning as you go!
Practice quizzes to check your understanding and give you valuable feedback. Practice
activities will provide you with a hands-on opportunity to apply skills you are working to master.
You will assess your work by answering quiz questions about it or by comparing it to an
exemplar built by our course team. Note: these activities will not count towards your final course
grade, but you are strongly encouraged to complete them as they will help prepare you for the
graded quizzes and peer reviews.

Graded quizzes on video and reading content to measure your progress.

Ungraded peer-review activities on video and reading content that provide you the opportunity
to practice applying skills you are working to master. Other learners in your course will see the
work you submit and give you feedback based on a rubric.

Graded peer-review activities on video and reading content that assess your ability to apply
skills you are working to master. Other learners in your course will grade your work and give you
feedback based on a rubric.

Everyone learns differently, so we designed this program to let you work at your own pace.
Although your personalized deadlines start when you enroll, they’re just a guide. Feel free to
move through the program however it works best for you. Keep in mind, you can always reset
your deadlines by clicking the blue reset my deadlines button. There’s no penalty for late
assignments. To earn your certificate, all you have to do is complete all of the work.

Tips
We strongly recommend you take all six courses—and complete the items in each lesson—in
the order they appear, as new information and concepts build on previous ones.

Make the most of the readings and additional resources throughout the program. They’re
designed to support your learning.

If something is confusing, don’t hesitate to rewatch a video, go through a reading again, or ask
your classmates for advice in the discussion forum.

Take part in all learning opportunities to gain as much knowledge and experience possible.

Congratulations on choosing to take this first step toward becoming a part of the wonderful
world of project management. Enjoy the journey!

*Source: PMI (2017). Project Management Job Growth and Talent Gap 2017–2027.

Week 1
History of Agile Project management
 Hi again. You may remember earlier courses in this program that provided an introduction to
Waterfall and Agile project management methodologies. Now, we're going to get more in-depth and
really expand your understanding of these popular approaches. In this video, I'm going to give you a
brief history of Agile and introduce you to the Agile values and principles. And you'll learn that Agile
can be and is used in lots of different industries. Ready? Let's get started. To quickly review,
Waterfall is a popular project management methodology that refers to the sequential or linear
ordering of phases. You complete one phase at a time, not proceeding to the next until it is done.
Then you move down the line like a waterfall, starting at the top of the mountain and traveling to the
bottom. The term "agile" refers to being able to move quickly and easily. It also refers to flexibility
and the willingness and ability to change and adapt. Projects that adopt an Agile project
management take an iterative approach, which means the project processes are repeated often
many times during the life cycle of the project. In this case, the team operates within many shorter
blocks of time, called iterations. Individual iterations might get repeated depending on the feedback
received. During each iteration, the team takes a subset of all the project's activities and does all the
work required to complete that subset of activities. You can think of it as a lot of mini waterfalls for
each activity. This iterative approach enables the project to move quickly, as well as making it much
more adaptive to change. So the term "agile" means flexibility, repetition, and openness to change,
but what do we mean by Agile project management? Agile project management is an approach to
project and team management based on the Agile Manifesto. The manifesto is a collection of four
values and 12 principles that define the mindset that all Agile teams should strive for. So in very
basic terms, Waterfall is linear and sequential and does not encourage changing up the process
once it is started. Agile, on the other hand, is iterative, flexible, and incorporates necessary changes
throughout the process. Now, a bit of a history lesson so you can have a better sense of how and
why Agile has become such a popular approach to project management.
Play video starting at :2:23 and follow transcript

2:23
Agile methodologies emerged organically during the 1990s as the software industry was booming.
Software startups like Google were blazing a trail to get more software products built in less time.
Meanwhile, the tech giants of the time were experimenting with faster ways to build better software
and stay competitive.
Play video starting at :2:43 and follow transcript

2:43
And, by the way, software isn't just the apps and websites that we all use every day. Software also
includes the code behind innovations in agriculture, medical devices, manufacturing, and more. So
in this competitive growing environment, companies couldn't just create new, innovative products.
They also needed to innovate the very processes they were using to develop these new products. In
2001, the thought leaders and creators of some of these new processes, also called methodologies,
came together to find common ground between their methods and solve a problem. The problem,
they agreed, was that companies were so focused on planning and documenting their project that
they lost sight of what really mattered: pleasing their customers. So these leaders came up with the
Agile Manifesto to guide others on what they believe really matters when developing software, which
is keeping the process flexible and focusing on people—both the team and the users—over the end
products or deliverables. Now, here's where Agile gets even more interesting. You can still use Agile,
even if you're not planning to work on software projects. Agile has been so successful in the
software industry that its values, principles, and frameworks have been applied to nearly every
industry. In fact, the Agile methods that you're going to learn also draw heavily on Lean
manufacturing principles that originated in Toyota's car factories in the 1930s. You'll also find Agile
methods being adopted in the aeronautical, healthcare, education, finance industries, and even
more. Cool, right? Agile is everywhere. Now you know a little bit about the history of Agile, the origin
of the Agile Manifesto, and some of the industries that use Agile for project management. Coming up
next, we'll compare more of the differences between Waterfall and Agile to really familiarize yourself
with these project management styles