Agile project management has a weird reputation. Some see it as a “magic” solution that suddenly makes all their problems disappear. Some see it as the work of satan that can’t be trusted and will lead to the immediate demise of your company. We think the real answer lies somewhere in the middle. We even think that this approach can be useful—when used correctly.
In this guide, we are going to explain it all. We will give you a solid foundation of understanding, build upon it, and give you tools to move forward as a better, more flexible project manager. We will discuss this topic in FOUR parts.
- Overview of Traditional Project Management
- Explanation of the Agile Methodology
- The Agile Framework in Practice
- How To Use The Agile Methodology as a Traditional Project Manager
Each of the sections above is linked, so if you want to skip ahead, feel free!
Part 1: Overview of Traditional Project Management
Your understanding of new concepts often relies on your knowledge of the older ones. So just to be safe, here is a quick review of the following
- What is Traditional Project Management?
- The Triangle of Scope, Budget, & Time
- Pros & Cons of Traditional Project Management
What is Traditional Project Management?
When you think of project management, you might think of schedules, budgets, and a whole lot of planning. And you’d be correct. Traditional project management is a linear approach to completing multi-step projects that rely on input from all different groups.
The Project Management Institute defines project management as the “Application of processes, methods, skills, knowledge, and experience to achieve specific project objectives according to the acceptance criteria within agreed parameters.”
Progress is measured and documented, unknown factors are whittled down to the most tolerable level of uncertainty possible, and plans live at the center of every interaction.
Industries that are regulated, require different types of approval, and planning to get anything done will primarily use traditional practices to complete projects. Traditional is the way to go if there is a potential for safety issues, loss of life, and almost any other hazard or danger.
The Triangle of Scope, Budget, & Time
Traditional project management is viewed as a triangle where the three points represent your scope, budget, and timeframe for completion. The point at the top—the priority throughout this process—is your scope. There is a final objective that everyone is hoping for and working towards, which automatically places the budget and schedule in a lower priority.
No project manager in their right mind would admit that (especially in front of stakeholders), but it’s true. Traditional project management spends most of its time explaining why that cost has gone up and why that timeframe has wiggled. All for the sake of that end result.
Pros & Cons of Traditional Project Management
Some industries thrive on traditional project management, where planning out as much as possible makes everyone’s life go better. Then, there are those whose progress would be suffocated by all the organization, structure, and planning.
Some benefits of project management include
- Reducing threats to project success presented by risks
- Maximizing opportunities
- Cutting down on time wasted waiting for approval
- Improving productivity and efficiency on repeating projects
In most project environments, there is little tolerance or room for uncertainty, which means that expensive preparation is a must.
That being said, here are some drawbacks of traditional management techniques.
- Rigidity created by layers of structure
- Little room for pliability and flexibility, if any
- Non-receptive to change
- Time-consuming
Traditional project management may not be for you when you can agree on a common goal and almost immediately start moving toward it.
Part 2: What is the Agile Methodology?
Project management is often discussed in one light, from one perspective, that claims it’s the only (and best) way to control and influence a project’s outcome. And for some industries and niches, that’s very true. You can’t get around all that planning when you have a huge project, tons of safety concerns, and layers of approval required for progress. If anything, you’d be silly for skipping that step.
But what about projects that have none of those things? That’s where agile project management comes in.
In this section, we are going to cover
- The Definition of Agile
- The Pillars & Principles of the Agile Methodology
- The Inverted Triangle
- The Pros & Cons of Agile
How We Define “Agile”
Agile is a project management system that is based on flexibility and taking iterative steps. While your project may be large or lengthy, increments can be broken down into short-term sections. This structure allows for continuous and regular feedback from owners, management, and other stakeholders. It was created for software development teams and quickly spread to other areas.
Whereas traditional project management works like a waterfall, moving from one completed phase to the next, agile project management acts more like the loops on a roller coaster. You move through the cycle until the budget or deadline closes, then deploy.
The agile framework is also called agile methodologies and processes, as there are different work structures that live under agile principles. We like to consider the agile concept a starting point that gets modified and customized to meet your needs. Some of these customizations that live under “agile” include
- Extreme Programming
- Kanban
- Scrum (we discuss this one more here)
- Lean
- Crystal
Agile isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of system. It has to be tailored to the size of your project, your team structure, the resources available, the needs of your stakeholders, and the size of your organization. The most important part of this approach is how it enables adaptivity, flexibility, and support through uncertain territory.
Pillars and Principles of the Agile Methodology
When the agile methodology was developed, there were 12 principles that the whole concept focused on. They include
- Satisfy the customer by continuously delivering and aiming to do so earlier than expected.
- Welcome and harness change to give software or products a competitive advantage.
- Deliver working software to customers frequently.
- Allow for daily collaboration with business partners and development team members.
- Create an environment supporting the team’s needs and trust them to do their jobs.
- Prioritize face-to-face meetings between all different parties.
- Measure the progress of the team only by the amount of working software (or completion of desired product).
- Attempt to maintain a consistent and sustainable pace.
- Lean into agility.
- Allow the team to be self-organized because those tend to have the best product outcomes.
- Keep processes, workflows, and development simple.
- Reflect often and adapt behavior from continued improvement.
When using the agile method, all of these principles are implied and tend to work much better for development teams than traditional management structures, which can be quickly complicated and weighed down with documentation.
When we discuss agile, we usually focus on four core principles rather than all of the original twelve. In our opinion, they sum up this whole concept nicely.
1. Individuals & Interactions OVER Processes & Tools
Yes, you need your tools, but they aren’t what solves problems. Your team does. Don’t prioritize static assets. While they are great for solving old, known problems on a systematic level, they will never be what solves new problems.
So, remember to support that team because you need them.
2. Actual Results OVER Extensive Documentation
While software (or results) without a bunch of documentation makes things difficult, documentation without any type of result is essentially useless—specifically in agile. You need to document progress, changes, and adaptations, but you do not need to make that the main focus.
3. Collaboration With Customers OVER Negotiation
When writing up the contract, you should make it flexible enough to allow for constant collaboration. That way, you make room for the most productive work rather than spending time on things of little value. Change management has no place in agile, meaning it doesn’t need to be noted in the project charter or any other relevant project documentation.
4. Response OVER Following
You may have a plan, but working within the agile methodology insinuates that “plan” is more of a suggestion than anything concrete. You don’t have to abandon it, but you should accept that you knew the least about the project when you put it together.
Updates should be made and made often. There should be room left for inevitable changes and the coming iterations.
What all of these principles and pillars demonstrate is that the agile methodology is an umbrella that requires users to prioritize flexibility, enables adaptivity, and supports teams as they navigate unstable terrain.
The Inverted Triangle of Agile
The biggest difference between traditional project management and agile project management is the “inverted triangle.” In traditional project management, it’s all about the scope. The budget and deadline often become negotiable to get the job done.
For example, if your team is tasked with constructing a gas station, you have to complete that objective. And if the cost of materials jumps in the middle of that process, the project will often continue anyway. The precaution going forward may look like bulk buying materials at the beginning of the process to avoid that risk.
On the contrary, agile projects are started with the budget and deadline at the top of the priority list. Those are constraints set from the beginning, which means the scope is a flexible concept that acts more as a vague, hopeful goal rather than a requirement.
Then, the team carrying out the project will work through iterations until the client and other stakeholders are satisfied. You can see how this system is extremely valuable in some business settings. There is less risk associated with the projects, and everyone has better visibility of what’s happening. It’s also much more adaptive, which is helpful in fast-changing industries like design, software, and tech.
Benefits & Drawbacks of the Agile Methodology
Over the last few decades, the value of data has sky-rocketed. Now, more than ever, companies understand how important it is to let data influence decisions, projects, goals, and changes across the organization. Data is especially useful in improving goods and services.
For fast-paced projects that live in changing environments, little else beats agile project management. Traditional projects work better with traditional project management, but for some, traditional practices can be more annoying than anything.
Some clear benefits of using agile project management include
- An increase in collaboration throughout the entire project
- Better visibility of the project’s processes, systems, workflows, and progress
- Improved alignment between business needs and project outcome
- Faster delivery speed to customers and to the market
- Reduced risk posed to both the project and the organization
And just as there are pros, there are also cons. Agile project management creates a very unique work environment. It is also quite sensitive. Without adequate training and experience, this system can seem very isolating and confusing. There is not the same level of supervision as there is in traditional project management, which can result in another issue.
On top of that, when organizations are looking to implement this system, there may be a lot of resistance to adoption. It needs to be handled with care initially, and then leadership needs to back off at the right time and let the team take it from there. But that is a small window.
Below, we explain the challenges organizations face when attempting to switch to agile-lead workflows and processes.
Challenges Faced When Implementing Agile Project Management
Not all project environments will work with agile project management, no matter how much we may want it to. This system requires teams to change how they do almost everything. Funding may need to be iterative based on deliverables and the requirements of the project, which are always changing.
In highly regulated industries, there will be little to no tolerance for iterative processes that are light on the documentation.
Management-Specific Challenges
So many management tasks rely on a certain amount of consistency, data, time, and resources. Almost all of that is out the window in agile project management. What does that mean?
- There is almost no predictability, as value is based on customer needs rather than on how well a team conforms to procedures and regulations.
- There is little time to complete a project compared to traditional settings where the deadline is often more flexible.
- There is more resource risk because team members are conveying scope and ability in real time rather than being designated ahead of time.
- Little can be measured or monitored in an agile setting because the idea of failure and success look different.
- Risk management transforms into accepting uncertainty instead of creating budgets and schedules.
Team-Specific Challenges
In agile, the team needs to be highly specialized in what they are creating. The teams are small and self-regulating, which requires they be transparent and collaborative. Check-ins can happen daily rather than weekly or biweekly. As opposed to traditional teams, agile doesn’t have management overseeing it as much as it has a leader who enables and supports the team as they work through the project.
They also have to fight the misconception that agile teams don’t document, estimate, plan, or scale anything.
Stakeholder-Specific Challenges
As a stakeholder, you’re often watching to ensure progress is being made that supports your interests. Without traditional checkpoints, that can be hard to do. Everything is based on possibilities and estimates, which can also be challenging.
Sometimes, stakeholders feel like there is an additional burden on their workload due to the constant need for collaboration that relies on more availability.
No matter who you are or what your role is, you’ll have to embrace some degree of change in your professional landscape when your organization or team switches to agile project management.
When You Need To Use Agile Project Management
As we’ve mentioned, agile project management is best used by a select group of industries and teams. These groups tend to have one or multiple of the following characteristics.
- Prototype form of delivery of end product
- The ability to complete brief periods of working, development, or construction called iterations
- Small teams in the same or similar location
- Need to test software or product regularly
- Necessity to work with changes rather than work within strict plans
- Failure is a more flexible concept, as in an opportunity to improve rather than a sign to call it quits
You can also use agile project management on projects with no clear amount of resources, constraints, timeframes, or end goals. Plenty of industries require a great deal of flexibility to do well and will benefit from using agile project management. Make sure you are in that category before youtube the leap.
Part 3: The Agile Process
We’ve talked about agile project management and the agile methodology a lot as a concept, but now it’s time to talk about what this process looks like in practice. In this section, we will discuss each of the following.
- The Key Differences Between Agile & Traditional
- The Agile Process, An Overview
- 6 Steps of the Agile Process
In Part 5, we discuss how exactly you can use agile project management and some tips we recommend for implementing into your next agile project.
Key Differences Between Agile and Traditional Project Management
While we’ve talked vaguely about the differences between agile project management and traditional project management. It is hard to discuss the two topics without pointing out how drastically different they are.
First, let’s talk about the visualized structure of each management style. Agile project management uses a “burn-down chart” instead of the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) found in traditional. The project’s WBS details what will be done and when—acting as a very detailed schedule/to-do list. A burn-down chart is used most commonly in scrum and is more about tracking progress in a specific iteration.
Here is an example of a burn-down chart from the PM Study Circle.
On top of that, there is a huge difference between the role of a traditional project manager and an agile project manager. In traditional, the project manager oversees if a task is done, how well it was completed, and what that means for progress overall. On the contrary, an agile project manager needs to do the following.
- Keep the team focused on the iteration currently being handled
- Encourage collaboration, cooperation, and teamwork
- Encourage individual productivity
- Help the team have all the resources they need to perform their tasks
- Support performance to be at the highest level possible
- Reduce or remove distractions, issues, and barriers to productivity
Another major difference is how responsible each individual is for their own workload. The project manager provides the information, the direction, and the support—nothing else.
How Agile Works in Practice
Traditional project management looks like a waterfall because it’s a succession of steps on the way to the bigger outcome. That process looks like this.
- Initiate the project.
- Plan how the project will be completed.
- Execute the plans you put together.
- Maintain and control progress.
- Close the project and deliver results to the client.
Agile project management doesn’t really work like that. Instead, team members are given a general direction to work towards and start taking incremental steps. Because of the short timeframe, agile project management is a lot smaller.
Let’s walk through each step.
1. Concept
Leadership may have a project in mind or a few. But before the team can start working on anything, stakeholders such as the client, management, and business consultants will need to decide what is worked on. They’ll need to brainstorm, identify which business opportunities they’ll prioritize, and estimate the time and cost of each.
Ultimately, they’ll look at which project or idea is the most feasible and valuable to the organization.
2. Inception
Next, leadership and management will figure out how exactly they plan to complete the project. Which features are most important? What does the client require? Who needs to be on the team?
Once you’ve selected the team, you can visually depict each person or team’s responsibilities with a diagram. You might even go so far as to define what will be done in each sprint.
3. Iteration
Iterations will completely depend on the end product size and the number of teams you have working on it. They will also be a cyclical process that repeats until the result is satisfactory. That pattern (in a software setting) looks like this.
- Understand requirements.
- Develop, design, or create with requirements in mind.
- Test outcome against previously set requirements.
- Deliver working software, design, or prototype to customers.
- Receive feedback.
- Repeat.
4. Release
This stage will look different depending on your project’s parameters, environment, and end result. Generally, it will involve final testing and quality assurance checks. You’ll look for bugs and defects and finalize any required documentation if it’s software. If you are designing, you may look for mistakes or inconsistencies.
5. Upkeep
This stage mostly involves ongoing maintenance, monitoring, and supporting end-user needs. You could also update documentation that assists the end-user.
6. Withdrawal
Depending on your project, this stage could also be called retirement or just moving on. Overall, these are end-of-life activities. It could be notifying customers, migrating systems, and maybe even pulling it out of production.
Pro Tip: When working in an agile process, you must be sure to celebrate milestones and make a big deal out of endings. Constantly working on agile projects can feel like things never end, so you must punctuate as often as possible.
Part 4: Most Effective Ways to Use the Agile Methodology
No management system or style is truly effective without consideration and intention. You need to know why you are doing what you’re doing. You can’t just take a shot in the dark and hope it sticks. To help better inform your usage and give you the best foundation to work from, we’ll discuss how to use and improve agile project management for the sake of you and your team.
We will cover
- What You Need To Know About Agile Project Management
- How To Transition To Agile Project Management
- Project Manager’s Role In Agile Projects
- Agile Stakeholder Management
- Agile Stakeholder Engagement
Agile Project Management: What Project Managers Need To Know
Using the methodology is all about measuring the risk versus the reward. A social media company looking to add a new feature to its platform will probably not have to navigate projects that risk a loss of life. On the other hand, a company that is sending people to space will have to be aware of that risk every step of the way.
That being said, it makes sense that some organizations wouldn’t touch the agile methodology with a 32-foot pole. If you are thinking about switching or attempting to mix agile into your current processes, there are some things you need to know first.
- This practice works best with some type of focus. We recommend creating an end-user persona that allows your team to understand the product’s intended uses.
- There needs to be an intense concentration on features, or else this methodology will make the team feel like they are always without direction.
- Small teams are key because there needs to be a good deal of proximity and close collaboration.
- The leadership needs to have a collaborative attitude, not a leading one.
- The projects in their entirety may be complicated, but iterations need to be kept as simple as possible to help the team stay focused on what they are completing.
- Rolling with change is what this principle is all about. If your team, processes, or organization cannot handle that, this management style is not for you.
Remember, even if agile has clear advantages, some industries will have NO place for this, while others may have room in certain pieces of larger projects, such as designing a space.
How to Transition to Agile Project Management
When you are moving toward agile project management, or you’re just looking to mix it in where it makes sense, you’ll have to switch to iterative processes. We recommend establishing short- and long-term changes to settle into the new system. For example, tomorrow, you might switch to a KanBan style of workload visualization to help limit how much is “In Progress” while planning to attempt iterative processes a couple of months from now.
That way, you gently adopt agile project management over time.
You might also assess the readiness of each party to help everyone understand what kind of changes they will need to make. There are conditions that everyone (the organization, management, stakeholders, leadership, and team) will have to meet in order to transition successfully.
Organization Assessment
The readiness of the organization can be assessed using the following considerations.
- How much does the organization value innovation and progress versus creativity and adaptability?
- How much independence does the organization have from others (regulatory bodies and other organizations) when it comes to making decisions?
- How much tolerance does your organization have for uncertainty?
- What parties would have to adjust the most to more uncertainty in their processes and workflows?
- Does the organization benefit more from full-time effort on one project or multiple?
- What is the organization’s capacity to work closely with clients and customers?
- Do your projects need to be well documented? Do your projects need to have as little variability as possible? Are your projects “production style” which requires a similar process each time?
- How much creativity is involved in completing your organization’s projects? How often are features “designed” versus produced?
For those portfolio managers, consider your ability to split the portfolio into projects best and least suited for the agile framework. We’ve said it before, and we will say it again—ANY project that needs a lot of planning, outside input, and risk control will not be suited to agile project management whatsoever. You may be able to use an iterative process inside of your project, but that is where that stays.
Management & Leadership Assessment
This section applies to anyone in a leadership or management position, but the main focus will be on traditional project management. Consider the following.
- How comfortable is the project manager with a guiding, supportive, and collaborative style of leadership versus a completion-based one?
- How willing is the project manager to learn with the team rather than work over the team?
- How comfortable can the project manager get with a higher level of uncertainty and a fast-changing project environment?
- Does the project manager have the ability to share information with all necessary stakeholders, receive feedback, and then use said feedback?
- Are they committed to sharing that information with all necessary parties?
- How comfortable is the project manager with focusing on customer needs and demands versus working to meet predetermined standards?
- How much does the project manager value innovation over practical, consistent processes?
- How able are they to motivate the team, delegate tasks completely, and then get out of the team members’ way?
Team Member Assessment
Everyone will have to adjust, including the team. Do not expect to be able to “lay down the law” and get results. Discuss this change with them and evaluate the following.
- Can your team members make independent decisions effectively—creative or practical?
- How open are they to collaboration?
- Are they able to work collectively as a group?
- How capable are they at communicating effectively with each other, stakeholders, and customers/clients?
- How willing are stakeholders to (at times) act like team members?
- Are they able to creatively solve problems with new, innovative solutions?
- How experienced are they in this type of project?
- How will they handle meeting with such aggressive regularity?
The Project Manager’s Role in the Agile Framework
In traditional project management, the project manager’s role is set. And while the course of each day can vary, the process over the course of the whole project generally looks the same. Yet, in agile, everything always tends to go quite differently.
It makes sense then that your role in this system as project manager looks different, too. For example, you are no longer a “manager” but a leader. The position isn’t about authority and putting out fires. Instead, you become the team’s cheerleader who helps ease issues out of their way. You remove challenges that can damage their productivity and work to support their efforts.
In agile, each team member has more ownership of tasks, which takes the “task manager” aspect away and replaces it with endorsement, sustaining their productivity, and delegating work effectively. Additionally, your role focuses less on scheduling and more on removing barriers as much as possible.
In traditional, the project manager is in center stage, success is extremely dependent on their control, and they need to influence many different types of groups to bolster that success. Agile project management means toning all that down. It means remaining as flexible and adaptable as possible.
Stakeholder Management in the Agile Framework
We would be remiss if we didn’t mention these topics, as they are crucial. In traditional project management, stakeholder management is how you maintain and manage the project’s social, official, and unofficial landscape. The same goes for agile.
An agile stakeholder is an individual or an organization that is involved in the project but isn’t necessarily working on the project. They may have an interest (either a positive or negative one), and they typically have influence over the outcome. Stakeholders can include
- Customers or Clients
- Executives
- Department Heads
- Senior Managers
- Internal and External Partners
Stakeholder management, in agile project management, is the art form of understanding, engaging, and working with stakeholders over the course of all the iterations your team completes. This process must be handled carefully because things move so quickly in agile. It’s recommended that you use stakeholder engagement to safeguard the team from distractions and issues that live outside their dynamic.
Stakeholder Management Process
Agile project management offers little time on the front end to sit back and carefully plan how you’ll go through this process, so be prepared to hit the ground running.
Step #1. Identify
You will always need to know who you are working with, which means you’ll have to find out from leadership, the clients, and any others who exactly are your stakeholders. We recommend collecting basic data such as
- Their name
- Their role
- A way to contact them
- Their interest in the project, as far as you know
Then, make a short list of who you can use as a resource.
Step #2. Analyze
Chart each stakeholder’s interest level vs. their potential influence over the project. You can read more about that here.
Step #3. Prioritize
You have a small window of time on any project you work on, which means you’ll only be able to communicate with so many people. By prioritizing your stakeholders and selecting a top few to collaborate with closely based on how loyal they are, their level of interest, etc., you’ll be able to set up a foundation of communication for each one.
Step #4. Engage
We discuss this one in more detail below, but generally speaking, this is a continuous effort that happens throughout the project. It boils down to displaying progress, getting feedback, and using it.
Step #5. Communicate
By taking yourself through all the previous steps, you land in the perfect position to complete this one. You know who you need to communicate with and how you are going to do that, and at this stage, it’s time to do it.
What Can Get In The Way
But no matter how well intending you are, there will always be some kind of barrier. Some examples of what can get in the way of stakeholder management in agile include
- Keeping stakeholders engaged, especially when they have other things on their plate
- Additional administrative work that comes with collecting all the information we discussed above
- Owners can be fearful of constant feedback and reject the whole concept entirely
- Team members can feel the same way
- Stakeholders can have a negative interest in the project (wanting it to be gone), so they use their influence to fight progress
- Lack of transparency throughout the process, meaning progress isn’t displayed
- Laziness that results in the only stakeholders getting info are those reaching out to you and now the other way around
Just like in traditional project management, stakeholder management has a very important place at the table, and it should not be ignored.
You can learn all about effective agile stakeholder management here.
How to Engage Stakeholders Inside the Agile Framework
We understand that all these concepts can feel daunting in the midst of an agile project. It can feel like a lot of additional and unnecessary work, but we aggressively disagree. Without engagement, you risk misunderstanding what the client and stakeholders want, a complete disregard for the team’s needs, and more.
With that in mind, here are FIVE ways you can improve stakeholder engagement on your next agile project.
1. Earlier The Better
This one is tricky because you don’t really have any prep time on agile projects, so you’ll have to work this in where you can. Get them introduced, learn about the project, and give input as soon as possible. Invite them to help decide on requirements.
You allow for more involvement if you go out of your way to invite them in. It also sets the expectation of their involvement from the get-go and lets them know how important they are to the project—which is very helpful.
2. Explain The Benefits
On projects where the current right thing and the next are always in focus, you need to zoom out sometimes and show your stakeholders how this project benefits them. The same can be done for smaller decisions or changes in features. You should consider it part of your role to educate them throughout on the project itself and on the “why” as often as possible (or as often as it seems necessary).
Whether they have invested money or just the time, they are looking for some kind of return. So, it would not be remiss if you just explained that once in a while.
Also, pay attention to what benefit they are working towards, even if they are not an end-user.
3. Include Everyone
You may decide to use the Scrum framework, or you might turn a different way, but regardless you need to make an effort to both communicate with and generally include everyone when it is finally time to review the product or any type of progress
Ask them to participate in everything. Remember that each perspective is integral to creating the best possible end product.
4. Collaborate As Often As Possible
We know this may sound redundant at this point, but we really need to drive this message home. Collaborating is integral to the agile methodology, so it makes sense to make it such a big deal with stakeholders as well.
Specifically, we wanted to mention release planning. Depending on the parameters, setting, and medium of your project, this will look quite different, but the point remains. We recommend having a detailed discussion about how you’ll bring the project out to the world. It helps, we promise.
5. Treat Feedback Like Gold
Not only do you need to collect feedback from stakeholders, but you also need to use it. Don’t put it on a shelf and collect dust. Look at it like valuable insight that needs to be cared about, shared, and used. If you are trying to build a quality product, you’ll need to do this.
You need to consider stakeholder input to be impactful, necessary, and helpful—even if you don’t agree with what it contains.
Agile Project Management: Don’t Exaggerate It OR Dismiss It
Sometimes, working within agile project management can feel a lot like flying by the seat of your pants. Often, you work without a clear vision for the future, without defined goals, yet with many specifications and parameters. It’s a useful system that encourages creativity and innovation while asking those (especially those used to traditional project management) to toss out everything they know to be true and useful.
That’s why it’s so important to understand agile project management, the agile framework, and the methodology it comes from. Without a solid foundation of information, everything can get fuzzy fast.
But agile can be very useful in the right situations. If you need a new solution, an imaginative attempt at an old issue, or simply a faster system for testing, agile is going to do wonders for you and your team. Not only does it offer your professionals the breathing room they deserve, but it can also provide a sense of autonomy and freedom over the work.
It’s a system to support that expression and development in a way traditional just could not dream of.
Let New Ideas Find You
Here at A.McBeth, Inc., we know it’s better to open our thinking caps, receive new ideas, and use them occasionally than act like we know everything. Project management is pretty uncomfortable with that attitude, so we are offering up new (and old) ideas all month long, so sign up to be notified the next time one pops up. You won’t want to miss it!
