Excel template for agile project management

A Guide to Agile Project Management

Article written by: Ranita Mukherjee

An agile is the project management technology that uses its short development cycles known by the name as Sprints. It focuses on continuous improvement in product and service development. In other words, it is said that it is an iterative approach that will help in delivering the project throughout its life cycle. These life cycles are made up of different iterations or have different steps for the project completion. These iterative approaches are used in the field of software development projects in order to promote velocity along with adaptability.

One of the benefits of the iterative approach is that a person can easily adjust them as long as they can move further or follow the linear path. In the end, agile projects help you in exhibiting the central values along with behavior and trust. It also adds in the flexibility part, along with empowerment and collaboration. These projects help in the concentration on empowered people along with their interactions. Agile project management mainly focuses on delivering the maximum value.

Main components of Agile Project Management

Let us understand what are the components of an agile project management:

1. Story of the user- It includes information about the project which helps in raising the estimates in order to attain desired goals.
2. Sprints- It also includes sprints which are in the form of short iteration that help in the accomplishment of the determined task.
3. Agile board- This board is used in tracking the progress of the project. It includes sticky notes along with project management software and Kanban board.
4. Handling of product backlog- It is important as it helps in updating the projects that are completed or about to complete in the future.
5. Scrum meeting- Daily scrum meetings are arranged as it helps in keeping the track of employees and updating them about their progress in the project. This meeting is for 10-15 minutes.
6. Planning- It involves detailed planning about the project objective along with its scope and goal to be achieved. The main motive of this phase is to do the changes that will add important additions to the project.
7. Helps in the creation of a product road map - In this product, the road map is important as it helps in knowing the latest features about the projects for which each team member is accountable in nature. It also helps them to know what should be added to the final product when it is about to be introduced in the market. Products backlog is important when someone wants to move for extra additions for the projects.
8. Helps in releasing the planning - They are using the shorter development cycles which is known by the name as sprints. When the sprint is finished, you will be able to know the product features along with its functions that are released. The team will have to plan in a different manner for the release of the product which should be done at a high level. A release plan should be devised so that it can be easily moved to a different stage.

9. Planning of the sprint- It is important to conduct sprint meetings as it will help in determining the task of each team member and their plans to achieve them. For efficient workflow of work in an organization, it is better to share the responsibility to each working in the project.

Thus we can say that these are the above main components of agile project management that will help in gaining an edge in the current market which tends to be competitive in nature. There are many people who want to become agile project managers. For this, they need to enroll in such courses where they will receive the benefits of an agile training certificate that will provide the features of online training by the experts.

Principles of Agile Project Management

• The project will break into many small pieces which are kept on high priority by the team in the areas of importance.
• It helps in promoting collaborative working, especially with the customer.
• The agile projects will help in learning along with adjusting with regular intervals in order to ensure that the customers are always satisfied and provided with results in the form of benefits.
• These projects help in integrating along with planning and execution. It will also allow an organization to create a working mindset that will help in responding to the team efficiently. It can be done to change the requirements.

How agile working is fruitful in nature?

• Agile working will empower such people who are involved in the projects. It helps in building accountability along with encouraging ideas which are diversified in nature. It will be allowing the early benefits that will help in the continuous improvements along with promotion.
• Its working will help in building the clients and user engagements. All these changes are incremental and evolutionary in nature rather than moving for revolutionary methods. It is also best in supporting cultural change that will help in the success of the projects that are transformational in nature.
• These projects will allow the decisions to be tested and rejected in the early stages. Feedback will prove fruitful in nature by providing the benefits for the same.

Benefits of Agile Project Management

Agile Project Management provides many benefits to organizations along with project teams and products. Some of the benefits are discussed below:

• Product quality- Agile methods have the best safeguards that help in making the product quality high. It can be done by taking a proactive approach for quality improvement and preventing the problems pertaining to the products. It also helps in embracing technological excellence along with good design and sustainable developments. These project methods help in defining the requirements on time so that it can help in the knowledge and features of the product. It provides continuous integration and daily testing into the process of development along with allowing the team to address such issues. Additionally, these projects allow us to take advantage of automated testing tools that help in development during the day and overnight. It allows the team to improve their processes and work and complete the work that has been tested, integrated, and documented.
• High satisfaction of customers - This project management will help in satisfying the customers by keeping them fully engaged in the projects along with having product owners that are experts in product requirements and needs of the customers. It will help in keeping the product backlog updated along with delivering the products to market quickly.
• Boosting the team morale – It helps the people to be creative in nature that include innovative and knowledgeable experts. They work cross-functionally that further helps the employees of an organization to learn new skills along with assisting each other, thereby resulting in a mutual growth by teaching others.
• Helps in increasing collaboration- All the people including the development team work on a daily basis. Thus, it helps in organizing the work that is completed by them. On other hand, in the meantime, the development team can discuss the product quality directly to the stakeholders.
• Team structures- Agile projects include multiple team members on one project. These projects help in providing unique opportunities that, in turn, assist the employees in forming their own team along with the work environment.

• Relevant metrics- In this project management team will estimate cost and time that will help in project performance. It will make project decisions relevant along with accuracy in nature. It includes metrics like project timelines determination along with budgets that are based on each development team. Performances and capabilities are also covered. It has a development team that is responsible for putting in efforts to the work that can prove best for project requirements. It also includes a relative estimate that combines the estimated efforts of the individual team which should be developed in nature. The  knowledge and capabilities of an individual are also taken into consideration. It will be refining the estimated cost along with time and efforts on a regular basis. It helps in comparing the cost of future development that results in determining the end project over the new projects.
• Making performance visible in nature- In this project, team members will have the opportunity to know about the ongoing projects. In order to see the progress, all the scrum meetings are on a daily basis along with reviews and charts.
• Control on projects- All the team members work in the best conditions to inspect and adapt under agile projects. They all are controlling the ongoing products that can assure better leads and create better products.
• Project predictability is improved- This project includes several practices and tools for improving predictability. It helps in knowing the exact cost for each sprint. It predicts the budget which are the main requirements of the firm, that helps workers to know the performance of an individual sprint.
• Reduction of risk- It helps in the reduction of risk which is more likely to occur in projects. This is one of the main benefits of agile project management as it helps in delivering value to the customers faster in a short span of time without any issues. The agile team members will work in small but fewer increments.
• Stand-up meetings- Daily meetings are conducted on a regular basis which is one of the excellent sources in ensuring the target and informed decisions. In this meeting, the main points of yesterday's work are covered. After that, the team discusses the target that has to be accomplished by the day.
• Working in a team- If the people are working in a team, it will ensure proper work culture. With an effective workflow in place where daily tasks as well as the tasks for the long-term are planned and executed, it will help in proper sharing of information along with other team members. It will also help in sharing the aim along with decisions and policies.

Thus, these are the main benefits that the organizations receive from agile project management. In other words, we can say that these projects are  based on breaking the complex projects into manageable chunks which should be completed into small periods. This is the success of running an effective agile project management.