What is agile project management?
Definition
Agile project management is an approach based on delivering requirements iteratively and incrementally throughout the project life cycle. At the core of agile is the requirement to exhibit central values and behaviours of trust, flexibility, empowerment and collaboration.
- Read more in the blog: Agile project management - the what and the why.
- Common myths and misconceptions around agile
- Do you know your Scrum from your Sprint? Read our handy glossary of popular agile terminology to find out what they mean in the resources section below.
What are the differences between an agile and waterfall approach?
These four aspects highlight the difference between agile and waterfall (or more traditional) approaches to project management:
What are the benefits of agile working?
- Agile approaches empower those involved; build accountability; encourage diversity of ideas; allowing the early release of benefits; and promotion of continuous improvement.
- Agile helps build client and user engagement because changes are incremental and evolutionary rather than revolutionary: it can therefore be effective in supporting cultural change that is critical to the success of most transformation projects.
- Agile allows decision ‘gremlins’ to be tested and rejected early: the tight feedback loops provide benefits in agile that are not as evident in waterfall.
What are the principles of an agile way of working?
The agile philosophy concentrates on empowered people and their interactions and early and constant delivery of value into an enterprise. Agile project management focuses on delivering maximum value against business priorities in the time and budget allowed, especially when the drive to deliver is greater than the risk. Principles include:
- The project breaks a requirement into smaller pieces, which are then prioritised by the team in terms of importance.
- The agile project promotes collaborative working, especially with the customer.
- The agile project reflects, learns and adjusts at regular intervals to ensure that the customer is always satisfied and is provided with outcomes that result in benefits.
- Agile methods integrate planning with execution, allowing an organisation to create a working mindset that helps a team respond effectively to changing requirements. Diagram Source: Directing Agile Change
The practical adoption of scaled agile: Interview with Sue Clarke videos
This APM Research Fund study builds on the 2015 APM North West Volunteer study on the practical adoption of agile methodologies which provided a review of approaches at a project level, this study aims to investigate the level of practical adoption of those programme and portfolio components addressed by Scaled Agile methodologies.
The objective of the study was to understand the extent to which scaled agile tools, techniques and roles are practically in place in corporate portfolio, programme, project and development management methodologies, to determine the level of corporate commitment to exploiting scaled agile, e.g. pilot, full use, selective based on need, as well as drivers for selection or deselection of the framework based on the overheads.
Agile resources
Agile glossary
Do you know your Scrum from your Sprint? Read our handy glossary of popular agile terminology to find out what they mean.
Agile blogs
- Future of agile - Steve Messenger
- Deeper dive into agile and governance - Steve Messenger
- What makes a good agile leader - Steve Messenger
- Agile project management, the what and why - Paul Naybour
- Agile with everything - Adrian Dooley
- Why good assurance is key to agile delivery success