APM - Agile Project Management

Introduction

Agile project management (APM) first appeared in 1991 in the form of agile manufacturing. However, it was not until 2001, when the Agile Manifesto was developed, that the agile approach became increasingly popular. The Agile Manifesto originated in the software industry, where it quickly became widespread due to Man’s entrance into the computer age.

In general, agile project management can be of great use in projects where the solution is not obvious, where the surroundings are ever changing and where the project plan itself can risk being changed due to unforeseen circumstances. Additionally, the customer’s demands on the product might change as well as the project manager’s access to resources and personnel. All these uncertain parameters give rise to new requirements to the manager’s qualifications in order to maneuver through the project landscape. The APM theory gives the project manager a set of new tool to deal with these challenges, as the essence of APM is to be able to adapt and work efficiently in an ever-changing environment. It can be summarized in the Agile Manifesto below:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

APM Principles

One of the cornerstones in the agile approach is the ability to adapt to any given situation, embrace changes and make the best out of them. The following principles of APM should therefore only act as a general guideline to draw inspiration from. Depending on the situation, various tools within the APM framework may be drawn out for usage. The overall theme of the 7 principles is to focus on value creating activities for the sake of the customers/users, who are paying for the project, and to minimize any nuisances or disturbances in the project like bureaucracy or incompetent team members. It also advises the project manager to make use of direct forms of communication in regards to both the developers and the consumers to draw mutual inspiration and insight from one another. Finally it urges the project leader to optimize the use of all available resources and empower the project team as much as possible in order to have a smooth and fast running project.

Regarding the Product
1. Value & Quality – End product has to add value to the customer and be of excellent quality, thereby positioning both the company and the customer in a more favorable position than prior to the project.

2. Timeliness – The delivery and commissioning of the products must be in accordance to the customer’s needs. Whenever and whereever. Regarding the process:

Regarding the Process
3. Direction and Vision – The vision of the project must continuously guide the directing of the project. New circumstances or discoveries may change the vision and thus the direction must change accordingly.

4. Communication and collaboration – The end users/consumers must continuously be a part of the work process. Getting a steady stream of feedback and elaborations on wishes and demands make for a better product. Keeping in mind who the product is for and collaborating with them is crucial for the success of the project.

5. Flow and pace – The projects must deliver fast and often, thus the project should ideally consist of many small iterations (milestones). If the project at some point gets too complicated and complex, it has to be restructured and simplified. The idea is to create a workflow of high intensity and continuity.

6. Competent and empowered team – The project team must ideally consist of competent people who have been empowered to make as many decisions as possible. This allows for fast decision-making and keeps up the workflow. However, it requires a high level of trust from the executive management level.

7. Simplify – It is essential to simplify all work and decision processes and consequently avoiding all non-value creating activities. Additionally, any sort of communication should be simple and direct be it face-to-face conversations, telephone conferences or short meetings. Finally all project specifications, results, plans and status must be simple, up to date and visible for all project members.

APM TOOLS

In order to help the project manager uphold the principles of APM, many tools have been developed. This section will describe some of the most commonly used tools and techniques currently used in APM. The techniques in focus are the Daily Standup Meetings (SCRUM meetings), Consensus Building and Timeboxing. Other tools such as backlogging, velocity measurements and story points have not been included in this article. However, further inquiry into APM tools can be found in “PMI: Agile Certified Practitioner”.

Daily Standup Meeting: This tool is positively the easiest and most commonly used tool in APM. The Daily Standup Meeting is a brief 15 minutes status report meeting at the beginning of each day. The framework of the meeting is very simple. Every single project team member answers the same 3 questions:

• What did I do yesterday?
• What will I do today?
• Are there any obstacles in my way and what do I need in order to overcome these obstacles?

Consensus building: Coming to an agreement when making decisions is important throughout the project. In other words, aligning expectations and including all project members in this continuous process. The result is a more committed, engaging and hardworking team, because they feel a sense of ownership. However, consensus building must not over shadow the principle on “flow and pace”. There are countless tools that the project manager can make use of to teach the team to quicker and better decisions. The book “Coaching Agile Teams” explores many of these tools and techniques.

Timeboxing: The practice of timeboxing is a tool for the project team to divide the work of the whole project into smaller boxes with a fixed length. Each box/iteration normally takes 3-4 weeks to complete depending on the type of project. It is important that timeboxing is done correctly in order for the project to run at a steady pace, because any unfinished work in one iteration will automatically be stacked on top of the next iteration, thus causing unnecessary stress. However, there are also benefits from using this approach. Due to the limited time frames of each iteration, it causes an increase in productivity and gives the team a sense of completion after each iteration, consequently making the whole project seem more manageable.

APM MODEL

The APM model is designed to optimize execution and delivery for any given project. There are various APM models depending on the branch of APM and the type of project in focus. The following is a generalized model that consists of 5 project phases: Vision, Speculate, Explore, Adapt and Finish. Even though the figure does not show Vision in a loop, it is indeed possible to continuously revise the Vision following the third principle of APM on “Direction and Vision”