Agile Project Management For Dummies

by Layton, Mark C.

• ISBN13: 9781118026243
• ISBN10: 1118026241
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-05-08
• Publisher: For Dummies

Summary

Be flexible and faster with Agile project management As mobile and Web technologies continue to evolve rapidly, there is added pressure to develop and implement software projects in weeks instead of months. Agile Project Management can make that happen. This is the first book to provide a simple, step-by-step guide to Agile Project Management approaches, tools, and techniques. With the fast pace of mobile and Web technology development, software project development must keep pace; Agile Project Management enables developers to complete and implement projects more quickly Offers a practical context for understanding and applying Agile techniques, moving from theory into actual practice Explains when to use Agile and how to avoid common pitfalls Written by experts who know how to apply the principles in real-world situations Agile Project Management For Dummies enables you to understand and apply Agile principles for faster, more accurate development.

Author Biography

Mark C. Layton, MBA, CST, PMP, SCPM, (Mr. Agile) is an organizational strategist and PMI certification instructor. He is the Los Angeles chair for the Agile Leadership Network and is the founder of Platinum Edge, Inc. Mark has MBAs from UCLA and National University of Singapore, is a Certified Scrum Trainer, PMP-certified, and recipient of Stanford Universitys advanced project management certification.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
About This Book	p. 1
Foolish Assumptions	p. 1
Conventions Used in This Book	p. 2
How This Book Is Organized	p. 3
Understanding Agile	p. 3
Being Agile	p. 3
Working in Agile	p. .3
Managing in Agile	p. 3
Ensuring Agile Success	p. 4
The Part of Tens	p. 4
Icons Used in This Book	p. 4
Where to Go from Here	p. 5
Understanding Agile	p. 7
Modernizing Project Management	p. 9
Project Management Needed Makeover	p. 9
The origins of modern project management	p. 10
The problem with the status quo	p. 11
Introducing Agile Project Management	p. 13
How agile projects work	p. 15
Why agile projects work better	p. 17
The Agile Manifesto and Principles	p. 19
Understanding the Agile Manifesto	p. 19
Outlining the Four Values of the Agile Manifesto	p. 21
Value 1: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools	p. 21
Value 2: Working software over comprehensive documentation	p. 23
Value 3: Customer collaboration over contract negotiation	p. 25
Value 4: Responding to change over following a plan	p. 26
Defining the 12 Agile Principles	p. 27
Agile principles of customer satisfaction	p. 28
Agile principles of quality	p. 31
Agile principles of teamwork	p. 32
Agile principles of project management	p. 34
Adding the Platinum Principles	p. 37
Resisting formality	p. 37
Thinking and acting as a team	p. 38
Visualizing rather than writing	p. 38
Changes as a Result of Agile	p. 39
The Agile Litmus Test	p. 41
Why Agile Works Better	p. 43
Evaluating Agile Benefits	p. 43
How Agile Approaches Beat Historical Approaches	p. 47
Greater flexibility and stability	p. 48
Reduced nonproductive tasks	p. 51
Higher quality, delivered faster	p. 53
Improved team performance	p. 53
Tighter project control	p. 55
Faster and less costly failure	p. 55
Why People Like Agile	p. 56
Executives	p. 56
Product development and customers	p. 57
Management	p. 58
Development teams	p. 59
Being Agile	p. 61
Agile Frameworks	p. 63
Diving Under the Umbrella of Agile Approaches	p. 63
Reviewing the Big Three: Lean, Extreme Programming, and Scrum	p. 67
An overview of lean	p. 67
An overview of extreme programming	p. 69
An overview of scrum	p. 70
Putting It All Together	p. 74
Putting Agile into Action: The Environment	p. 77
Creating the Physical Environment	p. 78
Collocating the team	p. 78
Setting up a dedicated area	p. 79
Removing distractions	p. 80
Going mobile	p. 81
Low-Tech Communicating	p. 82
High-Tech Communicating	p. 84
Choosing Tools	p. 85
The purpose of the tool	p. 85
Organizational and compatibility constraints	p. 86
Putting Agile into Action: The Behaviors	p. 87
Establishing Agile Roles	p. 87
Development team	p. 89
Product owner	p. 90
Scrum master	p. 92
Stakeholders	p. 94
Agile mentor	p. 95
Establishing New Values	p. 95
Commitment	p. 96
Focus	p. 97
Openness	p. 98
Respect	p. 98
Courage	p. 99
Changing Team Philosophy	p. 100
Cross-functionality	p. 100
Self-organization	p. 102
Self-management	p. 103
Size-limited teams	p. 104
Mature behavior	p. 105
Working in Agile	p. 107
Defining the Product Vision and Product Roadmap	p. 109
Planning in Agile	p. 110
Planning as necessary	p. 112
Inspect and adapt	p. 113
Defining the Product Vision	p. 113
Step 1: Developing the product objective	p. 114
Step 2: Creating a draft vision statement	p. 115
Step 3: Validating and revising the vision statement	p. 117
Step 4: Finalizing the vision statement	p. 118
Creating a Product Roadmap	p. 118
Step 1: Identifying product requirements	p. 119
Step 2: Arranging product features	p. 121
Step 3: Estimating and ordering the product's features	p. 123
Step 4: Determining high-level time frames	p. 126
Saving your work	p. 126
Planning Releases and Sprints	p. 127
Refining Requirements and Estimates	p. 127
What is a user story?	p. 128
Steps to create a user story	p. 129
Breaking down requirements	p. 133
Estimation poker	p. 134
Affinity estimating	p. 137
Release Planning	p. 138
Completing the product backlog	p. 139
Creating the release plan	p. 141
Sprint Planning	p. 142
The sprint backlog	p. 143
The sprint planning meeting	p. 144
Working Through the Day	p. 151
Planning the Day: The Daily Scrum	p. 151
Tracking Progress	p. 154
The sprint backlog	p. 154
The task board	p. 158
Agile Roles Within the Sprint	p. 159
Creating Shippable Functionality	p. 161
Elaborating	p. 162
Developing	p. 162
Verifying	p. 163
Identifying roadblocks	p. 164
The End of the Day	p. 167
Showcasing Work and Incorporating Feedback	p. 169
The Sprint Review	p. 169
Preparing to demonstrate	p. 170
The sprint review meeting	p. 171
Collecting feedback in the sprint review meeting	p. 173
The Sprint Retrospective	p. 174
Planning for retrospectives	p. 175
The retrospective meeting	p. 175
Inspecting and adapting	p. 177
Preparing for Release	p. 179
Preparing the Product for Deployment: The Release Sprint	p. 179
Preparing the Organization for Product Deployment	p. 182
Preparing the Marketplace for Product Deployment	p. 183
Managing in Agile.	p. 185
Managing Scope and Procurement	p. 187
What's Different About Scope in Agile	p. 187
How to Manage Scope in Agile	p. 190
Understanding scope throughout the project	p. 190
Introducing scope changes	p. 192
Managing scope changes	p. 193
Using agile artifacts for scope management	p. 195
What's Different About Procurement in Agile	p. 195
How to Manage Procurement in Agile	p. 197
Determining need and selecting a vendor	p. 198
Contracts and cost approaches for services	p. 199
Organizational considerations for procurement	p. 202
Working with a vendor	p. 204
Closing a contract	p. 205
Managing Time and Cost	p. 207
What's Different About Time in Agile	p. 207
How to Manage Time in Agile	p. 209
Introducing velocity	p. 209
Monitoring and adjusting velocity	p. 210
Managing scope changes from a time perspective	p. 215
Managing time by using multiple teams	p. 216
Using agile artifacts for time management	p. 219
What's Different About Cost in Agile	p. 220
How to Manage Cost in Agile	p. 221
Creating an initial budget	p. 222
Creating a self-funding project	p. 223
Using velocity to determine long-range costs	p. 224
Using agile artifacts for cost management	p. 226
Managing Team Dynamics and Communication	p. 227
What's Different About Team Dynamics in Agile	p. 227
How to Manage Team Dynamics in Agile	p. 228
Becoming self-managing and self-organizing	p. 229
Supporting the team: The servant-leader	p. 234
Working with a dedicated team	p. 235
Working with a cross-functional team	p. 237
Establishing an agile environment	p. 238
Limiting development team size	p. 240
Managing projects with dislocated teams	p. 241
What's Different About Communication in Agile	p. 243
How to Manage Communication in Agile	p. 245
Understanding agile communication methods	p. 245
Status and progress reporting	p. 248
Managing Quality and Risk	p. 251
What's Different About Quality in Agile	p. 251
How to Manage Quality in Agile	p. 254
Quality and the sprint	p. 254
Proactive quality	p. 256
Quality through regular inspecting and adapting	p. 261
Automated testing	p. 262
What's Different About Risk in Agile	p. 264
How to Manage Risk in Agile	p. 266
Reducing risk inherently	p. 266
Identifying, prioritizing, and responding to risks	p. 271
Ensuring Agile Success	p. 275
Building a Foundation	p. 277
Commitment of the Organization and of Individuals	p. 277
Organizational commitment	p. 278
Individual commitment	p. 279
How to get commitment	p. 279
Will it be possible to make the transition?	p. 280
What is the best timing for moving to agile?	p. 281
Choosing the Right Project Team Members	p. 282
The development team	p. 282
The scrum master	p. 283
The product owner	p. 283
The agile champion	p. 284
The agile mentor	p. 284
The project stakeholders	p. 285
Creating an Environment That Works for Agile	p. 286
Support Agile Initially and Over Time	p. 288
Being a Change Agent	p. 289
Making Agile Work in Your Organization	p. 289
Step 1: Conduct an implementation strategy	p. 289
Step 2: Establish a transformation team	p. 290
Step 3: Build awareness and excitement	p. 290
Step 4: Identify a pilot project	p. 291
Step 5: Identify success metrics	p. 293
Step 6: Train sufficiently	p. 294
Step 7: Develop a product strategy	p. 295
Step 8: Develop the product roadmap, the product backlog, and estimates	p. 295
Step 9: Running your first sprint	p. 295
Step 10: Make mistakes, gather feedback, and improve	p. 297
Step 11: Mature	p. 297
Step 12: Scale virally	p. 299
Avoiding Pitfalls	p. 299
Questions to Prevent Problems	p. 303
The Part of Tens	p. 307
Ten Key Benefits of Agile Project Management	p. 309
Better Product Quality	p. 309
Higher Customer Satisfaction	p. 310
Higher Team Morale	p. 310
Increased Collaboration and Ownership	p. 311
Customized Team Structures	p. 312
More Relevant Metrics	p. 313
Improved Performance Visibility	p. 314
Increased Project Control	p. 314
Improved Project Predictability	p. 315
Reduced Risk	p. 315
Ten Key Metrics for Agile Project Management	p. 317
Sprint Goal Success Rates	p. 317
Defects	p. 318
Total Project Duration	p. 319
Time to Market	p. 319
Total Project Cost	p. 320
Return on Investment	p. 320
New Requests Within ROI Budgets	p. 324
Capital Redeployment	p. 324
Satisfaction Surveys	p. 325
Team Member Turnover	p. 326
Ten Key Resources for Agile Project Management	p. 327
Agile Project Management For Dummies Online Cheat Sheet	p. 327
The Agile Alliance	p. 328
The Scrum Alliance	p. 328
The Project Management Institute Agile Community	p. 328
Agile Leadership Network	p. 329
Scrum Development Yahoo! Group	p. 329
InfoQ	p. 329
Lean Essays	p. 330
What Is Extreme Programming?	p. 330
Platinum Edge	p. 330
Index	p. 331
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