Agile For Project Managers

Agile project management is a proven approach for designing and delivering software with improved value to customers. Agility is all about self-directed teams, feedback, light documentation, and working software with shorter development cycles.The role of the project manager with agile differs significantly from traditional project management in th

"With Kanban, every minute you spend on a software project can add value for customers. One book can help you achieve this goal: Agile Project Management with Kanban. Author Eric Brechner pioneered Kanban within the Xbox engineering team at Microsoft. Now he shows you exactly how to make it work for your team. Think of this book as {28}Kanban in a box.

The rules and practices for Scrum—a simple process for managing complex projects—are few, straightforward, and easy to learn. But Scrum’s simplicity itself—its lack of prescription—can be disarming, and new practitioners often find themselves reverting to old project management habits and tools and yielding lesser results. In this illuminating series of case studies, Scrum co-creator and evangelist Ken Schwaber identifies the real-world lessons—the successes and failures—culled from his years of experience coaching companies in agile project management. Through them, you’ll understand how to use Scrum to solve complex problems and drive better results—delivering more valuable software faster. Gain the foundation in Scrum theory—and practice—you need to: Rein in even the most complex, unwieldy projects Effectively manage unknown or changing product requirements Simplify the chain of command with self-managing development teams Receive clearer specifications—and feedback—from customers Greatly reduce project planning time and required tools Build—and release—products in 30-day cycles so clients get deliverables earlier Avoid missteps by regularly inspecting, reporting on, and fine-tuning projects Support multiple teams working on a large-scale project from many geographic locations Maximize return on investment!

Best practices for managing projects in agile environments—now updated with new techniques for larger projects Today, the pace of project management moves faster. Project management needs to become more flexible and far more responsive to customers. Using Agile Project Management (APM), project managers can achieve all these goals without compromising value, quality, or business discipline. In Agile Project Management, Second Edition, renowned agile pioneer Jim Highsmith thoroughly updates his classic guide to APM, extending and refining it to support even the largest projects and organizations. Writing for project leaders, managers, and executives at all levels, Highsmith integrates the best project management, product management, and software development practices into an overall framework designed to support unprecedented speed and mobility. The many topics added in this new edition include incorporating agile values, scaling agile projects, release planning, portfolio governance, and enhancing organizational agility. Project and business leaders will especially appreciate Highsmith’s new coverage of promoting agility through performance measurements based on value, quality, and constraints. This edition’s coverage includes: Understanding the agile revolution’s impact on product development Recognizing when agile methods will work in project management, and when they won’t Setting realistic business objectives for Agile Project Management Promoting agile values and principles across the organization Utilizing a proven Agile Enterprise Framework that encompasses governance, project and iteration management, and technical practices Optimizing all five stages of the agile project: Envision, Speculate, Explore, Adapt, and Close Organizational and product-related processes for scaling agile to the largest projects and teams Agile project governance solutions for executives and management The “Agile Triangle”: measuring performance in ways that encourage agility instead of discouraging it The changing role of the agile project leader

“…a well written and content rich book. From a teacher's perspective, using this book in an advanced project management seminar challenges students to understand the application of these concepts.” —Alexander Walton, PMP, IT consultant to the University of California at Berkeley Widely acclaimed as one of the top agile books in its first edition, Project Management the Agile Way has now been updated and redesigned by popular demand. This second edition is in a modular format to facilitate training and advanced course instruction, and provides new coverage of agile, such as hybrid agile methods, the latest public sector practices, and a chapter dedicated to transitioning to agile. It discusses the “grand bargain” between project management and business; the shift in dominance from plans to product and from input to output; and introduces new concepts such as return on benefit. Experienced practitioners and students that want to learn how to make agile work effectively in the enterprise should read this book. Individuals preparing for the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)®examination, and training providers developing courses, will find this second edition quite helpful.

Learn why agile techniques work better than historical approaches, and use them to rev up your software development with a faster, more flexible approach.

Making Sense of Agile Project Management Business & Economics/Project Management The essential primer to successfully implementing agile project management into an overall business strategy For a project to be truly successful, its management strategy must be flexible enough to adapt to dynamic and rapidly evolving business needs. Making Sense of Agile Project Management helps project managers think outside the box by presenting a deep exploration of agile principles, methodologies, and practices. Straying from traditional bureaucratic procedures that are rigidly defined, this book espouses a heavy reliance on the training and skill of collaborative, cross-functional teams to adapt the methodology to the problem that they are attempting to solve—rather than force-fitting a project to a particular methodology. Making Sense of Agile Project Management: Focuses on how agile project management fits with other more traditional project management models to provide a more effective strategy Includes many cases taken from real-world companies illustrating good and bad agile implementation Provides coverage that is balanced and objective with discussion of both agile and non-agile methodologies Making Sense of Agile Project Management employs a straightforward approach that enables project managers to grasp concepts quickly and develop adaptable management tools for creating a vibrant and fluid business environment. By utilizing the principles laid out in this book, business managers and leaders will strengthen their ability to meet the risks and complexities of any individual project—and better understand how to blend the appropriate balance of control and agility into an overall business strategy.

Streamline project workflow with expert agile implementation The Project Management Profession is beginning to go through rapid and profound transformation due to the widespread adoption of agile methodologies. Those changes are likely to dramatically change the role of project managers in many environments as we have known them and raise the bar for the entire project management profession; however, we are in the early stages of that transformation and there is a lot of confusion about the impact it has on project managers: There are many stereotypes and misconceptions that exist about both Agile and traditional plan-driven project management, Agile and traditional project management principles and practices are treated as separate and independent domains of knowledge with little or no integration between the two and sometimes seen as in conflict with each other Agile and "Waterfall" are thought of as two binary, mutually-exclusive choices and companies sometimes try to force-fit their business and projects to one of those extremes when the right solution is to fit the approach to the project It’s no wonder that many Project Managers might be confused by all of this! This book will help project managers unravel a lot of the confusion that exists; develop a totally new perspective to see Agile and traditional plan-driven project management principles and practices in a new light as complementary to each other rather than competitive; and learn to develop an adaptive approach to blend those principles and practices together in the right proportions to fit any situation. There are many books on Agile and many books on traditional project management but what’s very unique about this book is that it takes an objective approach to help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of both of those areas to see how they can work synergistically to improve project outcomes in any project. The book includes discussion topics, real world case studies, and sample enterprise-level agile frameworks that facilitate hands-on learning as well as an in-depth discussion of the principles behind both Agile and traditional plan-driven project management practices to provide a more thorough level of understanding.

Flex your project management muscle Agile project management is a fast and flexible approach to managing all projects, not just software development. By learning the principles and techniques in this book, you'll be able to create a product roadmap, schedule projects, and prepare for product launches with the ease of Agile software developers. You'll discover how to manage scope, time, and cost, as well as team dynamics, quality, and risk of every project. As mobile and web technologies continue to evolve rapidly, there is added pressure to develop and implement software projects in weeks instead of months—and Agile Project Management For Dummies can help you do just that. Providing a simple, step-by-step guide to Agile project management approaches, tools, and techniques, it shows product and project managers how to complete and implement projects more quickly than ever. Complete projects in weeks instead of months Reduce risk and leverage core benefits for projects Turn Agile theory into practice for all industries Effectively create an Agile environment Get ready to grasp and apply Agile principles for faster, more accurate development.

Management and enables them to deal with the demands and complexities of modern, agile systems/software/hardware development teams. The book examines the project/program manager beyond the concepts of leadership and aims to connect to employees' sense of identity. The text examines human psychological concepts such as “locus of control,” which will help the manager understand their team members’ view and how best to manage their “world” contributions. The authors cover new management tools and philosophies for agile systems/software/hardware development teams, with a specific focus on how this relates to engineering and computer science. This book also includes practical case studies. Discusses management skills needed as they relate to the advances in software development practices Examines how to manage an agile development team that includes teams across geographically, ethnically, and culturally diverse backgrounds Embraces all of the aspects of modern management and leadership