Do you want to get the most out of your team but aren't sure which strategy to use? Here's why Agile project management is a viable solution.
In today’s dynamic business world, organizations are looking for flexible and reliable means to execute and deliver projects. Your organization needs an approach that has a lasting appeal, empowers employees and enhances collaboration and transparency.
Agile has proved to be an ideal approach in this age since it allows you to respond effectively to constant changes, alter priorities accordingly and in a timely fashion through of each stage of your project.
So, what makes Agile unique? Agile project management is an approach that’s focused on attaining tangible results right from the initiation stage. It focuses on what’s most important and valuable to the customer in a recurring fashion, thus helps you accommodate changes as requirements are defined. Being a methodology that fosters conversations and welcomes diverse ideas, Agile promotes continuous improvement organically.
1. Boosts Employees' Morale
When employees are empowered and enabled to take a sit at the table and to manage their work and commitment, they feel acknowledged and are engaged. This makes them want to give their best and also encourages creativity. A self-managing team is willing to learn new skills and they enjoy teaching each other.
Agile methodology minimizes external interference, thus making it easier to attain a set of well defined goals via short iterations. The Scrum Master, the development team, and the Product Owner work together throughout the project. This fosters the spirit of teamwork and cooperation required to effectively overcome challenges while keep planning and addressing scope creep and future work.
2. Improves Product Quality
Agile projects have multiple scrum teams headed by members from the same team. A scrum team can customize its structure and work environment to improve product quality. The team produces frequent builds and conducts reviews during iteration to identify and fix defects in the small units.
The team can also customize its structure and work environment to improve product quality.
Every team member understands their role in the scrum and ensures they give their best. They work in a collaborative environment, making it possible to focus on a common goal.
This helps the scrum fall into routine cycles of production, which makes it easier to predict the success of agile projects.
3. Promotes Transparency
In the Agile approach, everything is open and transparent. The customer is involved in all steps of the project and the Scrum team members track progress and completion daily and with every sprint through all stages of the project from initiation to delivery.
This level of transparency encourages a healthy working environment. This means that when things go wrong, the whole Scrum team will be willing to ‘stop the line’ and fix the problem. Transparency also gives a Scrum team member a sense of ownership of the project. This is because they actively participate in the success of the project.
Unlike the traditional project management approach where the project manager holds the reins of the project, in the Agile approach all team members play are engaged through all planning and execution activities together with the Scrum Master and the Product Owner.
4. Allows for Change
In traditional project management, the project manager is expected to complete the project within a timeline and budget defined on the outset. Every single step of the project is clearly planned and documented before the implementation of the project kicks off. This means ongoing feedback through the project execution is met with low appetite and flexibility to be addressed as to not to to affect the deadline of the project.
In contrast, Agile methodology focuses on delivery value and hence promotes customer involvement in every step of the project. Product Owners continuously obtain feedback from customers and other stakeholders in Sprint reviews and Product Backlog grooming and refinement ceremonies. By ensuring the Product Backlog is up-to-date and prioritized, this approach delivers the right valuable product features to the market faster.
5. Faster ROI
Agile development delivers product features at every sprint and therefore you can realize its benefits early. The traditional project methodology is characterized by long delivery cycles and benefits are realized only with the end of the development process and User Acceptance Test (UAT) months after initiation.
"Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software" - The Agile Manifesto
Fast product releases will give your company the ability to gauge the client’s feedback and implement any necessary changes in a timely fashion. A faster ROI makes it possible for the project to ensure users delight and secure funding.
6. Project's Success is More Predictable
Businesses calculate the value of projects based on their total cost and return on investment. A business whose cost outweighs the ROI is not worth pursuing. However, when the business has no way of establishing the ROI of a project and monitoring it closely via real concrete market feedback, then predicting the success of that project becomes extremely difficult.
Agile project management has artifacts and tools that make it possible to predict the success of a project. Using information from Scrum events and ceremonies, you can predict Sprint’s performance closely and course correct on time.
7. Scaling Agile
How best to utilize resources and employees is a factor that plays a significant role in the scalability of any organization. Some organizations struggle with having too many projects and not enough teams to handle the load.
How will you solve such a situation? It’s imperative to find ways to efficiently leverage existing teams to work smarter and meet the needs of the organization. Agile project management ensures the needed business agility that keeps project teams focused on the right, prioritized work that holds the most value while utilizing the required skill sets to the relevant efforts according to priority.
Business Agility positions your organization to “embracing complexity” versus “trying to control the uncontrollable”. It enables trust and customer-focus using radical transparency via shown results in short iterations and feedback obtained frequently. It is about enablement and setting people for success, so to unleash the potential of your organization.
8. Minimizes Risk of Failure
How does Agile approach reduce the probability of absolute project failure? It develops product features in short repeated iterations. When products are developed via these short sprints, it allows for a timely market and customers feedback. Thus, enables the development effort to stay on course and to deliver the most value and anticipated features faster.
Early success and faster time to market gives the project an opportunity to generate revenue and self-fund future projects. This is why you only need little up-front expense even for complex projects. If the project requirements are complex and likely to change, an Agile approach is better suited to handle such a project.
This is because the Agile approach is flexible, iterative and allows high tolerance for trial and error. Complex projects carry significant risk and it is advisable to go with a flexible approach in order to minimize that risk and to secure ROI and customers' satisfaction.
9. Agile Project Management Focuses on Users
Agile project management combines user experience with business-value criteria to come up with the most anticipated, valued product features faster. Each feature delivers value to both the customer and the organization.
Agile also emphasizes the need to deliver value to clients by encouraging all stakeholders to participate through the development process. By doing so, projects' execution is focused on delivering prioritized features that yield the most business value to their customers and organization.
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