Agile Project Management

When you want to understand Agile Project Management, ask “How might we perform project management in a way that allows us to create and respond to change and deal with uncertainty?” Agile Alliance and Project Management Institute (PMI) explored this question through a joint effort to create the?Agile Practice Guide.

Agile as a project management approach was introduced to the world in 2001 in the United States. At a ski resort in the Wasatch mountains of Utah, 17 self-proclaimed organizational anarchists came together and combined several lightweight processes to create what we know today as the Agile Manifesto. The creators of Agile intended it to be a set of values and principles that would improve upon and transform existing software development processes, but companies in various industries quickly saw the value of Agile, too. Soon, Agile was adopted across all fields.?

Agile is a highly collaborative approach to high-complexity and competitive projects. In this article, we’ll briefly explore the four values and 12 principles of the Agile Manifesto.?

The Agile values refer to the following four statements:?

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

Agile experts see these values as important underpinnings of the highest-performing teams, and every team member should strive to live by these values to apply the full benefits of Agile.

It is the same with the 12 principles which are at the heart of each Agile project:

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

The Authors

Kent Beck

Mike Beedle

Arie van Bennekum

Alistair Cockburn

Ward Cunningham

Martin Fowler

Robert C. Martin

Steve Mellor

Dave Thomas

James Grenning

Jim Highsmith

Andrew Hunt

Ron Jeffries

Jon Kern

Brian Marick

Ken Schwaber

Jeff Sutherland

Click to learn more?about the authors of the Agile Manifesto.

Click To Read The History Of Agile.

LinkedIn Skill Pages

Agile Methodologies