An Experience Worth It! I have started my journey of agile project management two years ago. Initially, I was hesitant whether I am going on the right track. As soon as I started working on it, I realized its diverse potential. Today, it has become a crucial part of my projects. Using dynamic agile practices in routine projects have given me excellent outcomes. To begin with, let’s forget the term agile project management for some time and focus on the term ‘Agile’. Agile is referred to as efficient and maximum output in a limited time without wastage of resources.

When considering agile in the project management context, it comes with certain strategies to help complete the projects in the best way without compromising on the quality. Agile project management allows consistent improvement, enhanced flexibility, evident actions and better outcomes of your projects. Agile is an incremental set of undertakings of management. It allows many teams to evolve and entirely focus on the delivery of business value. The practices of agile project management from a scrum to Kanban and XP, follow a consistent approach based on progressive improvement, boost team productivity and deliver high-quality products by the end of the project. Let’s see what are the best reasons why you should consider opting for an agile project management approach.

Top-rated Quality Oriented Product

In agile management, due to short sprints and product releases testing plays a paramount role. As there is no independent team or phase for the Quality check, the inbuild frequent checkups within a sprint ensure the product is operating optimally during the development phase. This allows the project manager and team to make necessary modifications and keeping a tap on the concerns regarding the project. Since we work on very little details that truly make a difference, as a project manager agile techniques help me experiment with the product and have complete control over it. While handling complicated projects, certain elements come with some ambiguity and subsequently the flexibility in the agile approach helps me create minimal viable products that can, in turn, give expected outcomes. Another very important factor which counts towards a high product quality is not by understanding the requirements clearly but also how and when these will be released.

Ability to Course Correct

When it comes to traditional project management, a firm strategy is commonly followed. You carry out the project relevant procedures, a strict agenda that leaves almost no room for any corrections and modifications. On the other hand, agile project management methodologies such as Scrum, Gantt, Kanban, etc. let you improve the mistakes with the flow of the project. While following agile, you will be able to make changes along the way. Be cautious or else you may go wrong at times.

Typically with Agile, you come up with the finest way of doing something and experiment with the strategy for a while. If you find it going on the right track, you are good to go. On the contrary, if there are loopholes from the beginning of the project you may want to make certain modifications for improvement. At the end of the day, you deliver the results with experimentation and corrections throughout the project journey.

Pro Tip: My foremost approach is to keep the client involved. Regardless of working remotely, I make sure to have at least 15 minutes meeting with the client. The consultation primarily involves updating on the current progress and giving an overview of the very next step.

Improved Return on Investment

Product features are delivered at different levels and their benefits are deliberated at length. Agile teams create a right order of preferring features and distribute resources accordingly. Just after a few reiterations, you will get the end product that can be launched in no time with superior features and performance.

This makes it significantly easier to design the initial moves on the market and soon seeing returns from the product outcomes. Return on Investment tends to be superior in comparison to traditional project management systems. On top of that, there are significantly lesser chances to go wrong. Agile project management comes with several practices, tools, and relics to enhance predictability.

• Keep the equivalent sprint length and development team distribution throughout the project allows the team to predict the accurate cost for every sprint.
• With carefully measuring team speed, your project team can smartly predict timelines and finances for a product launch.
• The project team forecast performance for independent sprints with important information from everyday scrum conferences to task boards and sprint charts.

Pro Tip: As I keep two-weeks sprints, our clients have a comprehensive overview of the current working. This transparency is important considering the client’s satisfaction.

Communication and Collaboration Is Improved

Agile project management comes with a single source of information to the entire team instead of multiple channels that may result in confusion. Considering this fact, the agile framework has become a fundamental source to brainstorm, deliberate, communicate and comprehend wide-ranging processes. Subsequently, a common standard is set for everyone.

Likewise, sharing all documentations through a central channel, feedback on files, checking out different versions of a file, and direct communication allows streamlined procedures that ultimately result in enhanced productivity of the project team. Undeniably, it’s a blessing especially for remote teams as they will be able to immediately collaborate on documents and participate in discussions. It doesn’t leave any loopholes and ensure not a single information is missed. You don’t have to fall into the web of numerous email threads to communicate on diverse projects.

Pro Tip: Communication and collaboration are particularly important when the products are being launched and different building blocks are ready to give the end-product.

Reduced Risk

This is another important reason why you would want to adopt an agile project management approach. Agile strategies almost eliminate all the possibilities of absolute project failure by focusing on the iterative delivery process. A product backlog helps you keeping a focus on the final game plan and it begins with the very first sprint and ensures no project fails by continuously revisiting them with the product owner. While developing in sprints, it allows a short duration between initial project investment and the first delivery, therefore you will be better able to know whether the project is right on tracking or it is more likely to fail. The agile approach offers sufficient freedom when new changes are required to be executed. This is particularly executed at a very little cost considering the intensity of new increments being produced.

The strategy helps in reworking on the client’s requirements and preferences through the development phase. Agile typically uses customers’ stories with corporate-focused acceptance standards to effectively define product features. By emphasizing the requirements of real customers, the features incrementally offer value. Also, it gives you the best prospects to beta test software after every modification. Eventually, you will gain valuable feedback quite early in the project and can easily avail the opportunity to make changes when required.

Pro Tip: The COVID-19 outbreak is leaving millions of people around the world working from home. The projects I work on has a detailed annual plan. The agile theory gives me the flexibility to adopt measures against the risks beforehand. It allows the team to adapt to the new situation without compromising on the quality of work and overall effectiveness. You may call it acceptance to change.

Adaptability

Although project managers don’t exactly know whether their predictions will come true, however, the comprehensive framework at every step allows the team to adapt to changes if needed for the success of a project. The key feature of agile project management is to make changes and assists in embracing agile entirely in work procedures. The efficient project management teams are able to meet the customers without investing a lot. The goal is not only to satisfy the customers but ensure the project teams become more quality-oriented and get the best outcomes from their skills.

Bottom Line

In today’s fast-evolving world, businesses look for flexible strategies to deliver projects and prefer becoming more agile. For organizations following the traditional project management to deliver projects and programs, considering the agile approach might be somewhat challenging. A comprehensive agile management strategy requires scrum and agile training that helps professionals to evolve and result in business value. One cannot deny the fact that agile project management comes with several benefits that traditional approaches may not be able to provide. If you have read this far, it’s the right time to learn more about agile project management and Get Pro!