Agile Project Management For Dummies

Mark C. Layton, aka "Mr. Agile?," is a veteran of more than 25 years in the project and program management field. He is a Certified Scrum Trainer, a PMP, and an MBA. He holds multiple scrum scaling certifications and is the founder of Platinum Edge, LLC. Steven J. Ostermiller is a coach, mentor, and trainer empowering leaders and teams to become more agile. He holds CSP and PMP designations.

Introduction 1


About This Book 1


Foolish Assumptions 1


Icons Used in This Book 2


Beyond the Book 2


Where to Go from Here 3


Part 1: Understanding Agile 5


Chapter 1: Modernizing Project Management 7


Project Management Needed a Makeover 7


The origins of modern project management 8


The problem with the status quo 10


Introducing Agile Project Management 11


How agile projects work 13


Why agile projects work better 14


Chapter 2: Applying the Agile Manifesto and Principles 17


Understanding the Agile Manifesto 17


Outlining the Four Values of the Agile Manifesto 20


Value 1: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools 20


Value 2: Working software over comprehensive documentation 22


Value 3: Customer collaboration over contract negotiation 24


Value 4: Responding to change over following a plan 25


Defining the 12 Agile Principles 26


Agile principles of customer satisfaction 27


Agile principles of quality 30


Agile principles of teamwork 31


Agile principles of project management 33


Adding the Platinum Principles 37


Resisting formality 37


Thinking and acting as a team 38


Visualizing rather than writing 38


Changes as a Result of Agile Values 41


The Agile Litmus Test 41


Chapter 3: Why Being Agile Works Better 43


Evaluating Agile Benefits 43


How Agile Approaches Beat Historical Approaches 48


Greater flexibility and stability 49


Reduced nonproductive tasks 51


Higher quality, delivered faster 53


Improved team performance 54


Tighter project control 56


Faster and less costly failure 57


Why People Like Being Agile 57


Executives 58


Product development and customers 59


Management 60


Development teams 61


Part 2: Being Agile 63


Chapter 4: Agile Approaches 65


Diving under the Umbrella of Agile Approaches 65


Reviewing the Big Three: Lean, Scrum, and Extreme Programming 69


An overview of lean 69


An overview of scrum 73


An overview of extreme programming 76


Putting It All Together 80


Chapter 5: Agile Environments in Action 81


Creating the Physical Environment 82


Collocating the team 82


Setting up a dedicated area 83


Removing distractions 84


Going mobile 85


Low-Tech Communicating 86


High-Tech Communicating 88


Choosing Tools 90


The purpose of the tool 90


Organizational and compatibility constraints 90


Chapter 6: Agile Behaviors in Action 93


Establishing Agile Roles 93


Product owner 94


Development team member 97


Scrum master 98


Stakeholders 100


Agile mentor 102


Establishing New Values 102


Commitment 103


Courage 103


Focus 104


Openness 105


Respect 106


Changing Team Philosophy 107


Dedicated team 107


Cross-functionality 108


Self-organization 110


Self-management 111


Size-limited teams 112


Ownership 113


Part 3: Agile Planning and Execution 115


Chapter 7: Defining the Product Vision and Product Roadmap 117


Agile Planning 118


Progressive elaboration 120


Inspect and adapt 120


Defining the Product Vision 121


Step 1: Developing the product objective 122


Step 2: Creating a draft vision statement 123


Step 3: Validating and revising the vision statement 125


Step 4: Finalizing the vision statement 126


Creating a Product Roadmap 126


Step 1: Identifying stakeholders 127


Step 2: Establishing product requirements 128


Step 3: Arranging product features 130


Step 4: Estimating efforts and ordering requirements 131


Step 5: Determining high-level time frames 135


Saving your work 135


Completing the Product Backlog 135


Chapter 8: Planning Releases and Sprints 139


Refining Requirements and Estimates 139


What is a user story? 140


Steps to create a user story 142


Breaking down requirements 146


Estimation poker 148


Affinity estimating 150


Release Planning 152


Sprint Planning 155


The sprint backlog 156


The sprint planning meeting 157


Chapter 9: Working throughout the Day 163


Planning Your Day: The Daily Scrum 163


Tracking Progress 166


The sprint backlog 166


The task board 170


Agile Roles in the Sprint 172


Creating Shippable Functionality 174


Elaborating 174


Developing 175


Verifying 176


Identifying roadblocks 178


The End of the Day 179


Chapter 10: Showcasing Work, Inspecting, and Adapting 181


The Sprint Review 181


Preparing to demonstrate 182


The sprint review meeting 183


Collecting feedback in the sprint review meeting 186


The Sprint Retrospective 187


Planning for sprint retrospectives 189


The sprint retrospective meeting 189


Inspecting and adapting 191


Chapter 11: Preparing for Release 193


Preparing the Product for Deployment: The Release Sprint 193


Preparing for Operational Support 197


Preparing the Organization for Product Deployment 199


Preparing the Marketplace for Product Deployment 200


Part 4: Agile Management 203


Chapter 12: Managing Scope and Procurement 205


What’s Different about Agile Scope Management? 206


Managing Agile Scope 208


Understanding scope throughout the project 208


Introducing scope changes 211


Managing scope changes 211


Using agile artifacts for scope management 213


What’s Different about Agile Procurement? 214


Managing Agile Procurement 216


Determining need and selecting a vendor 216


Understanding cost approaches and contracts for services 218


Organizational considerations for procurement 221


Working with a vendor 223


Closing a contract 224


Chapter 13: Managing Time and Cost 225


What’s Different about Agile Time Management? 225


Managing Agile Schedules 227


Introducing velocity 228


Monitoring and adjusting velocity 229


Managing scope changes from a time perspective 234


Managing time by using multiple teams 235


Using agile artifacts for time management 236


What’s Different about Agile Cost Management? 237


Managing Agile Budgets 238


Creating an initial budget 239


Creating a self-funding project 240


Using velocity to determine long-range costs 242


Using agile artifacts for cost management 244


Chapter 14: Managing Team Dynamics and Communication 245


What’s Different about Agile Team Dynamics? 245


Managing Agile Team Dynamics 247


Becoming self-managing and self-organizing 248


Supporting the team: The servant-leader 252


Working with a dedicated team 254


Working with a cross-functional team 255


Reinforcing openness 257


Limiting development team size 258


Managing projects with dislocated teams 259


What’s Different about Agile Communication? 262


Managing Agile Communication 263


Understanding agile communication methods 263


Status and progress reporting 266


Chapter 15: Managing Quality and Risk 269


What’s Different about Agile Quality? 269


Managing Agile Quality 272


Quality and the sprint 273


Proactive quality 275


Quality through regular inspecting and adapting 280


Automated testing 281


What’s Different about Agile Risk Management? 283


Managing Agile Risk 286


Reducing risk inherently 286


Identifying, prioritizing, and responding to risks early 291


Part 5: Ensuring Agile Success 295


Chapter 16: Building a Foundation 297


Organizational and Individual Commitment 297


Organizational commitment 298


Individual commitment 299


Getting commitment 299


Can you make the transition? 300


Timing the transition 302


Choosing the Right Pilot Team Members 302


The agile champion 302


The agile transition team 303


The product owner 304


The development team 305


The scrum master 305


The project stakeholders 306


The agile mentor 307


Creating an Environment That Enables Agility 307


Support Agility Initially and Over Time 310


Chapter 17: Scaling across Agile Teams 311


Multi-Team Agile Projects 312


Making Work Digestible through Vertical Slicing 314


Scrum of scrums 315


Aligning through Roles with Scrum at Scale 318


Scaling the scrum master 319


Scaling the product owner 320


Synchronizing in one hour a day 322


Multi-Team Coordination with LeSS 323


LeSS, the smaller framework 323


LeSS Huge framework 324


Sprint review bazaar 325


Observers at the daily scrum 326


Component communities and mentors 326


Multi-team meetings 327


Travelers 327


Reducing Dependencies with Nexus 327


Nexus role — Nexus integration team 328


Nexus artifacts 330


Nexus events 330


Joint Program Planning with SAFe 332


Understanding the four SAFe levels 333


Joint program increment planning 336


Clarity for managers 337


Modular Structures with Enterprise Scrum 337


ES scrum elements generalizations 337


ES key activities 338


Chapter 18: Being a Change Agent 343


Becoming Agile Requires Change 343


Why Change Doesn’t Happen on Its Own 344


Strategic Approaches to Implementing and Managing Change 345


Lewin 345


ADKAR’s five steps to change 346


Kotter’s eight steps for leading change 348


Platinum Edge’s Change Roadmap 349


Step 1: Conduct an implementation strategy with success metrics 349


Step 2: Build awareness and excitement 352


Step 3: Form a transformation team and identify a pilot project 353


Step 4: Build an environment for success 355


Step 5: Train sufficiently and recruit as needed 355


Step 6: Kick off the pilot with active coaching 356


Step 7: Execute the Roadmap to Value 357


Step 8: Gather feedback and improve 357


Step 9: Mature and solidify improvements 358


Step 10: Progressively expand within the organization 359


Avoiding Pitfalls 360


Signs Your Changes Are Slipping 363


Part 6: The Part of Tens 367


Chapter 19: Ten Key Benefits of Agile Project Management 369


Better Product Quality 369


Higher Customer Satisfaction 370


Reduced Risk 371


Increased Collaboration and Ownership 371


More Relevant Metrics 372


Improved Performance Visibility 373


Increased Project Control 374


Improved Project Predictability 374


Customized Team Structures 375


Higher Team Morale 376


Chapter 20: Ten Key Factors for Project Success 377


Dedicated Team Members 377


Collocation 378


Automated Testing 378


Enforced Definition of Done 378


Clear Product Vision and Roadmap 379


Product Owner Empowerment 380


Developer Versatility 380


Scrum Master Clout 380


Management Support for Learning 381


Transition Support 381


Chapter 21: Ten Metrics for Agile Organizations 383


Return on Investment 383


New requests in ROI budgets 386


Capital redeployment 386


Satisfaction Surveys 387


Defects in Production 388


Sprint Goal Success Rates 389


Time to Market 389


Lead and Cycle Times 390


Cost of Change 391


Team Member Turnover 391


Skill Versatility 392


Manager-to-Creator Ratio 392


Chapter 22: Ten Valuable Resources for Agile Professionals 395


Agile Project Management For Dummies Online Cheat Sheet 395


Scrum For Dummies 396


The Scrum Alliance 396


The Agile Alliance 396


The Project Management Institute Agile Community 397


International Consortium for Agile (ICAgile) 397


InfoQ 397


Lean Enterprise Institute 398


Extreme Programming 398


Platinum Edge 398


Index 401