HOW

AGILE
PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
HEPLS IN SUCCESSFUL
PROJECT DELIVERY:
WHITEPAPER

www.bacancytechnology.com
 TABLE OF CONTENT

1. Introduction 1

2. Agility Reduces Costs, Improves Scheduling and Productivity 2

Quick Market Entry 2
Build Valuable Products for Customers 2
Risk and Waste Reduction 3
Agile Creates Better Collaboration 3
Better Prepared for the Future 3

3. How the Agile Mindset Helps in Faster Product Delivery 4

4. Agile’s Key Ingredients: Time, Scope and People 5

5. Different Flavors of Agile: How Each Delivers Quality to Market 6

6. Scrum 7

7. Roles in an Agile Team & How They Help in Successful Project Delivery 8
The Scrum Master 8
Product Owners 9
Team Members 9
Managers 9

8. How Scaling Agile Helps in Successful Product Delivery 10

How Long-Term Vision Meets Short-Term Planning 10
Synchronization 11
Scaling Agile 11
Planning Product Releases 11

9. The Process of Building an Agile Business 13

10. The 3 Types of Agility that Agile Organizations Practice 14
Agility in Product Delivery 14
Agility in Portfolio Management 14
Business Agility 14

11. How to Get Started With Agile 15

12. Connect With Bacancy Technology Today 16

13. Sources 17

14. Glossary of Terms 18

01 INTRODUCTION

Introduction

Today’s world is an uncertain one and it is difficult to predict what will happen in the future. Such
unforeseen events and organizational changes can have a negative impact on project delivery.
Agile project management provides an approach that offers agility while retaining project con-
cepts, project delivery, and project management. With agile project management, the organiza-
tion gains the benefits of the agile approach without unnecessary risks.

The modern world is globalized, customer-focused, responsive and driven by technology. At the
center of it all is software. Software is the primary driver of innovation, growth, productivity, and
efficiency. How a company delivers software determines its competitive edge. Companies that
do not leverage the power of software risk their very existence. However, companies that invest
in software open up new opportunities for themselves.

www.bacancytechnology.com 1
02 AGILITY REDUCES COSTS, IMPROVES SCHEDULING
AND PRODUCTIVITY

Agility Reduces Costs, Improves Scheduling and Productivity

It is a proven fact that the best way to success is by using the agile approach to build and manage
software. According to McKinsey and Company, companies that use agile at scale accelerate their
innovation by as much as 80%. A study by Dr. David Rico concludes that agile is 29% better in man-
aging costs, 91% better at scheduling, 97% better at productivity, 50% better at quality, 400% better
at satisfaction and 470% better at ROI than their counterparts who use traditional software devel-
opment methods.

What defines agile methods is the ability to create and deploy software incrementally. This is bene-
ficial because customers get value quickly while keeping development and business needs
aligned. Agile methodology helps in minimizing waste in project management and ensuring that
products are delivered on schedule, collaborative cross-functional teams that self-organize, high
customer satisfaction through delivery in short and fast iterations, and opportunities for continu-
ous improvement through inspect-and-adapt sessions. Other benefits of agility include:

Quick Market Entry

With the massive adoption of smartphones, customers expect frequent product

updates and feature releases. Delivering products using agile is critical to the com-
pany beating its competition and receiving revenue faster.

Build Valuable Products for Customers

By delivering value in short iterations, agile ensures that customer feedback is inte-
grated into the development process. Consequently, a company can align software
development with business strategy to give customers what they want.

Agile methodologies embrace unit testing in each iteration, meaning that the resul-
tant code has fewer bugs and is of a higher quality than code developed using
traditional methods.

www.bacancytechnology.com 2
02 AGILITY REDUCES COSTS, IMPROVES SCHEDULING
AND PRODUCTIVITY

Risk and Waste Reduction

In the waterfall methodology of building software, the planning, design, and devel-
opment phases were long. Product delivery was infrequent and there was an
increased chance of building the wrong thing. Agile helps deliver products to cus-
tomers more frequently. Therefore, this ensures that customer feedback is inte-
grated into the subsequent builds. Companies using agile avoid expensive market
misses.

Agile Creates Better Collaboration

Since agile supports the creation of self-organizing cross-functional teams,

employees who are better engaged are a by-product of the process. In his study,
Coleman Parkes found that using agile practices increases employee productivity
by 22%.

Better Prepared for the Future

In one report, Accenture discovered that top-end companies are 6 times more
likely to use agile principles. According to another study by Computer Economics
titled “IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks”, 83% of businesses around the globe
plan to implement agile.

www.bacancytechnology.com 3
03 HOW THE AGILE MINDSET HELPS IN FASTER
PRODUCT DELIVERY

How the Agile Mindset Helps in Faster Product Delivery

Agile principles have existed for many decades. It was not until 2001 when they were written down
officially as the Agile Manifesto. These are the values that help in the management of software
development projects. For example, agile values individuals and interactions over tools and
processes. Agile values working software over comprehensive documentation. Also, agile values
customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Finally, agile values responding to change over
adhering to a plan.

However, agile was at one time considered a fad. It has matured into a respected development
methodology. In fact, agile is not just used in software development, but also in industries like con-
sulting, manufacturing and banking. Agile is valuable as it allows businesses to deliver products
that reflect their customers’ needs faster in the market. This is unlike the traditional waterfall
methodology that invested heavily in upfront planning and design. With agile, the company gets a
more engaged employee base, faster delivery and better quality than other software development
methodologies.

www.bacancytechnology.com 4
04 AGILE’S KEY INGREDIENTS: TIME, SCOPE
AND PEOPLE

TIME SCOPE PEOPLE

Agile’s Key Ingredients: Time, Scope and People

Every project, software or not, must exist in the constraints of time, scope and people. In the past,
projects have failed because of exploding costs, and missed schedules. Traditional project man-
agement techniques try to control budgets and resources by locking down the scope. On the other
hand, agile considers time and resources as fixed, but with a variable scope.

The reason why scope variability is important is that it allows the organization to adapt to change,
dependencies, risk, and feedback. This allows for the delivery of working software on time.

Risk management in agile methodology is achieved by having employees work on the features
with the highest value first. If the unexpected happens and the business runs out of money, they
know that they have delivered the features with the highest value. There are many agile methodol-
ogies, and new ones keep springing up.

www.bacancytechnology.com 5
05 DIFFERENT FLAVORS OF AGILE: HOW EACH
DELIVERS QUALITY TO MARKET

Different Flavors of Agile: How Each Delivers Quality to Market

One of the most popular agile approaches has been scrum. Not only is it simple, but can be applied
to many different jobs. The highly optimized production methods at Toyota popularized the lean
agile methodology. Lean focuses on waste elimination and flow improvement.

Another popular agile methodology is Kanban. Kanban originates from the lean methodology.
Kanban is quickly gaining popularity facilitates flow, removes waste and makes visible the work in
progress (WIP) status. eXtreme Programming (XP) is another agile methodology that allows for
the rapid incremental development of software. In recent times, other flavors of agile methodolo-
gies have popped up. Examples are set-based engineering, behavior-driven development, and
test-driven development.

www.bacancytechnology.com 6
06 SCRUM

DAILY SCRUM
MEETINGS

SPRINT
PRODUCT SPRINT POTENTIALLY SHIPPABLE
BACKLOG BACKLOG CYCLE PRODUCT INCREMENT

Scrum

Scrum comes from rugby. In software project management, scrum is a framework that allows for
cross-functional teams that are self-organizing to produce working software in a pre-determined
period known as a sprint. Sprints usually last between a week and a month, with most companies
preferring a two-week sprint. At the start of the sprint, team members plan the work that they’d like
to complete during the sprint. They also create a feature list known as a backlog.

The backlog of stories is then broken down into user stories. On each of the sprint days, the team
members have a fifteen-minute standup meeting. Here, each member shares what they are work-
ing on, and if anything is blocking them. After completing each story from ideation to production
code, the team presents the solution to the stakeholders. At the end of the sprint, there is a meet-
ing known as the retrospective in which team members review their performance and identify
areas to improve upon.

www.bacancytechnology.com 7
07 ROLES IN AN AGILE TEAM & HOW THEY HELP IN
SUCCESSFUL PROJECT DELIVERY

Roles in an Agile Team & How They Help in Successful Project Delivery

According to Robert Galen the ideal agile team should have seven members, with an allowance for
two more or fewer members. Besides, the study concludes that stable teams produce the best
results.

The Scrum Master

Scrum masters help teams to perform at their best. Scrum masters are the glue
that ties the relationship between the scrum team and the stakeholders. Another
important role played by scrum masters is the removal of obstacles for team prog-
ress. They attend the daily stand up meeting and identify the things that block
team members with the goal of unblocking them. Rather than being project man-
agers, scrum masters are servant leaders and instead of commanding the team,
they utilize collaboration to ensure that the team meets its goals.

www.bacancytechnology.com 8
07 ROLES IN AN AGILE TEAM & HOW THEY HELP IN
SUCCESSFUL PROJECT DELIVERY

Product Owners

Product owners are responsible for the product vision. They are the customer’s
representative in the team. They decide the work that will enter the backlog and its
priority. Product owners help the team understand how what they build has an
impact on the business.

Team Members

Team members ensure that the work planned for each sprint gets completed
through planning and execution. The team members may consist of testers, devel-
opers, engineering specialists and marketers among others. These cross-function-
al roles help in the delivery of the final product.

Managers

The team can have members with management roles such as engineering direc-
tors, IT directors, portfolio managers, and program managers among others.
These management roles are particularly important when scaling agile. Managers
regulate budgets and costs and ensure that there is trust and transparency within
the team. Managers may also coordinate several teams, help developers in their
career growth and manage vendor contracts.

www.bacancytechnology.com 9
08 HOW SCALING AGILE HELPS IN SUCCESSFUL
PRODUCT DELIVERY

How Scaling Agile Helps in Successful Product Delivery

One important thing to remember is that scaling agile is not achieved by team multiplication.
Rather, it is about adopting the agile mindset within the organization, company culture, and
processes. For maximum benefit, it is important to apply agile both vertically and horizontally.
Even though agile approaches appear simple on the surface, scaling is not as easy. To scale, it is
important to have impeccable coordination, and the commitment to visibility, continuous improve-
ment and collaboration.

When agile is applied at scale, the organization finally sees its benefits by being flexible and
healthy. It is at this point that the organization delivers four times the results it used to ship in the
same period. Companies that are already using agile and scrum at the team level have likely
enjoyed the synchronization it delivers. If they want to perform agile at scale, they need to answer
these questions:

Q.1 How does workflow to the team?

Q.2 How far ahead is planning done?
Q.3 Are people from outside IT part of the planning process?
Q.4 How does the company react to change that happens after plans are made?

How Long-Term Vision Meets Short-Term Planning

Scaling agile throughout an organization calls for long-range planning and vision.
This is then broken into releases that can be delivered in several iterations or
sprints. Agile teams should meet to make plans for their releases. Such meetings
should be in addition to the daily stand up meetings. Other members of the busi-
ness attend these meetings. Part of what is discussed is how to deliver customer
value with reference to the vision that the managers in attendance have for the
company.

www.bacancytechnology.com 10
08 HOW SCALING AGILE HELPS IN SUCCESSFUL
PRODUCT DELIVERY

Synchronization

If a company wants to have a fine-tuned agile engine, it is important to ensure that

there is synchronization. When multiple teams work together toward the release of
the same software, they are referred to as the delivery group. This requires each
team to use the same timeframe as that of the whole group and project through
synchronization.

Scaling Agile

There is no doubt that creating a synchronized agile team at scale is no mean task,
especially in a large company. Over the years, agile practitioners have come up
with best practices to scale agile and have codified them. Examples of such frame-
works include SAFe, Scaled Agile Framework, Disciplined Agile Development,
Nexus, and Large Scale Scrum. It doesn’t matter which framework the company
chooses but it will need a committee to steer the transformation. It will be the role
of this committee to ensure the smooth application of agile principles at scale
while removing any impediments along the way.

Planning Product Releases

Normally, sprint planning takes place at the start of each sprint or after every two
weeks. However, release planning is only done a few times a year, after every 10 to
12 weeks. The goal of release planning is to ensure that there is harmony between
the company’s vision and product roadmap. In an average enterprise planning ses-
sion, there may be a few hundred individuals in attendance. The release planning
lasts for two days. The objective is to adjust, identify risks and make final delivery
plans.

www.bacancytechnology.com 11
08 HOW SCALING AGILE HELPS IN SUCCESSFUL
PRODUCT DELIVERY

A release planning session has four ingredients:

1. Company executives define the context and vision for the work to be done. This
helps those who are doing the execution to appreciate the factors that drive the
business and why they are important.
2. The delivery team evaluates and prioritizes their backlog, adding stories into
the backlog based on the work they’d like to build.
3. Team leaders help to identify any blockages so that the teams are not bogged
down during the actual building.
4. Everyone in attendance states their commitment to work on future
commitments.

For companies that have in the past only held annual planning, release planning presents
a new way to approach planning. For one, the annual meetings are usually management
only events, leaving out the people who do the actual work. Nonetheless, when all the
people involved in the product’s delivery are a participant in the release planning, it is possi-
ble to apply agile at scale. It ensures that the business’s execution engine and business
strategy are properly aligned.

Some companies may feel overwhelmed by the idea of having everyone at the same place.
The employees may live in different continents and it will detract from their productivity for
the length of the event. However, the release planning event helps reduce or eliminate the
risk of the company losing its vision, or delivering products that have little to no business
value for itself and its clients.

www.bacancytechnology.com 12
09 THE PROCESS OF BUILDING AN AGILE BUSINESS

The Process of Building an Agile Business

In software development, change is the only constant. Businesses that do not adapt to change will
surely die. The most successful companies are those that sense and react to market changes and
new opportunities. It is vital to plan the business system for adaptability, speed, and opportunity.
Building an agile business is all about tearing down walls between different departments and
ensuring that everyone, be they from marketing, sales, development or operations are engaged so
that the company can move in the right direction.

www.bacancytechnology.com 13
10 THE 3 TYPES OF AGILITY THAT
AGILE ORGANIZATIONS PRACTICE

The 3 Types of Agility that Agile Organizations Practice

Agility in Product Delivery

At the foundation of an agile company are high-performance agile teams. Their

main characteristic is speed and performance. Companies that move at speed
realize revenue sooner by reacting to the customer’s voice. Another benefit of agile
teams is their ability to build the right products through quality and predictability.

Agility in Portfolio Management

The benefit of applying agile practices to portfolio management is that they help in
the implementation of strategic vision, making informed decisions and optimizing
the allocation of the available resources. Organizations benefit a lot from delivery
agility by freeing up resources that can help in further innovation and growth.
These resources help in creating opportunities that focus on high-value initiatives.
Most important, the business reduces risky investments and keeps the business
focused on the highest priorities.

Business Agility

If a business wants to have the greatest agility, it should organize teams and
resources based on value delivery. However, this does not mean reorganizing the
business, but rather breaking down the walls that separate different departments
to create teams that are focused on value. Employees should be organized with
customer value in mind so that they are highly responsive to change. This is how
to become a responsive company and better pursue innovative ideas. By deliber-
ately investing in growth and innovation, it is possible to create change within the
organization and the industry. This is the best way to become a disruptor and not
disrupted.

www.bacancytechnology.com 14
11 HOW TO GET STARTED WITH AGILE

Deploy Test

Review Develop
AGILE

Plan Design Launch

How to Get Started With Agile

A company should implement agile if the following symptoms manifest: dangerous risks, failure
to meet schedules, blockages, many unassigned tasks, low morale among employees, quality and
technical debt issues, lack of commitment, customer dissatisfaction, frequent pivots, and unreal-
istic plans. All these symptoms should indicate that it is time to make a change and implement
agile in the business. As Forester Research put it, succeeding in the digital age requires a redefini-
tion of value delivery to clients and how agile principles help to realign employees, technology, and
processes for agility.

www.bacancytechnology.com 15
12 CONNECT WITH BACANCY TECHNOLOGY TODAY

Connect With Bacancy Technology Today

Bacancy Technology creates software that accelerates your company’s transformation and
enables it to seize the opportunities. At the heart of every business, there is software. Software is
used in planning and development.

Bacancy is committed to helping companies build better systems govern the way we live, commu-
nicate and transact both privately and commercially. To learn more about Bacancy and connect
with us, please get in touch today.

www.bacancytechnology.com 16
12 SOURCES

McKinsey & Company, “An operating model for company-wide agile development,”
1 May 2016,
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mcin-
sey/our-insights/an-operating-model-for-company-wide-agile-development

Dr. David F. Rico, PMP, CSM, Notre Dame of Maryland, “What is the ROI of Agile vs.
2 Traditional Methods?” 2008,
http://www.davidfrico.com/rico08b.pdf

Coleman Parkes research commissioned by CA Technologies, “Accelerating Velocity

3 and Customer Value with Agile and DevOps,” Jan 2017,
https://www.ca.com/content/dam/ca/us/files/msf-hub-assets/re-
search-assets/accelerating-velocity-and-customer-value-with-agile-and-devops-resea
rch-paper.pdf

Accenture, “High IT Performers: Defined by Digital and Driving Growth,” 2013,

4
https://www.accenture.com/in-en/~/media/Accenture/Conver-
sion-Assets/DotCom/Documents/Global/PDF/Technology_4/Accenture-HPIT-Resear
ch-Report-Defined-by-Digital.pdf

Computer Economics, “IT Spending and Staffing Benchmarks 2018/2019--IT Budget

5 and Cost Key Metrics by Industry and Organization Size”, 2018,
https://www.computereconomics.com/page.cfm?name=it%20spend-
ing%20and%20staffing%20study

Mike Beedle, Arie van Bennekum, et al., “The Agile Manifesto,” 2001,
6
https://agilemanifesto.org/

www.bacancytechnology.com 17
13 GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Agile: the name coined for the wider set of ideas that Scrum falls within; the Agile values
andprinciples are captured in the Agile Manifesto.

Daily Scrum: A fifteen-minute daily team meeting to share progress, report impediments
and make commitments.

Impediment: anything that prevents the team from meeting their potential (e.g. chairs are
uncomfortable). If organizational, it is the Scrum Master's responsibility to eliminate it. If it
is internal to the team, then they themselves should do away with it.

Product: Backlog a prioritized list of stories that are waiting to be worked on.

Product Owner: A person who holds the vision for the product and is responsible for main-
taining, prioritizing and updating the product backlog.

Release: The transition of an increment of potentially shippable product from the develop-
ment team into routine use by customers.

Retrospective: a session where the Team and Scrum Master reflect on the process and
make commitments to improve.

ScrumMaster Role: The ScrumMaster is a facilitator for the team and product owner.

Sprint Backlog: Defines the work for a sprint, represented by the set of tasks that must be
completed to realize the sprint's goals, and selected set of product backlog items.

www.bacancytechnology.com 18
13 GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Sprint Planning: a meeting between the Team and the Product Owner to plan the sprint and
arrive at an agreement on the commitment.

Team: A team (or "Scrum development team") is optimally comprised of seven plus or
minus two people and responsible for committing to work, delivering and driving the
product forward from a tactical perspective.

XP Practices: the set of development practices, including pair-programming, test-first, or

test-driven development (TDD) and continuous refactoring, which are drawn from the XP
methodology.

www.bacancytechnology.com 19
 www.bacancytechnology.com

Copyright © 2019 Bacancy Tehnoclogy All rights reserved.