Agile Project Management For Dummies

Flex your project management muscle

Agile project management is a fast and flexible approach to managing all projects, not just software development. By learning the principles and techniques in this book, you'll be able to create a product roadmap, schedule projects, and prepare for product launches with the ease of Agile software developers. You'll discover how to manage scope, time, and cost, as well as team dynamics, quality, and risk of every project.

As mobile and web technologies continue to evolve rapidly, there is added pressure to develop and implement software projects in weeks instead of months--and Agile Project Management For Dummies can help you do just that. Providing a simple, step-by-step guide to Agile project management approaches, tools, and techniques, it shows product and project managers how to complete and implement projects more quickly than ever.

• Complete projects in weeks instead of months

• Reduce risk and leverage core benefits for projects

• Turn Agile theory into practice for all industries

• Effectively create an Agile environment

Get ready to grasp and apply Agile principles for faster, more accurate development.

Auteur

Mark C. Layton, aka "Mr. Agile™," is a veteran of more than 25 years in the project and program management field. He is a Certified Scrum Trainer, a PMP, and an MBA. He holds multiple scrum scaling certifications and is the founder of Platinum Edge, LLC. Steven J. Ostermiller is a coach, mentor, and trainer empowering leaders and teams to become more agile. He holds CSP and PMP designations.

Résumé
Flex your project management muscle Agile project management is a fast and flexible approach to managing all projects, not just software development. By learning the principles and techniques in this book, you'll be able to create a product roadmap, schedule projects, and prepare for product launches with the ease of Agile software developers. You'll discover how to manage scope, time, and cost, as well as team dynamics, quality, and risk of every project. As mobile and web technologies continue to evolve rapidly, there is added pressure to develop and implement software projects in weeks instead of monthsand Agile Project Management For Dummies can help you do just that. Providing a simple, step-by-step guide to Agile project management approaches, tools, and techniques, it shows product and project managers how to complete and implement projects more quickly than ever.

• Complete projects in weeks instead of months
• Reduce risk and leverage core benefits for projects
• Turn Agile theory into practice for all industries
• Effectively create an Agile environment Get ready to grasp and apply Agile principles for faster, more accurate development.

Contenu
Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 1

Icons Used in This Book 2

Beyond the Book 2

Where to Go from Here 3

Part 1: Understanding Agile 5

Chapter 1: Modernizing Project Management 7

Project Management Needed a Makeover 7

The origins of modern project management 8

The problem with the status quo 10

Introducing Agile Project Management 11

How agile projects work 13

Why agile projects work better 14

Chapter 2: Applying the Agile Manifesto and Principles 17

Understanding the Agile Manifesto 17

Outlining the Four Values of the Agile Manifesto 20

Value 1: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools 20

Value 2: Working software over comprehensive documentation 22

Value 3: Customer collaboration over contract negotiation 24

Value 4: Responding to change over following a plan 25

Defining the 12 Agile Principles 26

Agile principles of customer satisfaction 27

Agile principles of quality 30

Agile principles of teamwork 31

Agile principles of project management 33

Adding the Platinum Principles 37

Resisting formality 37

Thinking and acting as a team 38

Visualizing rather than writing 38

Changes as a Result of Agile Values 41

The Agile Litmus Test 41

Chapter 3: Why Being Agile Works Better 43

Evaluating Agile Benefits 43

How Agile Approaches Beat Historical Approaches 48

Greater flexibility and stability 49

Reduced nonproductive tasks 51

Higher quality, delivered faster 53

Improved team performance 54

Tighter project control 56

Faster and less costly failure 57

Why People Like Being Agile 57

Executives 58

Product development and customers 59

Management 60

Development teams 61

Part 2: Being Agile 63

Chapter 4: Agile Approaches 65

Diving under the Umbrella of Agile Approaches 65

Reviewing the Big Three: Lean, Scrum, and Extreme Programming 69

An overview of lean 69

An overview of scrum 73

An overview of extreme programming 76

Putting It All Together 80

Chapter 5: Agile Environments in Action 81

Creating the Physical Environment 82

Collocating the team 82

Setting up a dedicated area 83

Removing distractions 84

Going mobile 85

Low-Tech Communicating 86

High-Tech Communicating 88

Choosing Tools 90

The purpose of the tool 90

Organizational and compatibility constraints 90

Chapter 6: Agile Behaviors in Action 93

Establishing Agile Roles 93

Product owner 94

Development team member 97

Scrum master 98

Stakeholders 100

Agile mentor 102

Establishing New Values 102

Commitment 103

Courage 103

Focus 104

Openness 105

Respect 106

Changing Team Philosophy 107

Dedicated team 107

Cross-functionality 108

Self-organization 110

Self-management 111

Size-limited teams 112

Ownership 113

Part 3: Agile Planning and Execution 115

Chapter 7: Defining the Product Vision and Product Roadmap 117

Agile Planning 118

Progressive elaboration 120

Inspect and adapt 120

Defining the Product Vision 121 Step 1: Developi...