Project planning and management can be resource-consuming to a project manager if the right methods are not employed. In 2001, 17 software development geniuses had a meeting at the snowbird ski resort in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah in the United States of America. The meeting, which was initially meant to be for relaxation, became the birth of the best project management principle of all time. These principles, also called the “Agile manifesto,” have, through the years, acted as a guide to project managers and firms raising the standards of project management and producing efficiency. 

Agile Project Management Defined

 Like the name “agile” suggest, agile project management primarily restores agility to project execution processes. It is defined as a repetitive system of planning and organizing project processes by breaking them down into smaller work chunks.   

How it Works                 

Agile project management principles, when applied to projects, divide the project into smaller units known as sprints. These units are usually short-term achievable goals repeated consistently until the project is completed and delivered to the client. For every sprint, team members give feedback on the effectiveness and progress of the project. This provides room for correction of the project if need be or deployment of more resources. Aside from sprints, agile project management also adopts the scrum feature. The scrum feature is an adaptable, fast, and flexible framework of communication between customers and the project team throughout the project. The scrum usually has a scrum master who sets goals for the sprints and ensures that the daily less-than-10-minutes meeting holds. These meetings are held standing and typically do not exceed ten minutes. Their purpose is to quickly remind team members of the goal and communicate with clients on the level of progress.                     

The Agile Project Management Manifesto

Agile project management is often confused with software that performs efficient project management functions. Agile is neither software nor a computer program. It is, instead, a principle that guides project management which can be incorporated into the build of project management software that boosts project management efficiency. The agile project manifesto reads, “we are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work, we have come to value: individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, responding to change over following a plan. While there is value on the items on the right, we value the things on the left more.                                                 

Conclusion 

Agile project management is a methodology that seeks to emphasize the use of superior work methods to achieve project execution and customer satisfaction. Various project management software has been built to carry out the procedures prescribed in agile project management. Our next article will discuss some of these software and their usage. Kindly subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated on new publications.