Agile Project Management with Scrum

What is Agile And Scrum

Agile is a type of project management methodology that uses iterative approaches to ensure the faster release of projects. It makes the use of collaboration and the ability to adapt to change as some of the factors. It takes a lot of planning, and it is good to accept changes.

When using agile processes, the team collects feedback during different phases of development. It ensures you can fix issues at the earliest stages. Agile uses little documentation, unlike other development methods that use a lot of documentation. Many companies embrace the changes.

Agile methodology changes how people used to work. The team breaks down into smaller parts that they assign to each member. The team leader also conducts daily standups to check the progress and fix any issues affecting the team members and the project.

When working with agile, it supports different frameworks like extreme programming and Scrum. The frameworks are very important. Scrum is a framework that helps teams and companies organize themselves in groups and later generate value for the companies by providing solutions. The people who implement Scrum undergo certified training to get the necessary skills. They help the company how to implement the framework and manage the company activities using it.

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What is Agile Project Management

Agile project management uses iterative approaches during the development life cycles to ensure the team completes the project in time and ensure all the feedback given by the customers gets incorporated into it. Most of the changes occur at different stages or sprints. The agile methodologies improve team collaboration and provide adaptability, making the team changes as they continue working on the project.

Most people get the benefits of using agile methodologies after completing the project. It enables the team to work according to the assigned budget and timeframe. Agile project management consists of many agile methodologies that one can use. When using this methodology, a whole project gets divided into smaller sections, there is a lot of visualization to improve transparency between different phases, and there is a collaboration between all the stakeholders, teams, and customers. For those using it for the first time, it can seem complex, but over time things change, and you will be able to work easily with it without facing any issues.

What are the constraints for Project Management

There are several constraints that one gets during project management. Most of the constraints are risks and limitations that every project has. When working on different projects, you face different constraints. You have to learn how to identify them and understand how to work with them during the whole process.

Most project managers have the skills to check and understand all project constraints. Having a deeper understanding makes you have a successful project release. Several constraints can affect the final delivery of your project.

• Scope: It refers to the number of things discussed by all the stakeholders in the project planning. These things have to be met to deliver the project. When there are deliverables that were not in the planning phase, they get treated as out of scope. It is good to create a scope statement when starting a project to get the final expectations of the overall project.
• Cost: You need to understand the cost of the project for every project you work on. Cost is the total amount one can use to get the overall product. When estimating the total costs, one needs to be keen not to leave any figures out. A cost estimate enables you to monitor the progress of how you spend when working on the project.
• Time: You have to set the time you will spend on each sprint to estimate the time you will need to complete the project. When you fail to adhere to the time schedule, the chances of the product failing are very high. It is suitable for time management. You need to assign time very well to avoid scenarios of making adjustments.
• Quality: It depends on the project requirements. The final product has to meet the expectations. Most of the quality depends on the scope, ensuring that the team does not waste time on unnecessary items, which can waste time and costs.
• Customer Satisfaction: The team leader has to consider several factors to ensure that the project satisfies the customer's needs. Delivering the project on time does not guarantee that it will satisfy the customer. You will have to emphasize the customer's and stakeholders' needs more.
• Resources: There are several resources the team handles when building a project. Most of the resources can be either human or material. The number of funding you have determines the developers you will hire and their level. If you have more funding, you will go for the senior developers, while if you have fewer funds, you will go for entry and mid-level developers. Resources play a big part in resource accessibility and availability.

Benefits of Agile Project Management With Scrum

There are many benefits of using agile project management together with scrum. The benefits include:

• Reduced costs: Using agile development lowers the cost of building projects. It enables the team to work on projects without spending money.
  Work Quality: When working with agile methodologies, you must do testing on all the projects during each sprint. It increases quality and reduces the cases of having issues.
• Customer Satisfaction: Since the customer takes part in the project, all the customer needs are incorporated into the project. This creates more transparency, enabling them to view the project's progress. It creates a good relationship with the customers.
• Less Risk: It is easy to track any issues at an earlier stage of development. It gives the teams more transparency which improves how the team handles risks reducing the chances of failure.
• Flexibility: You can make changes at any stage during the development process. It makes the development process more flexible. Most of the changes come from the customer feedback and project owner.
• Employee Satisfaction: Most projects that use agile methodologies get shipped faster into the market. It increases employee satisfaction and the people who take part in the project.
• Emphasis on Innovation and Creativity: When working in an agile environment, the team works in an innovative and creative way. You learn new things as you develop.
• Motivation: The agile methodologies consist of collaboration, engagement, and involvement of all the people from developers, customers, and project owners. It pushes the people and makes them happy. It improves productivity, making them feel more motivated to work on the project.

Scrum Roles and Responsibilities

There are several people who ensure that the agile methodology is successful. We shall look at the roles and responsibilities of the following people.

• The Product Owner: This is the person whose project is worked on. They carry the vision, customer's expectations,s and how to fulfill them. They also understand the project requirements, both business and technical. They have to ensure the team working on the project understands all the project features and specifications.
• The Scrum Master: They are in charge of the team. They have to ensure the team follows all the decisions they make. They conduct daily standups, helping the team fix issues, etc. Most of them have undergone the Scrum certification to acquire the required skills.
• The Development Team: It mainly consists of the developers who work on the project. Mostly they are eight in number. The team has different people with different skillset to make the project's release successful.
• Scrum Ceremonies: The team uses these meetings to cover different aspects of the sprint process. It ensures that the members do the right thing and have all the information they need about the project. It also increases efficiency.
• Sprint Planning: When conducting the ceremonies(meetings), all the members from the owner, scrum master, and development team attend this event. It improves collaboration. The owner has to provide the product backlog and later discuss it with everyone to ensure everyone gets involved in the process.
• The Daily Standup: These are daily meetings carried out by the Scrum master. Everyone attends from the development team, project owner, and scrum master. Most of them last between fifteen and twenty minutes. It provides answers to all the questions that the team discusses.
• Sprint Review/Demo: It shows all the complete user stories. If there are no user stories, there are some topics they discuss, and the owner updates the backlog.
• Retrospective: It talks about how the team can work together and does not entail discussions only. They also discuss the user stories without incorporating the issues the team faces. Everyone attends the retrospective.

frequently asked Agile Interview Questions and Answers

Conclusion

There are many benefits the team gets when they work with agile methodology. If the team lacks knowledge, they will take time to learn and adapt it. The company can also hire a Scrum master to help implement it. There are some new skills and certifications that one must take to learn new agile concepts.

Related Article:

• Agile Leadership
• Agile Release Plan