What is Agile Project Management (APM)?

We have different software development methodologies like agile development, waterfall development, extreme development, Rapid Application Development (RA), Spiral development model, and Scrum development model. This article discusses Agile Project Management (APM), its phases, advantages and disadvantages.

What is Agile Project Management (APM)?

Agile Software Management is an iterative and incremental approach to software development that emphasizes the importance of delivering a working product quickly and frequently.

1. It enables the team members to work collaboratively with each other and with the customer.
2. It motivates team members to faster development of the project.
3. It works by breaking the processes into smaller chunks known as sprints.
4. It entertains customers’ feedback, which helps the development team to the changes in the sprint.

Agile Project Management Principles

1. The highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
2. It welcomes changing requirements, even late in development.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference for the shortest timescale.
4. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and the support they need and trust them to get the job done.
5. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
6. Simplicity the art of maximizing the amount of work not done is essential.
7. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
8. By the amount of work that has been finished, gauge your progress.
9. Never give up on excellence.
10. Take advantage of change to gain a competitive edge.

When to Use Agile Project Management?

Agile Project management is not suitable for every project.

1. It is best suited when a customer isn’t very clear about the project and the exact project description is not known.
2. It is also best suitable for the project in which continuous feedback is entertained.
3. This method will not work for very small projects and inexperienced team members.

Phases of Agile Project Management

1. Envision

It is the first phase of agile project management which involves the goal and purpose of the project. It also creates a list that prioritizes the features and requirements.

2. Speculate

It involves breaking the process into smaller chunks known as sprint and detailed planning is done to how to achieve the goal. In this phase, user stories are selected from the product backlog.

3. Explore

In this phase, the product is divided into sprints which lasts for 1-4 weeks. Progress, challenges, and plans are discussed in daily scrum meetings, and execution of the project is done.

4. Adapt

It involves continuous adaptation of the plan based on the feedback provided by the client. Scrum master continues to monitor the progress of the project and also address the problems faced by the developers. It demonstrates what has happened and what needs to be done.

5. Close

It is the last phase of agile product management which deploys the final product or new version of the product into the real world. It collects feedback from customers for future improvement of the project.

Pillars of APM

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools: It emphasizes that agile is a people-centered approach to project development. It encourages the team to do effective communication among themselves. Teamm should be valued for their work. Processes and tools should be within the team and human power.
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation: The agile manifesto is designed in such a way that it reduces the time wasted on documentation work and paperwork. Instead of wasting time on documentation, the agile team makes user stories including all the details regarding the project. They start developing the product and make changes according to the feedback given by the client.
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation: Contract negotiation means customer desires/demands are noted on a legal contract before the development of the project and if the outcome is not as per the desire of the customer contract negotiation takes place. Agile believes in customer satisfaction over contract so it collaborates with customers throughout the development of the project to get regular feedback and make changes accordingly.
4. Adapting to change above following a rigid plan: Agile is flexible and not rigid like the waterfall model which does not welcome changes after the development of the project. Agile allows changes according to the feedback provided by the customer.

Common Agile Methodologies

1. Scrum

Scrum is a type of Agile framework. It is a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems while the productivity and creativity of delivering products are at the highest possible value. Scrum uses an Iterative process.

Silent features of Scrum are:

• Scrum is a light-weighted framework.
• Scrum emphasizes self-organization.
• Scrum is simple to understand.
• The Scrum framework helps the team to work together.

2. Kanban

Kanban is a popular Agile Software Development Methodology. It is a signaling device that instructs the moving of parts in a ‘pull’ production system, developed as part of the TPS (Toyota Production System). Kanban is about envisioning the existing workflow in terms of steps. These steps can be created on the whiteboard. The main aim of Kanban is to reduce WIP (Work-In-Progress), or inventory, between processes by ensuring the upstream process creates parts as long as its downstream process needs it.

3. Lean

Lean Software Development (LSD) is an agile framework that is used to streamline & optimize the software development process. It may also be referred to as the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) strategy as these ways of thinking are very much alike since both intend to speed up development by focusing on new deliverables.

Benefits of APM

1. Rapid development of projects: APM helps in the development of projects faster as it does not waste much time on documentation. All the team members collaborate and with the client for feedback.
2. Freedom of ideas: The agile methodology gives freedom of ideas which encourages team members to come up with different ideas/ suggestions.
3. Flexible and adaptable to the changes: It is not a rigid method like the waterfall model which does not allow changes. It welcomes customers’ feedback and makes necessary changes.
4. Entertains customer feedback: The agile model collaborates with customers to take their feedback and make changes.
5. Faster issue or defect detection: Fault detection becomes faster with the help of the agile model of software development.
6. Continuous involvement of customers: Customer and team collaborate throughout the development of the project.
7. Efficient use of resources: The agile method efficiently uses the resources for development. It also takes off unnecessary waste of resources so that overdevelopment cost is reduced.

Limitations of APM

1. Unavailability of customers: It includes continuous customer involvement, but unavailability of customers can be challenging for the team to develop the project.
2. Expertise: It needs good knowledge and experience.
3. Resources: Unavailability of required resources may hamper the development.
4. Documentation: It needs proper documentation. It creates user stories that include all the requirements of the user.
5. Poor resource planning: It is difficult to predict the cost and time of the project because it is fully dependent on the customer feedback and changes required in the project so the team does not know what will be the end product.