Do you know that the connection between planning & execution of a project has a thin line that connects them? Planning for it is one thing but being able to execute that plan in the right manner is another. Like any successful product development, its project management requires to follow a solid methodology. And over the past decade, the popularity of Agile Project Management tools and methods has seen an upward graph only.

Even today Agile Project Management is seeing great prevalence among companies that are trying to get their complex set of work done. In this fast-changing world, Agile project management promotes a culture that is adaptive for team members. And the working process only thrives when the outcome sees more productive work practice. So in this post today we will be highlighting the main concept of Agile Project Management tools, benefits, drawbacks, key principles, and finally its connection with scrum for better task administration.

Understanding The Real Concept of Agile Project Management

The basic idea of Agile in Project Management is a process by which at every stage continuous improvement and iteration are done by breaking down several large projects up into more manageable task stages while involving constant collaboration among team members. More essentially, a team that adopts this methodology is able to get their work done much quicker. It even enables the team to adapt to any changes and optimizes the workflow that the project requires.

Alongside the development of the project, instead of learning from long and hard learning sessions at the end of the project, teams get to engage regularly and learn from frequent learning cycles. Apart from that, this methodology starts off with the customer explaining how the end product will look like and what type of problem it will solve. This clarifies the expectations of the customer to the project management team.

There is a definite process of research, planning, execution, & evaluation once the work begins. And in order to fit the customer needs, this might alter the final output to them. Among the team members, continuous collaboration is the key in respect to help the project managers make well-informed decisions.

Benefits of Agile Project Management System

The intention behind developing Agile in the first place was to bring improvement in the development process. This is done in order to quickly identify the adjustment required or the issues that need to be fixed. By interactive, iterative & sprints, the inclusion of agile project management tools enables the teams and project managers to provide better products that too in a much rapid manner.

The world is now in the era of digital transformation, so therefore more companies are moving towards digital workplace practice. So, that is why the agile method is a perfect suit that enables teams to manage the project and operate as a whole for the companies that are looking to transform. Moreover, agile project management ensures company-wide work process & procedural alignment throughout the organization. So in terms of enterprise based benefits, the agile style ensures:

• Improve in productivity
• Deliverables in the higher range
• Minimization in the risk factor for missed objectives
• Increase in flexibility
• More transparency
• Better satisfaction and increase in engagement

And in respect to Agile in project management for team members, it includes a number of benefits like:

• Quicker deployment of a solution
• Increase in adaptability to change & improve in flexibility
• Rapid action can be taken in terms of issues & defects detection
• Minimization in resources causing reduced wastage
• Workability with a lightweight framework
• Leading to an increase in success due to more focused team-wise application
• Faster inversion ability
• Peerless control over the project
• Ability to provide more focus on customer needs
• Advanced processes of development
• Better constancy in team feedback & collaboration

Limitations of Agile Project Management Method

Like every project management method, agile also has some shortcomings in utilizing it within your system and among project teams like:-

• Might be in-effective due to the team & project manager being inexperienced
• The agile process might be more favorable for the developers, project teams, consumer goals but not necessarily for the user-end experience.
• Might not digest and mix well enough for larger traditional enterprises due to its more formal and flexible process.
• For clients more used to a rigid and flexible process, they might face trouble coping up with the process.
• A team that does not function well under pressure might find the method less suitable

Basic Principles of Successful Agile Project Management

If you are serious about implementing agile project management within your team, then you got to follow the following successful principles for it.

1. Maintain the satisfaction of the customer by delivering the project fast and with a minimum number of errors
2. Decreasing amount of time between the phase of planning and delivering the project
3. The team of managers and developers would work together for a better understanding of the project increasing the productivity in work
4. Changes requested can be taken into consideration even at the late phase during the development
5. Considering the factor for better coordination among the team members
6. Monitor and track the process of project progress at every stage of iteration and looking for adjustments wherever required.
7. Must have a feeling of trust and support toward the team for completing the project goal
8. Emphasize the face-to-face conversation with the development team to clear out the confusion by effectively conveying information to solve problems and easy knowledge sharing
9. Understand the requirement to find the simplest solution by maximizing the work done ensuring timely completion of the task by all the team members
10. Scrum & sprint supported agile project management tools like WP Project Manager must be used to simplify the codes that further helps in saving your valuable time.

Steps of an Effective Agile Project Management Methodology

The main purpose of the agile project methodology is to produce a shorter development lifecycle and more frequent product releases than the traditional Waterfall method. So here six critical steps of agile project management methodology.

Step 1

Planning of Project: This includes the feasibility study, development of scope, breaking of the project into executable tasks or sprints, and then estimating the time needed to complete them.

Step 2

Creating the Roadmap: This is the process of roadmap creation for the list of features that the developed product would have at the end. It works as a plan of action on how a project should evolve over time. These features of the final product are also built during each sprint making it an integral part of the overall plan.

Step 3

Planning of Release: As the project will complete in sprints meaning there will be the release of features after each cycle. And unlike the traditional waterfall model, the product development cycles will be much shorter. Moreover, the plan of the features is revisited at the beginning of each sprint.

Step 4:

Planning of Sprint: The sprints are made to distribute task evenly and keeping in mind that each team member has tasks assigned even before the sprints has begun. At the start of each sprint, the objective of the sprint is decided and the steps to achieve that objective are taken.

Step 5:

Conducting Daily Scrum Meetings: This process emphasis on daily meetings. There should be short meetings to discuss whether the team was able to finish the task assigned in the sprint. And then identify if there are any corrections that are required. Each team member talks about what they have done in the last sprint and what they are going to accomplish in the next one.

Step 6:

Review of Sprint & Retrospective: This is the last step for the overall sprint review & retrospective. After each sprint, there should be two meetings. The first meeting should be with the stakeholder to show them the finished product. This allows both sides to discuss if there are any issues in the end product. The sprint retrospective takes place after the sprint review and before the planning of the next sprint. This takes place to discuss what went well and what went amiss during the sprint.

Framework Involving Agile Project Management Methodology

There will be continuous planning and testing that involves in the framework of agile project management. Each of the different frameworks has its own unique attributes. Some of the very popular frameworks for agile project management includes:

• Kanban framework: This framework is a well-known one to implement for agile software development. This kanban mode of agile work requires real-time communication. The work items in this framework are represented in a Kanban Board. This allows the crew members to see the stage of each work at any point in time.

• Scrum framework: The framework deals with complex problems and at the same time it delivers high-quality products. It helps in managing complex knowledge work like in the field of research and advanced technology. More so, it is known to be a simple framework that helps teams work together and learn through their experiences acquired while resolving a problem.

• Hybrid framework: This framework is known to be a mixture of both agile and non-agile methods. Therefore it handles the requirement of changes and delivers the product in different stages. It follows the waterfall approach while its planning takes place. And when it comes to its execution and delivery it follows the agile approach.

• Lean framework: This framework works in the principle of providing maximum customer value & creating minimal waste. Moreover, it focuses on optimizing the flow of products all throughout the value stream. Throughout the process, this eliminates the waste creating process that requires less human effort. This even enables the company to act upon the changes in customer needs and requirements.

A Project Management Solution That Ensures Better Agile Method Application

Whether you have the plan to apply the agile project management method or not you are always going to need a solid project management solution to organize your teamwork. So in case you are actually thinking about implementing the agile framework into your project management drill, then you can always use a complete agile method and principle supported project management tool like WP Project Manager.

While we already established the fact by now that Agile Project Management requires constant team discussion and better coordination among team members. So, WP Project Manager’s capabilities of open channel team discussion nicely align with the method of agile method application. This enables the developers and project managers to work together for a better understanding of the project.

Its in-project team discussion ability works seamlessly & saves time while communicating with each other. Then there is Kanban Board integration with it that enables users to overview the state of every stage in one place just like the principle of Agile Project Management demands.

Get to prioritize assigned tasks to let the team members know which one needs to be performed first which is something very essential when it comes to performing the Agile project management method. Also, check advanced reports and insights in order to track task progress.

It will help make any improvement or change required for better output in the next sprint. For better daily scrum meetings, get all the updates and progress of the project in one place so that attendees of the meeting can realize and discuss how much task has been completed and whether there is any adjustment required by any of the responsible team.

What More You Get for Better Project Management

Apart from the WP Project Manager’s ability to relate to the above core concept and principle of the Agile method, it ensures smart project management through powerful features like:

• Private and open channel team discussion
• Project management with Kanban Board, Gantt Chart, Milestone method
• Tasklist management
• Email Notifications on important actions
• A dedicated dashboard on the complete on-going project overview
• Secured document manager with easy sharing facility
• Recurring task for auto repeated task generation
• Task tracking with interactive calendar
• Privacy & security with permission level & user role settings

Curious to know what more WP Project Manager can do for your team’s essential project management? Then check out the:

What method of project management does your company or team follow? Let us know your experience and thoughts if you are demonstrating and practicing an Agile Project Management methodology within your team.