Agile Project Management

Jim Highsmith directs Cutter Consortium’s agile consulting practice. He has over 30 years experience as an IT manager, product manager, project manager, consultant, and software developer. Jim is the author of Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Addison Wesley 2004; Adaptive Software Development: A Collaborative Approach to Managing Complex Systems, Dorset House 2000 and winner of the prestigious Jolt Award, and Agile Software Development Ecosystems, Addison Wesley 2002. Jim is the recipient of the 2005 international Stevens Award for outstanding contributions to systems development.   He is also co-editor, with Alistair Cockburn, of the Agile Software Development Series of books from Addison Wesley. Jim is a coauthor of the Agile Manifesto, a founding member of The Agile Alliance, coauthor of the Declaration Interdependence for project leaders, and cofounder and first president of the Agile Project Leadership Network. A frequent speaker at conferences worldwide, Jim has published dozens of articles in major industry publications.   Jim has consulted with IT and product development organizations and software companies in the U.S., Europe, Canada, South Africa, Australia, Japan, India, and New Zealand to help them adapt to the accelerated pace of development in increasingly complex, uncertain environments. Jim’s areas of consulting include the areas of Agile Software Development, Project Management, and Collaboration. He has held technical and management positions with software, computer hardware, banking, and energy companies. Jim holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and an M.S. in management.  

Introduction 1

    Conventions 2

    The Agile Software Development Series 2

Chapter 1: The Agile Revolution 5

    Agile Business Objectives 10

        Continuous Innovation 10

        Product Adaptability 10

        Improved Time-to-Market 11

        People and Process Adaptability 11

        Reliable Results 12

    Agility Defined 12

    Agile Leadership Values 14

    Agile Performance Measurement 19

    The APM Framework 21

    Performance Possibilities 22

    Final Thoughts 25

Chapter 2: Value over Constraints 27

    Continuous Flow of Customer Value 28

        Innovation 30

        Execution 32

        Lean Thinking 33

    Iterative, Feature-Based Delivery 34

    Technical Excellence 37

    Simplicity 40

        Generative Rules 40

        Barely Sufficient Methodology 42

        Delivery versus Compliance 43

    Final Thoughts 45

Chapter 3: Teams over Tasks 47

    Leading Teams 47

    Building Self-Organizing (Self-Disciplined) Teams 51

    Get the Right People 52

        Insist on Accountability 53

        Foster Self-Discipline 54

    Encourage Collaboration 55

        Participatory Decision Making 56

        Shared Space 58

        Customer Collaboration 59

    No More Self-Organizing Teams? 60

    Final Thoughts 61

Chapter 4: Adapting over Conforming 63

    The Science of Adaptation 65

    Exploring 68

    Responding to Change 70

    Product, Process, People 71

    Barriers or Opportunities 72

    Reliable, Not Repeatable 73

    Reflection and Retrospective 75

    Principles to Practices 75

    Final Thoughts 76

Chapter 5: An Agile Project Management Model 77

    An Agile Enterprise Framework 78

        Portfolio Governance Layer 78

        Project Management Layer 79

        Iteration Management Layer 80

        Technical Practices Layer 80

    An Agile Delivery Framework 80

        Phase: Envision 83

        Phase: Speculate 83

        Phase: Explore 84

        Phase: Adapt 84

        Phase: Close 85

        Not a Complete Product Lifecycle 85

        Selecting and Integrating Practices 86

        Judgment Required 87

        Project Size 88

    An Expanded Agile Delivery Framework 88

    Final Thoughts 89

Chapter 6: The Envision Phase 91

    A Releasable Product 93

    Envisioning Practices 94

    Product Vision 96

        Product Architecture 101

        Guiding Principles 104

    Project Objectives and Constraints 105

        Project Data Sheet 105

        Tradeoff Matrix 108

        Exploration Factor 109

    Project Community 112

        Participant Identification 115

        Product Team—Development Team Interaction 118

        Delivery Approach 122

        Self-Organization Strategy 123

        Process Framework Tailoring 124

        Practice Selection and Tailoring 125

    Final Thoughts 127

Chapter 7: The Speculate Phase 129

    Speculating on Product and Project 130

    Product Backlog 133

        What Is a Feature, a Story? 134

        The Focus of Stories 135

        Story Cards 137

        Creating a Backlog 140

    Release Planning 142

        Scope Evolution 144

        Iteration 0 147

        Iterations 1-N 148

        First Feasible Deployment 152

        Estimating 153

        Other Card Types 155

    Final Thoughts 156

Chapter 8: Advanced Release Planning 157

    Release (Project) Planning 157

    Wish-based Planning (Balancing Capacity and Demand) 159

    Multi-Level Planning 161

        A Complete Product Planning Structure 163

    Capabilities 166

        Capability Cases 167

        Creating a Product Backlog and Roadmap 168

        An Optimum Planning Structure 169

    Value Point Analysis 171

        Value Point Determination: Roles and Timing 173

        Calculating Relative Value Points 174

        Calculating Monetary Value Points 176

        Non-Customer-Facing Stories 177

        Value and Priority 177

    Release Planning Topics 178

        Planning Themes and Priorities 179

        Increasing Productivity 181

        Risk Analysis and Mitigation 182

        Planning and Scanning 186

        Timeboxed Sizing 188

        Other Story Types 190

        Work-in-Process versus Throughput 194

    Emerging Practices 197

        Kanban 197

        Consolidated Development 198

        Hyper-development and Release 200

    Final Thoughts 201

Chapter 9: The Explore Phase 203

    Agile Project Leadership 205

    Iteration Planning and Monitoring 206

        Iteration Planning 206

        Workload Management 212

        Monitoring Iteration Progress 213

    Technical Practices 215

        Technical Debt 216

        Simple Design 218

        Continuous Integration 220

        Ruthless Automated Testing 222

        Opportunistic Refactoring 223

    Coaching and Team Development 225

        Focusing the Team 227

        Molding a Group of Individuals into a Team 228

        Developing the Individual’s Capabilities 232

        Moving Rocks, Hauling Water 233

        Coaching the Customers 233

        Orchestrating Team Rhythm 235

    Participatory Decision Making 236

        Decision Framing 238

        Decision Making 240

        Decision Retrospection 244

        Leadership and Decision Making 245

        Set- and Delay-Based Decision Making 246

    Collaboration and Coordination 248

        Daily Stand-Up Meetings 248

        Daily Interaction with the Product Team 250

        Stakeholder Coordination 251

    Final Thoughts 251

Chapter 10: The Adapt and Close Phases 253

    Adapt 254

    Product, Project, and Team Review and Adaptive Action 256

        Customer Focus Groups 256

        Technical Reviews 259

        Team Performance Evaluations 259

        Project Status Reports 261

        Adaptive Action 268

    Close 268

    Final Thoughts 270

Chapter 11: Scaling Agile Projects 271

    The Scaling Challenge 272

        Scaling Factors 273

        Up and Out 275

        Uncertainty and Complexity 276

    An Agile Scaling Model 276

    Building Large Agile Teams 278

        Organizational Design 279

        Collaboration/Coordination Design 281

        Decision-Making Design 284

        Knowledge Sharing and Documentation 287

        Self-Organizing Teams of Teams 291

        Team Self-Discipline 293

        Process Discipline 294

    Scaling Up–Agile Practices 294

        Product Architecture 295

        Roadmaps and Backlogs 296

        Multi-level Release Plans 297

        Maintaining Releasable Products 298

        Inter-team Commitment Stories 299

        Tools 302

    Scaling Out–Distributed Projects 302

    Final Thoughts 304

Chapter 12: Governing Agile Projects 307

    Portfolio Governance 308

        Investment and Risk 309

        Executive-Level Information Requirements 311

        Engineering-Level Information Generation 313

        An Enterprise-Level Governance Model 316

        Using the Agile Governance Model 320

    Portfolio Management Topics 321

        Designing an Agile Portfolio 321

        Agile Methodology “Fit” 323

    Final Thoughts 325

Chapter 13: Beyond Scope, Schedule, and Cost: Measuring Agile Performance 327

    What Is Quality? 329

    Planning and Measuring 333

        Adaptive Performance–Outcomes and Outputs 335

        Measurement Issues 336

    Measurement Concepts 339

        Beyond Budgeting 339

        Measuring Performance in Organizations 342

    Outcome Performance Metrics 346

        Constraints 347

        Community Responsibility 348

        Improving Decision Making 349

        Planning as a Guide 350

    Output Performance Metrics 351

        Five Core Metrics 351

        Outcomes and Outputs 354

    Shortening the Tail 355

    Final Thoughts 357

Chapter 14: Reliable Innovation 359

    The Changing Face of New Product Development 360

    Agile People and Processes Deliver Agile Products 362

    Reliable Innovation 364

    The Value-Adding Project Leader 366

    Final Thoughts 367

Bibliography 369

Index 379

TOC, 9780321658395, 6/18/09