The agile way to the goal

In many cases, agile project management offers a valuable alternative to the traditional, planning-oriented approach based on the waterfall model. It makes managing projects and processes dynamic and flexible. For example, changes can be implemented quickly with regard to the scope of services. Agile project management emphasizes the positive aspects of low planning and management intensity: fast implementation, enormous adaptability and great personal responsibility.

Flexible development

The high speed of innovation in the IT sector is leading to ever shorter product life cycles. Advocates of agile project management consider conventional project planning too rigid and sluggish for this environment. Creating software is a highly innovative, creative process where exact forecasts of effort and duration are difficult to make in advance.

Whether Scrum, Kanban or Extreme Programming – a basic principle of agile project management is to optimize the product through iteration, i.e. through continuous repetition. Experiences from previous project steps and from completed system components flow into the further development process. At the end of each iteration cycle, the project team presents a preliminary result to the customer. The customer then grants partial acceptance or makes change requests.

This procedure makes it possible to monitor the progress of the project on an ongoing basis. The development process begins with a vague application or product idea to roughly outline the task. The exact specification as well as the necessary and reasonable system requirements emerge only in the course of the project. This is how the product finally achieves usability.

Time and budget fixed, scope variable

Agile project management addresses several weaknesses of the traditional approach. As experience shows, the calculated time and planned budget are often insufficient if the scope of the task is fixed in advance without change. In addition, there is a risk that the project team will work past the needs of the customer and the market if the general conditions change during the course of the project. Either way, the project proves to be no longer cost-effective in the end.

Agile project management is different: Here, time and budget are the constants, not the desired result. The project team then checks which requirements can be implemented within this framework. The customer has a part in deciding from the outset and prioritizes content and tasks from iteration to iteration as part of scope management. The learning effects from the previous iterations directly benefit the next steps. Viewing the project scope as a variable ensures a high level of transparency; the individual stages become clearly identifiable.

Room for alternatives

Meanwhile, more and more industries are turning to agile project management because the life cycles of products are becoming shorter and shorter, even beyond software development. In contrast to the traditional approach, in which the individual project steps follow a fixed sequence, work in agile project management begins on the basis of relatively vague ideas. Since the project team does not immediately undertake the entire development effort, alternative variants can be developed and tested at low cost. Agile project management is crystallizing as a serious alternative to linear top-down planning for an increasing number of areas. It promises efficient processes, motivated employees and satisfied customers.

Stable framework

Scrum is the most widespread form of agile project management and is now considered the standard for IT projects. A self-organizing, interdisciplinary team develops the product piece by piece in sprints. For each sprint, there are tasks and challenges that the project team must fulfill. During such a time-limited work phase of several weeks, no new requirements are accepted. Users can control them via the backlog so that they are taken into account in the next sprint.

Prioritizing the tasks keeps the job lean, implements customer requirements quickly, and still allows for changes in later project phases. The teams work in short time units in order to be able to react flexibly to changes. Regular exchanges and the documentation of interim results increase productivity. The goal is to permanently optimize work processes. Progress is recorded in backlogs and serves as the basis for tasks in subsequent sprints.

Change begins in the mind

Agile project management provides a paradigm shift in project execution. In order to apply it successfully, it depends on a change in thinking on the part of the entire team and the customers, as well as a high level of discipline in practice. The prerequisites for agile project management are the courage to continuously change, the willingness to learn from mistakes, and the genuine will to improve existing processes.

The executive board and management must exemplify agile project management and act as perceptible promoters of change. This increases the likelihood that the workforce will identify with the new methods and that they will find their way into everyday work on a permanent basis. Agile project management can only be successful as an elementary component of the corporate culture. It is a matter of reflecting not only on the content of the work, but also on the nature of the collaboration.

Agile project management puts customer satisfaction at the center. In order for the product being developed to provide a real competitive advantage, it is essential to take changing framework conditions into account at all times during the project. This requires a close exchange on a daily basis. The finished product is the result by which the success of the project is measured. Experience shows that teams that organize themselves and develop their own structures achieve the greatest success.

Conclusion

The advantages of agile project management are obvious: faster realization of projects, consistent quality control as well as quick recognition of problems and errors. Adjustments during the course of the project lead to meaningful improvements. In addition, the approach can be transferred to almost all industries. Thus, every company is able to practice agile project management and to increase flexibility and efficiency.

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