Agile ProjectManagement

FOR

DUMME&*

by Mark C. Layton

WILEY

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Table of Contents»#•••»••••«•«•••••••••••••••••••»••••••••••••••••

Introduction /

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 1

Conventions Used in This Book 2

How This Book Is Organized 3

Part I: Understanding Agile 3

Part II: Being Agile 3

Part III: Working in Agile 3

Part IV: Managing in Agile 3

Part V: Ensuring Agile Success 4

Part VI: The Part of Tens 4

Icons Used in This Book 4

Where to Go from Here 5

Part 1: Understanding Agile 7

Chapter V. Modernizing Project Management 9

Project Management Needed Makeover 9

The origins of modern project management 10

The problem with the status quo 11

Introducing Agile Project Management 13

How agile projects work 15

Why agile projects work better 17

Chapter 2: The Agile Manifesto and Principles 19

Understanding the Agile Manifesto 19

Outlining the Four Values of the Agile Manifesto 21

Value 1: Individuals and interactions over processes

and tools 21

Value 2: Working software over comprehensivedocumentation 23

Value 3: Customer collaboration over contract negotiation 25

Value 4: Responding to change over following a plan 26

Agile Project Management For Dummies

Defining the 12 Agile Principles 27

Agile principles of customer satisfaction 28

Agile principles of quality 31

Agile principles of teamwork 32

Agile principles of project management 34

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 39

The Agile Litmus Test 41

Chapter 3: Why Agile Works Better 43

Evaluating Agile Benefits 43

How Agile Approaches Beat Historical Approaches 47

Greater flexibility and stability 48

Reduced nonproductive tasks 51

Higher quality, delivered faster 53

Improved team performance 53

Tighter project control 55

Faster and less costly failure 55

Why People Like Agile 56

Executives 56

Product development and customers 57

Management 58

Development teams 59

Part U: Beinq Aqite 61

Chapter 4: Agile Frameworks 63

Diving Under the Umbrella of Agile Approaches 63

Reviewing the Big Three: Lean, Extreme Programming, and Scrum 67

An overview of lean 67

An overview of extreme programming 69

An overview of scrum 70

Putting It All Together 74

Chapter 5: Putting Agile into Action: The Environment 77

Creating the Physical Environment 78

Collocating the team 78

Setting up a dedicated area 79

Removing distractions 80

Going mobile 81

Table of Contents

Low-Tech Communicating 82

High-Tech Communicating 84

Choosing Tools 85

The purpose of the tool 85

Organizational and compatibility constraints 86

Chapter 6: Putting Agile into Action: The Behaviors 87

Establishing Agile Roles 87

Development team 89

Product owner 90

Scrum master 92

Stakeholders 94

Agile mentor 95

Establishing New Values 95

Commitment 96

Focus 97

Openness 98

Respect 98

Courage 99

Changing Team Philosophy 100

Cross-functionality 100

Self-organization 102

Self-management 103

Size-limited teams 104

Mature behavior 105

Part 111: Working in Agile 107

Chapter 7: Defining the Product Vision and Product Roadmap 109

Planning in Agile 110

Planning as necessary 112

Inspect and adapt 113

Defining the Product Vision 113

Step 1: Developing the product objective 114

Step 2: Creating a draft vision statement 115

Step 3: Validating and revising the vision statement 117

Step 4: Finalizing the vision statement 118

Creating a Product Roadmap 118

Step 1: Identifying product requirements 119

Step 2: Arranging product features 121

Step 3: Estimating and ordering the product's features 123

Step 4: Determining high-level time frames 126

Saving your work 126

K Agile Project Management For Dummies

Chapter 8: Planning Releases and Sprints 127

Refining Requirements and Estimates 127

What is a user story? 128

Steps to create a user story 129

Breaking down requirements 133

Estimation poker 134

Affinity estimating 137

Release Planning 138

Completing the product backlog 139

Creating the release plan 141

Sprint Planning 142

The sprint backlog 143

The sprint planning meeting 144

Chapter 9: Working Through the Day 151

Planning the Day: The Daily Scrum 151

Tracking Progress 154

The sprint backlog 154

The task board 158

Agile Roles Within the Sprint 159

Creating Shippable Functionality 161

Elaborating 162

Developing 162

Verifying 163

Identifying roadblocks 164

The End of the Day 167

Chapter 10: Showcasing Work and Incorporating Feedback 169

The Sprint Review 169

Preparing to demonstrate 170The sprint review meeting 171

Collecting feedback in the sprint review meeting 173

The Sprint Retrospective 174

Planning for retrospectives 175The retrospective meeting 175

Inspecting and adapting 177

Chapter 11: Preparing for Release 179

Preparing the Product for Deployment: The Release Sprint 179

Preparing the Organization for Product Deployment 182

Preparing the Marketplace for Product Deployment 183

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Part W: Managing in Agile ...185

Chapter 12: Managing Scope and Procurement 187

What's Different About Scope in Agile 187

How to Manage Scope in Agile 190

Understanding scope throughout the project 190

Introducing scope changes 192

Managing scope changes 193

Using agile artifacts for scope management 195

What's Different About Procurement in Agile 195

How to Manage Procurement in Agile 197

Determining need and selecting a vendor 198

Contracts and cost approaches for services 199

Organizational considerations for procurement 202

Working with a vendor 204

Closing a contract 205

Chapter 13: Managing Time and Cost 207

What's Different About Time in Agile 207

How to Manage Time in Agile 209

Introducing velocity 209

Monitoring and adjusting velocity 210

Managing scope changes from a time perspective 215

Managing time by using multiple teams 216

Using agile artifacts for time management 219

What's Different About Cost in Agile 220

How to Manage Cost in Agile 221

Creating an initial budget 222

Creating a self-funding project 223

Using velocity to determine long-range costs 224

Using agile artifacts for cost management 226

Chapter 14: Managing Team Dynamics and Communication 227

What's Different About Team Dynamics in Agile 227

How to Manage Team Dynamics in Agile 228

Becoming self-managing and self-organizing 229

Supporting the team: The servant-leader 234

Working with a dedicated team 235

Working with a cross-functional team 237

Establishing an agile environment 238

Limiting development team size 240

Managing projects with dislocated teams 241

What's Different About Communication in Agile 243

How to Manage Communication in Agile 245

Understanding agile communication methods 245

Status and progress reporting 248

Agile Project Management For Dummies

Chapter 15: Managing Quality and Risk 251

What's Different About Quality in Agile 251

How to Manage Quality in Agile 254

Quality and the sprint 254

Proactive quality 256

Quality through regular inspecting and adapting 261

Automated testing 262

What's Different About Risk in Agile 264

How to Manage Risk in Agile 266

Reducing risk inherently 266

Identifying, prioritizing, and responding to risks 271

Part V: Ensuring Agile Success 275

Chapter 16: Building a Foundation 277

Commitment of the Organization and of Individuals 277

Organizational commitment 278

Individual commitment 279

How to get commitment 279

Will it be possible to make the transition? 280

What is the best timing for moving to agile? 281

Choosing the Right Project Team Members 282

The development team 282

The scrum master 283

The product owner 283

The agile champion 284

The agile mentor 284

The project stakeholders 285

Creating an Environment That Works for Agile 286

Support Agile Initially and Over Time 288

Chapter 17: Being a Change Agent 289

Making Agile Work in Your Organization 289

Step 1: Conduct an implementation strategy 289

Step 2: Establish a transformation team 290

Step 3: Build awareness and excitement 290

Step 4: Identify a pilot project 291

Step 5: Identify success metrics 293

Step 6: Train sufficiently 294

Step 7: Develop a product strategy 295

Step 8: Develop the product roadmap, the product backlog,and estimates 295

Step 9: Running your first sprint 295

Step 10: Make mistakes, gather feedback, and improve 297

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Step 11: Mature 297

Step 12: Scale virally 299

Avoiding Pitfalls 299

Questions to Prevent Problems 303

Part Vh The Part of Tens 307

Chapter 18: Ten Key Benefits of Agile Project Management 309

Better Product Quality 309

Higher Customer Satisfaction 310

Higher Team Morale 310

Increased Collaboration and Ownership 311

Customized Team Structures 312

More Relevant Metrics 313

Improved Performance Visibility 314

Increased Project Control 314

Improved Project Predictability 315

Reduced Risk 315

Chapter 19: Ten Key Metrics for Agile Project Management 317

Sprint Goal Success Rates 317

Defects 318

Total Project Duration 319

Time to Market 319

Total Project Cost 320

Return on Investment 320 \New Requests Within ROI Budgets 324

Capital Redeployment 324

Satisfaction Surveys 325

Team Member Turnover 326

Chapter 20: Ten Key Resources for Agile Project Management —327

Agile Project Management For Dummies Online Cheat Sheet 327

The Agile Alliance 328

The Scrum Alliance 328

The Project Management Institute Agile Community 328

Agile Leadership Network 329

Scrum Development Yahoo! Group 329

InfoQ 329

Lean Essays 330

What Is Extreme Programming? 330

Platinum Edge 330

Index 331