Category: Agile

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5 Key Agile Tools for Passing the PMP® Exam

Woman at her computer reading about agile tools to pass the PMP Exam

Don’t let agile content on the PMP® exam take you by surprise! As expected, test-takers are reporting that 50% or more of the PMP® exam consists of hybrid and agile questions. Through our research, we have identified some key agile tools you may come across on the exam. By knowing these tools and some related terminology, you could get more answers right on the exam.

5 Agile Tools for the PMP® Exam

  1. Product Backlog
  2. Iteration
  3. Information Radiator
  4. Story Points
  5. Kanban Boards

1. Product Backlog

Sometimes called a “backlog,” this tool is part of the requirements management process and is used and maintained throughout the project. The requirements are categorized by priority into a list. As requirements are met (or “done”), they are removed from the backlog. Items can be reprioritized, added, or removed. This is called “grooming the backlog.” Below is an example of a backlog, followed by some other useful terms to know for the exam.

User Story: Agile teams typically break the product features (or high-level requirements) down into user stories. User stories are written in the following format: As a <role>, I want to <functionality> so that <business benefit>. As you can see from the backlog example, each user story is written following this structure.

Definition of Done: The team and the product owner need to agree on a definition of done before the team begins working so that everyone has a shared understanding of what “done” will look like for that increment.

2. Iteration

An iteration is a timeboxed period of product production. Specifically, you might see the term “sprint” on the PMP® exam. “Sprint” and “iteration” are synonymous, and they are timeboxed to one month or less. Each sprint is like a mini project. When a sprint ends, any incomplete product backlog items are returned to the product backlog, to be added to the next sprint or reprioritized. Here are other terms to know related to iterations.

Scrum: Scrum is a popular agile methodology that is lightweight and easy-to-understand. In Scrum, iterations are called “sprints.”

Scrum Master: The Scrum Master is the team’s servant leader. The Scrum Master guides and coaches the team.

Sprint backlog: The sprint backlog can be presented like a Kanban board (see the information radiator section). It relates only to tasks that happen during that sprint. The sprint backlog serves as a highly visible view of the work.

The daily scrum, or daily stand-up, is a 15-minute meeting that is held at the same time and place every day while the team is working toward the sprint goal. Each member of the team briefly answers three questions about what they are doing to meet the sprint goal:

  1. What have I done since the last meeting?
  2. What do I plan to do today?
  3. Are there any impediments to my progress?

The team leader or Scrum Master makes sure the meeting happens every day and follows up on any identified obstacles.

3. Information Radiator

This is agile’s umbrella term for highly visible displays of information, including large charts, graphs, and summaries of project data. Information radiators are usually displayed in high-traffic areas to maximize exposure, where they can quickly inform stakeholders about the project’s status. A Kanban board (see Kanban board section) and a sprint backlog are examples of information radiators, as are burn charts. Here are specific burn charts you may see on the PMP® exam:

Burndown chart:  This example of a burndown chart tracks the work that remains to be done on a project. As work is completed, the progress line on the chart will move downward, reflecting the smaller amount of work that still needs to be done. Burndown charts allow us to quickly project when the work will be done but they make it hard to separate the impact of scope creep from the team’s progress.

Burnup chart: Burnup charts track the work that has been completed. Therefore, the progress line on it will move upward, showing the increasing amount of work that has been completed. A burnup chart can show changes in scope, making the impact of those changes visible.

4. Story Points

Story points are used as an estimation tool for agile teams. Instead of estimating in hours or days, agile teams estimate in a relative unit called “story points.” For example, imagine we have already developed a simple input screen and have given that task a size of 2 story points. We can then estimate the remaining tasks by comparing them to the input screen. We might assign 1 story point to a simple fix or change and assign 3 points or 5 points to bigger pieces of work. Relative sizing, as in story points, doesn’t give a false sense of an exact measure, as hours might. Sizing one piece of work relative to another also accounts for the different speeds at which people work. A story might be 3-points for experienced developer, or 5 points for a novice worker.

5. Kanban Board

A Kanban board is the primary tool for planning and monitoring the progress of the work. It’s generally a whiteboard (or its electronic equivalent) with columns that show the various stages of work (as shown here). The tasks that are being worked on are represented by sticky notes that team members move through the columns to reflect their progress. Teams will often have the daily stand-up meeting at a Kanban board.

Learn More About Agile for the PMP Exam

RMC has several opportunities to learn more about these tools. If you are planning to take the PMP exam, sharpen your Agile knowledge as part of your test prep.

RMC offers a self-directed Agile Fundamentals eLearning Course that teaches agile project development, practices, tools, and techniques to immediately use agile methods on your projects. We also have the Agile Fundamentals book in hard copy or in an online subscription format.

If you are looking to introduce additional team members to Agile Fundamentals, contact us to learn more about our instructor-led classes.

You can also watch our webinar on the 5 Key Agile Tools to Know for the PMP Exam.

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Project Management and Law

Coworkers seated at computer discussing project management and law

A recent trend in law firm management is to bring the practice of project management and law together.  The motivation for this appears to be to maintain firm profitability in fixed fee arrangements.  If a firm’s lawyers spend too much time on a matter, it reduces the firm’s profitability.  The goal is to maintain quality in the shortest time possible.  To do this, many law firms are looking to project management to improve efficiency.

If you think your law firm might benefit from project management tools and techniques, here are some ideas on how you might incorporate project management in your practice.

Legal Project Management

  1. Introduction to Project Management
  2. What Is The Agile Method?
  3. Business Environment and Law
  4. Choosing Planned Project Management
  5. Consider An Agile Approach
  6. Bring Project Management To Your Law Practice

Introduction to Project Management

Project management is a discipline where a project manager uses a series of tools and techniques to efficiently manage a project.  A project is an endeavor that has a discrete beginning, middle and end. [RMC Crash Course in Project Management] A piece of litigation could be thought of as a project as could the purchase of a business or the drafting of a will.  In fact, given the nature of the practice of law, project management is well suited for use by lawyers in managing their practice.

Project management got its start the first time somebody tried to build something.   Some say it started with the pyramids.  As project management grew and developed it became more complex and document intensive.

What Is The Agile Method?

In early 2001 some software developers, frustrated by what they saw as the over bureaucratization of project management created what they called the Agile Manifesto.  This manifesto emphasizes individuals and interactions over processes and tools; working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation and responding to change over following a plan.

Over the years agile has expanded into other areas and is not exclusively used in software development.  It also has become more document and process intensive to the point where some types of agile (there are many) are almost indistinguishable from traditional project management.  There are also hybrid approaches which incorporate aspects of traditional and agile project management.

Business Environment and Law

An important project management domain is called “Business Environment.”  As the name indicates, this is the ecosystem in which the business operates.  It includes the competitive environment, corporate culture, business governance and the regulatory environment in which the business operates.

This is especially relevant to a law practice.  The above elements of the business environment all apply to a law firm.  By its nature, a law practice needs to be especially sensitive to the regulatory aspects of a business environment since it is the focus of the work – the work of a lawyer is to deal in that regulatory environment.

Litigated matters are governed by the rules of civil or criminal procedure.  The purchase or sale of a business is governed by a myriad of rules and regulations, including tax, corporate and business law, intellectual property law and others, all of which play intricate and essential roles.  Estate practices must deal with probate law – procedural and substantive.

Choosing Planned Project Management

In many ways, the business environment will dictate the project management process used by the firm.  As lawyers we would tend to gravitate to more predictive types of project management.  The linear process approach to project management could fit with the nature of the laws and regulations governing most legal matters.

However, in some areas a more agile approach would be appropriate.  I could see this in situations where the firm is dropped into the middle of a situation where it doesn’t have a lot of information or is required to move quickly. An example would be where the firm represents a client a legal action involving a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction.  I could also see an agile or hybrid approach used in situations involving a hostile takeover or an unforeseen enforcement proceeding.

Planned or predictive project management is very linear and planning intensive.  It is broken down into five knowledge areas:  Initiation, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing.  The most time-consuming knowledge area is planning.  There are over a dozen process groups within that knowledge area.  They include scope management plans, stakeholder management plans, risk management plans, quality management plans, communication management plans and a long list of others.  This type of project management is most often used in areas where there is a well defined scope such as building a bridge or factory.

Intensive planning simply didn’t work in the software industry.  Plans were often outdated before there was ever an attempt to implement them.  Agile was created by software developers to allow for change oriented project management.  Projects were conducted through a series of “sprints,” which typically lasted to weeks.  After a sprint, the project was re-evaluated.  Work completed, hopefully resulted in the creation of something useful.  The results of the sprint formed the basis for a new sprint.  The results of a sprint required changes in scope of the project along with a new set of tasks to be performed during the next sprint.  Tasks that were not completed in the prior sprint were usually carried over to the next sprint.

In terms of firm efficiency, while you may not know how long an entire matter will take, an experience lawyer can have a good understanding how long particular tasks will take.  In putting together the number of tasks to be performed during a sprint they can estimate the total amount of time necessary to perform the work necessary for that sprint.  Granted, it will be a rough estimate, but it could be a basis for a lawyer giving the client an estimate of the cost of performing a certain amount of work.

Consider An Agile Approach

An agile approach may be better in dealing with situations where, for example, a client walks into a firm with a pile of papers, advising that someone is seeking to enjoin their sale of a new product and that they are seeking something called a preliminary injunction that is set down for a hearing in a couple of days.

You call opposing counsel, ask for a delay (continuance or adjournment depending on where you are).  They agree provided you consent to cease and desist selling the product pending the hearing.  Your client refuses.

Now you have your first sprint.  It will last two days instead of two weeks.  If you’re using agile, you are writing notes, which in the agile world are called work packets or tickets, as you read.  These work packets are discrete pieces of work that can be assigned to lawyers and paralegals.  They can relate to fact investigation, legal research, or obtaining information from third parties. The agile process also calls for daily, check-ins to determine where people are with respect to their work packets and where they will be going.  Given the tight deadline, you may want to have check-ins more than once per day.  In the agile world these would be stand-up meetings or scrums.   The point is, in this kind of situation, where you need to move fast, you can’t sit down and put together a project charter or detailed planning documents.

Agile may not be appropriate in other situations where there is ample time to plan.  The purchase or sale of a business or a merger come to mind.  A legal audit of a client could also be a good application for a planned or predictive project management approach.

The point is, project management can help attorneys more efficiently manage their work.  Using these tools, a lawyer can gain predictability of the time and effort necessary to complete a matter.  This will benefit the firm as well and the firm’s clients in the long term.

Bring Project Management And Your Law Practice

Interested in bringing project management skills to your work? You could hire a project manager and build their legal understanding. Another option is to dedicate a member of team, such as a paralegal or a managing partner, to develop project management skills and bring those to key projects.

RMC PM Crash Course in a book guides the non-project management professional through predictive and agile concepts to give you a practical foundation in the predictive and agile project management methods.  This content is also available in an online interactive PM Crash eLearning course with games and exercises to learn at your own pace.

RMC also offers a Project Management Tricks of the Trade course that teaches you real-world project management application with a expert project management trainer.  Contact us to find out about our class schedule

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Agile Framework Options – What You Need to Know

Three colleagues at computer discussing agile framework options

Project management frameworks, including Agile framework options, are sets of processes and tools that can help you complete a project more efficiently and effectively. As an outline that you and your team can turn to throughout the course of a project, your framework will be there to guide you from start to finish, keeping you on track to meet your goals.

There are several frameworks that you can try, so you can find the one that will work best for you. The traditional framework that you might already be familiar with is often called waterfall. the most well-known waterfall sets of processes include initiation, planning, execution, control, and closure.

Another framework you can use to stay organized is based on Agile practices.

Agile Framework Options

  1. What Is An Agile Project Management Framework?
  2. What Are Agile Project Management Methodologies?
  3. Popular Agile Methodologies

What Is An Agile Project Management Framework?

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by a project? Using the Agile methodology, you can break it down into manageable activities. The Agile approach uses an iterative approach, which increases your flexibility in planning and building the product. You’ll find it relatively easy to make changes at regular intervals throughout the project.

Because you move through a project in incremental stages, Agile gives you even frequent opportunities to recognize problems, make changes quickly, and stay on course toward hitting targets.

Different types of projects call for different approaches. With the traditional approach, you define your objectives, plan thoroughly and then control carefully for change as you build your product. With Agile, early planning takes a broader approach. Typically, you can more easily adapt to change as you meet your objectives.

What Are Agile Project Management Methodologies?

Agile is essentially a blanket term that describes a philosophy for managing projects. Within it, there are several methodologies that you can use on their own or in combination.

They all take an iterative approach and follow the main concepts of Agile, which are to iteratively plan, build, test, and make changes based on feedback, until viable increments of the product are completed.

  • Scrum

Scrum is the most well-known Agile methodology. It’s best used when you’re delivering a product rather than a service. You’ll need to designate a product owner, a Scrum Master, and a development team.

Put simply, Scrum involves breaking down a project into “sprints.” These short iterations last between one and four weeks. At the end of each sprint, you have a version of what your final deliverable will look like that can be approved or revised.

  • XP

XP stands for Extreme Programming. It’s similar to Scrum in that it uses sprints and frequent releases that are planned in advance. But this methodology was designed for software development projects, so it’s centered around engineering principles.

The goal is to work in a collaborative manner within short cycles. Along the way, as with all Agile approaches, every member of the team remains and adapts to necessary changes.

  • SAFe

SAFe stands for Scaled Agile Framework. It’s system for implementing Agile, Lean and DevOps practices at scale.

This is another good choice when you’re leading a complex project, as SAFe can help you navigate various challenges, such as changes in the needs of customers, changes in market conditions, and digital disruption. Read more about how to choose the best project management methodology for your project.

  • Kanban

Kanban is another popular set of practices to help implement Agile. Related to Lean, is main goal is to limit work in progress. This goal carried out through the use of Kanban boards, an example being one that shows work in columns such as “To Do”, “In Progress”, and “Done”. This system also provides a visual representation what needs to be completed.

With Kanban, every team member knows what they need to do, what’s been completed, and what’s coming up. It also helps to easily recognize bottlenecks are.

  • Crystal

The Crystal family of methodologies are software development approaches that you select from based on priority and criticality of products and projects.

There is a great emphasis on the people working on a project and how they interact, rather than on the tools and processes that they’re using. Teams are allowed to figure out the best ways to optimize the way they operate, so they can more easily and quickly change when necessary.

Want to Learn More About Agile?

Although you might feel a bit overwhelmed at first when selecting an Agile development framework, if you have the right training, you can rest assured that you’ll make the right choice. That’s why RMC offers a wide range of courses in Agile Fundamentals and Hybrid Agile, including those that will prepare you for the PMI-ACP® certification. If you prefer to learn at your own pace, check out our latest Agile Fundamentals Guide to using an agile approach or our Agile eLearning courses.

Contact us today to learn more about how you can become an Agile pro!

Sources:

https://www.apm.org.uk/resources/find-a-resource/agile-project-management/

https://www.mendix.com/agile-framework/

https://www.workfront.com/project-management/methodologies/agile

https://www.cio.com/article/3434530/what-is-safe-the-scaled-agile-framework-explained.html

https://kissflow.com/project/agile/agile-project-management-methodology/

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Agile implementation – 9 essential steps

Woman at white board working on agile implementation

Let’s face it, change is hard.  Whether you’re a project manager or a CEO implementing major changes to your organization is difficult. There are usually two types of obstacles.  One is institutional. Organizations have a certain momentum.  Making changes requires you to slow or stop the business-as-usual mindset along with all the typical documentation and approval requirements that currently exist.  The other is human, getting people who are used to doing things the same old way to accept and use new processes.

Bringing Agile to Your Organization

As project leaders and team members, we are all trying to get to the same destination on our projects —successful outcomes and happy stakeholders. However, not all projects are the same. Different projects require different methods.

That’s why Agile is a necessary skill set to have in your toolbox to stay current and deliver results. Let’s begin by focusing on the human aspects of an agile implementation and gaining acceptance.

9 Essential Steps for Agile Implementation

1. Establish the Need

Gain consensus on why the change is needed.  Qualify and assess the organization.  Analyze and document the current problems and shortcomings.  Capture previous stakeholder complaints, issue logs, and post-Morten problems.  Keep it read, but if there is a burning platform from which we must move forward, document it fairly.  Determine the business benefits and describe where we are now.

2. Create a Vision

Describe a better state. Outline the goals and objectives we are aiming to create.  Unite everyone with a common goal of what success would look like.  Describe where we want to be.

3. Form a Change Coalition

Identify key stakeholders.  Get people involved on the initial project and the advisory and review boards.  Provide mechanisms for general input and information exchange.  Use websites, lunch and learns, etc.  Be civil, humble and nice.  Do not assume or give the impression that the change team has all the answers.  Ask people how we should get there.

4. Communicate the Vision

Provide a clear outline of what is going to happen. People generally need to hear things five times in five different ways to ensure it sticks.  Use different formats, analogies, and styles.  It is generally impossible to over-communicate a change initiative vision. Plan and promote the organizational changes.

5. Encourage Employee Participation

Make sure people are involved.  Schedule follow-up sessions and speak to people about their concerns. Ask for volunteer reviewers and give praise and thanks for reviews, especially if negative.  This is the opportunity to turn people around while the resistance is relatively low.  Work on forming good relationships.

6. Plan For and Create Short Term Wins

Identify the initial project.  Schedule some early, small victories to build momentum, demonstrate progress, and reassure sponsors.  People only trust for so long.  So, give them something to justify their continued support.

7. Provide Rewards and Incentives

Change on top of a regular job is a lot of extra work.  Reward contributions as much as organizational norms will allow.  If you can’t give bonuses, plan great food for lunch and learns.  Give good mementos and freebies or arrange for time off if teams work hard on initial projects.  People must see benefits in taking part, otherwise they will not bother.  Goodwill, loyalty, and corporate benefits do not cut it with everyone.

8. Consolidate Improvements

Make sure the successful changes get repeated.  Document the successes and spread the word.  Monitor and perform mid-project retrospectives.

9. Institutionalize New Approaches

Complete and review the initial project.  Measure and promote the business benefits and get the sponsors and users to promote the benefits.  Identify the next project and broader roll-out plan.  Make changes stick by institutionalizing them.  Make them part of the standards and culture and support other groups trying to repeat the process.

Learning More About Agile Implementation

Now you have the nine steps the rest should be easy, right.  Clearly that is not the case.  The above is an outline of the work that has to be done to integrate agile in a workplace.  The above describes the “what.”  The “how” is for further posts.

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7 Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Adopting Agile Approaches

Business man talking about adopting agile

Are you thinking about adopting an Agile approach? Or are you currently using Agile on your projects? Where ever you are on your Agile journey, it is important to know the seven pitfalls organizations make when adopting agile approaches.  This post, along with our post on Introducing Agile-Chance Resistance Strategies give you helpful information about adopting agile approaches.  We will also introduce the five Ws (Why, Who, What, When, and Where) of introducing agile. Continue reading 7 Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Adopting Agile Approaches

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An Agile Approach to Project Work

Two business people work on their agile approach on project at white board

The year 2020 taught us that the world of work can change in an instant. We have to adapt, modify, and re-imagine the way we work and communicate.

This is what an agile approach to project leadership is all about. But how does one go about managing a project this way? Don’t we have to plan in detail, execute according to plan, manage our baselines and risks? How do we deliver a project when there isn’t a detailed plan in place?

Agile Approach to Projects

  1. Guide to An Agile Approach
  2. Work with Agility
  3. Expand Your Agile Skill Set

Guide to An Agile Approach

Agile Fundamentals: A Comprehensive Guide to Using an Agile Approach answers these questions and more. Mike Griffiths, a thought leader in agile project management, delves into exactly how a project is managed using agile methodologies. There is still planning, just not at the same level of detail. There is still executing the project, but we hold retrospectives as we move through the project, and then make modifications. We still manage risk, but we work with success modes instead of failure modes.

Most importantly, we act as servant leaders. Relationships are the cornerstones of agile projects. As servant leaders we do not manage but rather guide, encourage, and support the team using emotional intelligence and the elements of our agile toolkit, such as a backlog or Kanban board.

Work with Agility

In Agile Fundamentals, Mike shows you the way to working with agility. And the journey can be a fun one: He shows you collaboration games such as Remember the Future, Prune the Product Tree, and Speedboat. He also explains estimating tools such as planning poker, user stories, product roadmaps, and T-shirt sizing.

Agile Fundamentals is divided into three sections to give you the best opportunity for using an agile approach successfully:

Part One: You’ll learn what it means to have an agile mindset. You’ll learn about agile principles and values, and about the different agile methodologies.

Part Two: Mike dives into what it means to be a servant leader; how to lead a development team to success and how to establish a shared vision.

Part Three: You’ll see how to run an agile project, from adaptive planning to estimating, to detecting and solving problems.

The world of work is changing. Leaders must change with it to create efficient teams, (sometimes distributed all over the world), and to produce deliverables that bring value to every stakeholder.

Expand Your Agile Skill Set

If you’re a project leader who wants to dive into working with an agile approach, then Agile Fundamentals is the book you’ve been waiting for.  This essential desk reference breaks down agile in a way that makes it easy to understand and practical to follow.  Agile Fundamentals is available in hard copy or in an online subscription format.  

RMC also offers a self-directed Agile Fundamentals eLearning Course that teaches agile project development, practices, tools, and techniques to immediately use agile methods on your projects.  If you are looking to introduce additional team members to Agile Fundamentals, contact us to learn more about our instructor-led classes.

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Agile Illustrated, A Visual Learner’s Guide to Agility

Programmer working on agile project

Agile Illustrated: A Visual Learner’s Guide serves as a solid guide for anyone who is interested in learning agile, as well as anyone who wants to dive deeper into agile principles.

Below, we cover what makes this book such a valuable asset to project managers interested in, or already working in, agile.

Who Is This Book For?

Agile Illustrated: A Visual Learner’s Guide is for anyone charged with leading a team of people. It is for Scrum masters, project managers, team leads, and group leads.

If your work involves coordinating the efforts of others, this book has been written for you. It explains a model of how to tackle complex projects and work effectively with people. Just as projects differ in size, type, and complexity, so does the agile model, driven by project characteristics.

For team leaders, project managers, development leads, and project practitioners who want to take their delivery skills to the next level, Agile Illustrated: A Visual Learner’s Guide can help. It provides a learning framework and integration points for using more than just agile approaches, so you can be successful in a wider range of project scenarios.

Organizations are often complex and contradictory in their application of standards, processes, and norms. This book takes what you already know from agile and extends that knowledge so it can be more robust, applicable, and adaptive to real-world environments. It explains how to scale agile techniques while minimizing process load, and it explains how to integrate agile approaches into traditional, non-agile environments. You’ll even discover how to use soft skills, such as influence, empathy, and leadership, to gain more acceptance and support when processes and techniques fall short.

Finally, this book shows why and how an integrated approach to mastering industry domain knowledge, traditional project management, leadership, and agile approaches delivers more than the sum of its parts. It describes a view one level up in terms of abstraction and usefulness.

This is not only a “how to do it” book, but also a “how to think about it” book. By providing evidence-based guidance from a broad range of professional disciplines, including lean, project management, economics, psychology, sociology, process management, and change management, it sheds light on a topic that many people find complex.

Perfect for Visual Thinkers!

Agile Illustrated: A Visual Learner’s Guide will appeal to visual thinkers who like to conceptualize the big picture before getting into the details. These people, who are sometimes called “right-brained,” after the portion of the brain responsible for processing images, would rather be shown how something works than told in detail how it works.

If you spend a long time getting the flow of your PowerPoint slides just right before you can focus on adding content and detail, then you are likely right-brained.

Interesting fact: Research by David Hyerle into visual thinking reports that 90% of the information entering the brain is visual. 40% of all nerve fibers connected to the brain are connected to the retina, and a full 20% of the entire cerebral cortex is dedicated to vision, so let’s use it!

Throughout Agile Illustrated: A Visual Learner’s Guide, you’ll be taught the stages of skills progression, and you’ll see how one step builds on the previous step. You’ll also access one-page views of how things relate and fit together. Like having a good map, understanding context and structures spatially can provide you with more confidence to explore new territory and also retreat to familiar ground when needed.

An Experience-Based Approach

You will find that Agile Illustrated: A Visual Learner’s Guide draws on a blend of commercial experience and scientific theory.

Some concepts are the synthesis of several academic research papers. However, where possible, preference is given towards approaches that we have seen work in several organizations.

Examining the origins of research claims often uncovers dated, self-referencing clusters of studies, frequently written by the same author. Or it becomes clear that studies employed paid university students who were motivated and behaved quite differently than commercial sector team members. Therefore, in addition to looking towards academic recommendations for guidance, it’s also wise to look at recent commercial project experiences to gain greater insight.

Diving into Continuous Digital and #NoProjects

So far, we have talked about delivering successful “projects,” but the notion of projects with a defined start, middle, and end is being challenged with recent Continuous Digital and #NoProjects concepts.

As software becomes more critical to competitive advantage, projects become unending because the software-driven products continue to live on and evolve. This is a good sign that shows a business values its products and services and wants to keep investing in them and developing them.

How does this relate to project management, though? Well, project management in many industries is evolving into ongoing product development and delivery. Organizations are arranging themselves around value streams that deliver business benefits.

The principles described in this book about improving our ability towards effective delivery of value apply equally in continuous digital delivery environments and the #NoProjects world.

In time, the organizational delivery construct may no longer be projects, and we will likely switch to more product teams and value streams. However, the tools and techniques that we use to engage and motivate people, and to develop new products, still apply.

So, as you read Agile Illustrated: A Visual Learner’s Guide, whenever you see the word “project,” think also of “products,” “initiatives,” and “value streams.” These are the future, but still rely on the cooperation of people towards a vision.

Why Should You Read This Book?

The world of work is changing. We see it in pockets right now, but a wave of change is coming. Projects are getting more complex, jobs are becoming less permanent, and people are more mobile. This trifecta will spread and accelerate in all industries. People who can see the trend and can navigate the oncoming tsunami will be in high demand and will lead the bulk of the organizational transformations that will happen.

This book describes the mindset and toolkit to rise and thrive in the new world of work. It shows you the knowledge domains that have to be understood, and how to work with others to succeed.

The future is collaborative but built upon skilled individuals. This book is a roadmap and workshop manual for building a smarter you, better positioned for the new realities of the future.

Overall, a Worthy Read!

Agile Illustrated: A Visual Learner’s Guide describes how we can determine the optimal mix of agile and other approaches worth using. It describes tools, such as ranking a project on attributes like size, organizational impact, uncertainty, internal support, criticality, and more, to suggest the recommended mix of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques.

This book also describes the ongoing need to focus on value delivery, pruning ceremonies when they no longer justify their time commitments. This is a dynamic process, not a static framework, much like dealing with the people on your project and in your organization.

Agile Illustrated: A Visual Learner’s Guide is available for purchase now and we highly recommend this book for all of the reasons discussed above. 

Want to learn even more? RMC offers agile courses and self-study materials for those just getting started with agile or those looking to operate more effectively. Contact us for more information or for help getting started!