Agile Project Management for Dummies

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.

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.

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: Developing the product objective 122

Step 2: Creating a draft vision statement 123

Step 3: Validating and revising the vision statement 125

Step 4: Finalizing the vision statement 126

Creating a Product Roadmap 126

Step 1: Identifying stakeholders 127

Step 2: Establishing product requirements 128

Step 3: Arranging product features 130

Step 4: Estimating efforts and ordering requirements 131

Step 5: Determining high-level time frames 135

Saving your work 135

Completing the Product Backlog 135

Chapter 8: Planning Releases and Sprints 139

Refining Requirements and Estimates 139

What is a user story? 140

Steps to create a user story 142

Breaking down requirements 146

Estimation poker 148

Affinity estimating 150

Release Planning 152

Sprint Planning 155

The sprint backlog 156

The sprint planning meeting 157

Chapter 9: Working throughout the Day 163

Planning Your Day: The Daily Scrum 163

Tracking Progress 166

The sprint backlog 166

The task board 170

Agile Roles in the Sprint 172

Creating Shippable Functionality 174

Elaborating 174

Developing 175

Verifying 176

Identifying roadblocks 178

The End of the Day 179

Chapter 10: Showcasing Work, Inspecting, and Adapting 181

The Sprint Review 181

Preparing to demonstrate 182

The sprint review meeting 183

Collecting feedback in the sprint review meeting 186

The Sprint Retrospective 187

Planning for sprint retrospectives 189

The sprint retrospective meeting 189

Inspecting and adapting 191

Chapter 11: Preparing for Release 193

Preparing the Product for Deployment: The Release Sprint 193

Preparing for Operational Support 197

Preparing the Organization for Product Deployment 199

Preparing the Marketplace for Product Deployment 200

Part 4: Agile Management 203

Chapter 12: Managing Scope and Procurement 205

What’s Different about Agile Scope Management? 206

Managing Agile Scope 208

Understanding scope throughout the project 208

Introducing scope changes 211

Managing scope changes 211

Using agile artifacts for scope management 213

What’s Different about Agile Procurement? 214

Managing Agile Procurement 216

Determining need and selecting a vendor 216

Understanding cost approaches and contracts for services 218

Organizational considerations for procurement 221

Working with a vendor 223

Closing a contract 224

Chapter 13: Managing Time and Cost 225

What’s Different about Agile Time Management? 225

Managing Agile Schedules 227

Introducing velocity 228

Monitoring and adjusting velocity 229

Managing scope changes from a time perspective 234

Managing time by using multiple teams 235

Using agile artifacts for time management 236

What’s Different about Agile Cost Management? 237

Managing Agile Budgets 238

Creating an initial budget 239

Creating a self-funding project 240

Using velocity to determine long-range costs 242

Using agile artifacts for cost management 244

Chapter 14: Managing Team Dynamics and Communication 245

What’s Different about Agile Team Dynamics? 245

Managing Agile Team Dynamics 247

Becoming self-managing and self-organizing 248

Supporting the team: The servant-leader 252

Working with a dedicated team 254

Working with a cross-functional team 255

Reinforcing openness 257

Limiting development team size 258

Managing projects with dislocated teams 259

What’s Different about Agile Communication? 262

Managing Agile Communication 263

Understanding agile communication methods 263

Status and progress reporting 266

Chapter 15: Managing Quality and Risk 269

What’s Different about Agile Quality? 269

Managing Agile Quality 272

Quality and the sprint 273

Proactive quality 275

Quality through regular inspecting and adapting 280

Automated testing 281

What’s Different about Agile Risk Management? 283

Managing Agile Risk 286

Reducing risk inherently 286

Identifying, prioritizing, and responding to risks early 291

Part 5: Ensuring Agile Success 295

Chapter 16: Building a Foundation 297

Organizational and Individual Commitment 297

Organizational commitment 298

Individual commitment 299

Getting commitment 299

Can you make the transition? 300

Timing the transition 302

Choosing the Right Pilot Team Members 302

The agile champion 302

The agile transition team 303

The product owner 304

The development team 305

The scrum master 305

The project stakeholders 306

The agile mentor 307

Creating an Environment That Enables Agility 307

Support Agility Initially and Over Time 310

Chapter 17: Scaling across Agile Teams 311

Multi-Team Agile Projects 312

Making Work Digestible through Vertical Slicing 314

Scrum of scrums 315

Aligning through Roles with Scrum at Scale 318

Scaling the scrum master 319

Scaling the product owner 320

Synchronizing in one hour a day 322

Multi-Team Coordination with LeSS 323

LeSS, the smaller framework 323

LeSS Huge framework 324

Sprint review bazaar 325

Observers at the daily scrum 326

Component communities and mentors 326

Multi-team meetings 327

Travelers 327

Reducing Dependencies with Nexus 327

Nexus role — Nexus integration team 328

Nexus artifacts 330

Nexus events 330

Joint Program Planning with SAFe 332

Understanding the four SAFe levels 333

Joint program increment planning 336

Clarity for managers 337

Modular Structures with Enterprise Scrum 337

ES scrum elements generalizations 337

ES key activities 338

Chapter 18: Being a Change Agent 343

Becoming Agile Requires Change 343

Why Change Doesn’t Happen on Its Own 344

Strategic Approaches to Implementing and Managing Change 345

Lewin 345

ADKAR’s five steps to change 346

Kotter’s eight steps for leading change 348

Platinum Edge’s Change Roadmap 349

Step 1: Conduct an implementation strategy with success metrics 349

Step 2: Build awareness and excitement 352

Step 3: Form a transformation team and identify a pilot project 353

Step 4: Build an environment for success 355

Step 5: Train sufficiently and recruit as needed 355

Step 6: Kick off the pilot with active coaching 356

Step 7: Execute the Roadmap to Value 357

Step 8: Gather feedback and improve 357

Step 9: Mature and solidify improvements 358

Step 10: Progressively expand within the organization 359

Avoiding Pitfalls 360

Signs Your Changes Are Slipping 363

Part 6: The Part of Tens 367

Chapter 19: Ten Key Benefits of Agile Project Management 369

Better Product Quality 369

Higher Customer Satisfaction 370

Reduced Risk 371

Increased Collaboration and Ownership 371

More Relevant Metrics 372

Improved Performance Visibility 373

Increased Project Control 374

Improved Project Predictability 374

Customized Team Structures 375

Higher Team Morale 376

Chapter 20: Ten Key Factors for Project Success 377

Dedicated Team Members 377

Collocation 378

Automated Testing 378

Enforced Definition of Done 378

Clear Product Vision and Roadmap 379

Product Owner Empowerment 380

Developer Versatility 380

Scrum Master Clout 380

Management Support for Learning 381

Transition Support 381

Chapter 21: Ten Metrics for Agile Organizations 383

Return on Investment 383

New requests in ROI budgets 386

Capital redeployment 386

Satisfaction Surveys 387

Defects in Production 388

Sprint Goal Success Rates 389

Time to Market 389

Lead and Cycle Times 390

Cost of Change 391

Team Member Turnover 391

Skill Versatility 392

Manager-to-Creator Ratio 392

Chapter 22: Ten Valuable Resources for Agile Professionals 395

Agile Project Management For Dummies Online Cheat Sheet 395

Scrum For Dummies 396

The Scrum Alliance 396

The Agile Alliance 396

The Project Management Institute Agile Community 397

International Consortium for Agile (ICAgile) 397

InfoQ 397

Lean Enterprise Institute 398

Extreme Programming 398

Platinum Edge 398

Index 401