Master of Project Planning and Management

COURSE WORK
➢ Course Title: Project Cycle and Stakeholder Management

➢ Course Code: PPM 8112

➢ Module: Agile Project Management Approach

➢ Year 1: Semester 2

➢ Assignment: two

➢ Lecturer: Dr Muronga K Benard

Submitted by:
1. Fihiima Mohamed Hassan ID: MBA/01/1655/2020/HG

2. Hoodo Abdilahi Mohamed ID: MBA/01/1591/2020/HG

3. Nasriin Abdirahman Mohamoud ID: MBA/01/1580/2020/HG

4. Idiris Ali Mohamoud ID: MBA/01/1589/2020/HG

5. Sakariye Osman Rabile ID: MBA/01/1675/2020/HG

June, 2021
Introduction
Agile is an iterative approach to a project management and software development that uses
short development cycles called “sprints” to focus on continuous improvement in the
development of a product or service.
Agile Project Management (APM): is an iterative approach to project management that
focuses on breaking down large projects into more manageable tasks, which are completed
in short iterations throughout the project life cycle. Teams that adopt the Agile
methodology are able to complete work faster, adapt to changing project requirements, and
optimize their workflow.it is an iterative approach to planning and guiding project
processes that breaks it down into smaller cycles called sprints or iterations. Which are
completed in work sessions that run from the initial design phase, to testing and quality
assurance.

Features of Agile Project Management Approach

➢ Agile development releases and fixed-length iterations

Agile software development methods have two main units of delivery: releases and
iterations. A release consists of several iterations, each of which is like a micro-project
of its own. Features, defects, enhancement requests, and other work items are organized,
estimated, and prioritized, then assigned to a release. Within a release, these work items
are then assigned by priority to iterations.
➢ Small, cross-functional teams
Smaller agile development teams have been proven to be much more productive than
larger teams, with the ideal ranging from five to ten people. If you have to scale a project
up to more people, make every effort to keep individual teams as small as possible and
coordinate efforts across the teams. Scrum-based organizations of up to 800 have
successfully employed a "scrum of scrums" approach to project planning and
coordination.
➢ Agile development delivers working, tested software
Delivering working, tested features is an agile development team's primary measure of
progress. Working features serve as the basis for enabling and improving team
collaboration, customer feedback, and overall project visibility. They provide the
evidence that both the system and the project are on track.
➢ Emergent feature discovery
Agile development projects quickly prioritize and estimate features, and then refine details
when necessary. Features for an iteration are described in more detail by the customers,
testers, and developers working together.
➢ Relative estimation
Many agile development teams use the practice of relative estimation for features to
accelerate planning and remove unnecessary complexity. Instead of estimating features
across a spectrum of unit lengths, they select a few (three to five) relative estimation
categories, or buckets, and estimate all features in terms of these categories.
➢ Continuous testing
With continuous testing we deterministically measure progress and prevent defects. We
crank out the running, tested features. We also reduce the risk of failure late in the project.
What could be riskier than postponing all testing until the end of the project? Many
waterfall projects have failed when they have discovered, in an endless late-project "test-
and-fix" phase that the architecture is fatally flawed, or the components of the system
cannot be integrated, or the features are entirely unusable, or the defects cannot possibly
be corrected in time.
➢ Agile development delivers working, tested software
Delivering working, tested features is an agile development team's primary measure of
progress. Working features serve as the basis for enabling and improving team
collaboration, customer feedback, and overall project visibility. They provide the
evidence that both the system and the project are on track.
➢ Customer Satisfaction
Agile project management, customer satisfaction is always the number one priority. With
this in mind, the end-users play an active role in the process, providing feedback which is
then interpreted and acted upon by the project team, in order to improve the quality of the
final product.
➢ Continuous Adaptation
With Agile project management, it is important to understand that change is accepted.
Throughout the project’s life cycle, it is possible that there will be a shift in the
requirements, focus or even the scope of the project, and with Agile, teams are able to
embrace this, rather than see it as detrimental or problematic. With the Agile approach,
the good news is that changing requirements, or re-evaluation of previous assumptions, is
perfectly possible without requiring a re-start.
How Agile Development Frame Works

➢ Firstly, a team of testers, developers, and analysts is assembled, known as a cross-

functional team. Then a scrum is being used, working very nearly with the product
owner/client to act as the head of the team.
➢ Next, plan important methods and projects in three to four weeks; a sprint planning
meeting takes place in the development cycle, where needs are broken into tasks and hours
to provide software developers with a clear and real path to success.
➢ When all the necessities of a project are placed in the project backlog during” sprint
planning” and then transferred to the” sprint backlog”. Due to the feedback of stakeholders
and requirements of evolving business, the product backlog is constantly growing and
prioritized again and again.
➢ To review work-in-progress during iteration, daily scrums takes place for a max of fifteen
minutes.
➢ A ‘’task board’’ having columns and swim lanes are what daily scrums typically revolve
around. To break down the key stages of the workflow, it can have more than one column.
According to your team and your project, the task board can be structured– get creative!
The entire point of agile is to be open and easy – and not get ‘boxed in.’
➢ Sprint retrospective and sprint review meetings are held at the end of the sprint. To get it
accepted by the product owner, the completed user stories, and to ‘show the world’ what
you have achieved is what the focus to sprint review is.

Agile Project Management Applicable to Construction project

Agile project management can be applied to almost any large-scale project in any industry,
including construction. Agile asks you to first think of a project at a strategic level, then break
it down into tasks. This practice of segmenting a project into bite-sized chunks helps ensure
frequent and consistent delivery. It also enables you to structure any project to be more adaptive
to changes.
Say that your project is to build a single-dwelling house, and it’ll take four months. You can
easily break this schedule down into two- to four-week sprints (or intervals). Perhaps the first
sprint will be preparing and laying the foundation. The second sprint will involve constructing
the rough framing, etc. By planning and focusing on one sprint at a time, the project remains
flexible to unexpected changes such as a sudden snowstorm or the buyer requesting a kitchen
redesign.
In an agile environment, teams deliberately leave out long-term planning and, instead,
invite frequent customer feedback to ensure continuous improvements of the product.
This minimizes risks and allows the project to adapt to changes quickly. The project is
broken into smaller increments to be completed in a (typically) 2 -week period. Agile
development focuses on delivering working software in a shorter time frame, as compared
to the conventional waterfall method.
You may ask, with its sequential nature, how can a construction project be agile? Upfront
planning is crucial to detail a bid permit, as well as to submit regulatory documents. Plus,
the nature of the design-bid-build contract means the client has less interaction during the
pre-design and execution phases. The key benefit of agile is the ability to pivot when
problems occur – and problems happen in (almost) every phase of construction project
management.
Now, let’s visualize the project deliverables, perfectly laid out on a work breakdown
structure. As you break each deliverable down into further sub-tasks or tangible project
outcomes, you’d have functional work packages – architects to create design and
technical specifications, estimators to quantify the project requirements, and so on. The
completion of a work package can be a dependency for other work packages. With this
work breakdown structure, you can anticipate what needs to be done over the entire course
of the project. However, as each of these work packages involves a series of activities,
you tend to miss out on the risks that crop up on the job due to lack of incremental
planning. Furthermore, the lack of transparency between owner and construction team
invites even more frequent changes to the project.
Adopting agile means encouraging periodic planning across trades, making sure all
stakeholders are aware of the project progress. Then, comes cross -trade collaboration
along the project lifecycle– which isn’t feasible in traditional waterfall methods where
individual teams work in a cascading sequence. Ready to learn more about agile
construction management? Here’s a simple 4-step guide to applying agile methodologies
in your project.
Four Steps to Construction Agility
Agile project development is presented as below:

Each cycle represents a sprint, where you focus on early delivery of functional systems.
Translating an agile sprint into a construction sprint looks like this:

A backlog is a repository of all the work that needs to be completed. And teams prioritize
and select the tasks to deliver according to the project timeline. Instead of having tasks
assigned to them, each team plans and executes their work package autonomously through
every sprint. You can organize tasks that are in-development into a sprint board for real-
time tracking.
Construction Roadmap
First, outline the construction execution plan on a roadmap, including the typical
sequence: pre-bidding, planning stage, execution stage, implementation, and handove r
stage. with a high-level roadmap, you can clearly define the scope requirements, task
dependencies, as well as the timeline for all deliverables. From here, you can decompose
them into work packages and the teams involved in coordinating the project exec ution.
Now, visualize your project plan on the Gantt chart for scheduling and monitoring. Keep
in mind that, while the roadmap is generally fixed, the construction timeline may require
adjustments due to several issues, such as material delays or construction priorities shift.
This is where agile practices really shine. Utilize modern project management software
to create a Gantt-based project plan instantly and more efficiently.

Stakeholder Communication
A key principle of agile project management is on-going communication. Especially in
CPM, where there are several stakeholders:

As part of the sprint cycle, you can organize status meetings to report on the project
progress, minimize silos and address potential issues before they creep up. These
meetings should involve all stakeholders to review the work and get inputs on the project
health and team performance. You can easily identify problems before they surface and
quickly come up with solutions.
In that sense, agile enables teams to respond to changes and problems that occur
frequently in construction operations. The communication can take place anytime and
anywhere, from virtual collaboration platforms to on-site visits.

Work Package Delivery

During sprint planning, the entire crew will review the project roadmap and identify
higher order work packages. Each functional team can further dissect their work into
smaller deliverables. That way, you can effectively coordinate work at the team -level,
e.g.: budget, capacity, and equipment requirements. Meanwhile, managing multiple work
packages independently also makes cost and duration estimation easier.
In practice, a work package will be broken down into granular tasks. All deliverables
within a construction package are then recorded in the backlog. As the sprint begins, you
will get input from the owner regarding the development priorities based on the original
roadmap and communicate new design requirements (when applicable). Then, the team
plans and commits to achieving the work assigned to them in each sprint.

Agile Software Implementation

There’s no room for legacy systems in an agile environment. To successfully drive
construction agility, consider modern project management software like Atlassian Jira or
Smartsheet. With cloud solutions, you can enjoy these benefits:
– Robust Gantt chart and roadmap tools that can reflect real-time changes
– Cross-functional collaboration from back office to on-site execution
– Instant data accessibility to ensure everyone gets the right information when needed
– Automate workflows and processes to reduce downtime

In conclusion, construction agility brings forth project accountability across teams as they
get to manage and plan their portion of work packages. At the same time, agile planning
allows you to get involved and engaged in the process, which fosters transparency and
closed communication between teams as well as other stakeholders. As such, it’s easier
to incorporate changes into the project plan, particularly in design or material lists,
throughout the project life cycle without creating any roadblocks.