Agile Project Management

Characteristics of Project Management

Agile Project Management

Description

Agile Project Management is a very wide approach for the proper planning of project management. It is basically an iterative approach, which means that the project to be managed is divided in to manageable portions which can be solved individually and also critiqued and analyzed. This critic or analysis is done by the team members included in the project and they might represent different departs involved in the project development like members from client side, team members et cetera. Now these critics of iterations majorly help in reconciling with the next step in the agile project management. Basically a single iteration is given a time period of two weeks in which all the processes for an individual iteration must be completed. The basic advantage of agile project management is the agility it allows in the software development in terms of breaking down the project into section and individually targeting each section so as to provide the clients which best possible product and in the time frame of the client. It allows easily responding to any difficulties in the early stage and making amendments for it accordingly and whole through the length of project. In addition to this it also creates a space in the software development which is more susceptible to change in between the development from the side of clients and is also able to provide best features under the budget of the client specified. The project is able to steer the directive of the development of the software according to the needs of the clients and stakeholders and still deliver them a cost effective high-quality work which is capable to provide much better business value to the clients with the help of the real work information and analysis. Agile Project Management also significantly reduces the time taken for the complicated process of software and made it a much feasible aspect in the software development department. Additionally, the long sumptuous method of removing the flaws seems like a much simpler task though easy separation of the different development stages (Chin, 2014).

Participants in Scrum Approach

One of the best assistance that Agile Project Management is the ability to divide certain portions of the job of project manager and divide them into three separate processes such as:

• The product owner who is in charge of handling the project goals, definitions, meeting the changed project requirements and scope of the project. The product owner must personally visualize the project and implicate every detail to the development team so as to help the development team to develop the project as per the clients requirements and include every minute details the client needs it in their software environment. The product owner must also represent the insight of the stakeholders and should be able to communicate well between the development team and the stakeholders in order to develop such a product which is viable to all. So the product owner is initially very important aspect of the scrum approach in the agile project management system as they help to visualize the project and bring it in real world.
• The ScrumMaster who manages the prioritization of the tasks in the project management and applying the appropriate measures to remove loop hole in the software. The Scrum Master is key manager of all the processes involved in developing and managing a project right from its deviation of different iterations, to revising daily work and reviewing them for any errors to the point till it is completely ready to be handed over to the client. Although a Scrum Master is not responsible for the technical work done in the project, they basically help to keep the project in content with the ideologies of stakeholders.
• And lastly team members who are the core builders of the project and handle important responsibilities such as every day work, reporting to the ScrumMaster, reporting of daily progress et cetera. Team members includes all the developers and programmers involved in the project who critically do the task of modeling, developing, testing, programming and all the other activities that stimulate the similar concept so as to make the project exactly according to the description of the product owner or stakeholders (Schwaber, 2008).

Six Steps of Agile Management Process

• Concept: In this stage projects are envisioned and prioritized. They are selected on the basis of priority and completed likewise. What work will be done in the correct iteration is also determined.
• Inception: At this stage team for the project is identified and selected, financial arrangements are made to carry out the project and other initial requirements are discussed.
• Iteration: The agile project development lifecycle is dominated by the iterative process. Now all iteration is usually two to four weeks in length and has a fixed completion time. Due to its time bound nature, the iteration process is methodical and the scope of all iteration is only as broad as the allotted time allows. At the end of all iteration project development team must present a potentially shippable increment. Feedback from the customers is also important at this stage for continuous improvements.
• Release: In this stage quality assurance is done for the project through intense testing. Internal and external training is also given along with documentation development and final release of the iteration into production.
• Production: In this stage product is already made and emphasis is on providing ongoing support of the software.
• Retirement: End-of-life activities are carried out which means ending the technical support for the product partially or fully and notifying the customer about the same (Canty, 2015).

Management of Risk in a Project

Developing a project is a very complicated process and it involves a lot of risks which can be pretty hard to solve but should not be ignored during the development because if these risks left ignored might lead up to serious performance issues in the software performance. Now the risks are an inevitable part of the project development and therefore should be handled with much greater concentration. There can be quite a handful of risks involved in the project management and could impose a negative impact in the project development. So in order to manage the risks involved in the project management, there are basically four steps which need to be followed to nullify the effect of the negative risks. The four risk management applications are: