ARDEN UNIVERSITY

MSc Project Management

Agile Methodologies

Reflection

STU 121803

Rizwan Khan

2000
Contents
AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT ....................................................................................................... 3
Responding to Change over Following a Plan. ......................................................................................... 4
Benefits. ........................................................................................................................................................ 4
Maximum Adaptability. ............................................................................................................................ 4
Reduce Project Failure Risk. ...................................................................................................................... 5
Enhanced Customer Satisfaction. ............................................................................................................. 5
Weaknesses. ................................................................................................................................................. 6
Deviation from Project Budget and Timelines. ......................................................................................... 6
Managing Project Teams Motivation. ....................................................................................................... 6
Practices in Agile. ........................................................................................................................................ 6
Short Iterations. ........................................................................................................................................ 7
Communication as Priority........................................................................................................................ 7
Conclusion. .................................................................................................................................................. 8
References. ................................................................................................................................................... 9
 AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Agile project management is an iterative approach to software development projects and ensures
feedback can be acted on quickly and that responsive changes can be made at each stage of product
cycle. This allows project teams to adopt agile project management methodologies to work quickly
and collaboratively within the timeframe and budget of a project.

Most current agile project management methods have their roots in software development. Back
in the 1990s, software teams were finding that the highly-structured “heavyweight” traditional
project management methodologies (for instance, Waterfall) just weren’t cutting it when it came
to the way they needed to work. They were finding that the pitfalls of these heavyweight methods
such as a lack of flexibility, adaptability, and even autonomy made it more difficult for them to
respond to change or incorporate their learnings as they worked. As the project plans were outlined
at the outset, there was no room for wonder, and nonconformities could be costly. But as opposed
to industries where the process was fixed and the outcome was reliable and stable change is a
fundamental component of software projects. Maybe shareholder chucks spool, which something
isn’t working the way it should once an end-user gets their hands on it.

Then in 2001, a bunch of software developers got together to discuss the core views of agile and
really drill down into the philosophy behind it. They came up with The Manifesto for Agile
Software Development, a collection of values and principles that would be a North Star for teams
wondering how to become agile.

As mentioned earlier, the initial agile project management methods focused on software, and the
Agile Manifesto was created by software developers. Whether you’re creating software or
something totally different there are lots of takeaways you can apply, no matter what industry
you’re working in.

The original Agile Manifesto declares that agile has 4 core values:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.

• Working software over comprehensive documentation.

• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.

 • Responding to change over following a plan.

The Value which we are selecting for our assignment is “Responding to Change over Following a
Plan’. It is the fourth value in agile manifesto and considers as backbone of agile methodology.

Responding to Change over Following a Plan.

Agile methodology is based on changing environments of new projects or we can say that agile
methodology is developed to cater the needs for project for which either wo do not have plans in
the start of project or the plan is not viable enough to follow throughout the project. If we are from
the background of conventional project management methodology this might sound awkward as
we have always talked that more the changes we consider in our project, chances of deviation or
project failure increases. Waterfall methodology emphasizes to project manager to avoid changes
or ask customer to hold on with additional requirements which are not part of project plan. Changes
cannot be eliminated, minimizing the cost of change is the only strategy (Highsmith, 2004).

While developing a futuristic product or the product for which we know very little and come to
know when we are in the execution phase, in this case this value is the key. Dealing with such
projects for which changes are coming constantly and if we focus to follow the actual plan of the
project, we might miss the target and can lead towards project failure, this manifesto value
encourages to respond to changes as and when reported. But to deal with this value effectively and
efficiently we need to adopt a certain approach like to deliver our project in chunks and have the
regular feedback from customer and the changes asked by stakeholders can be catered regularly
(Singh, 2020).

Benefits.

Maximum Adaptability.

One of the greatest advantages of this value from manifesto is the ability to manage changing
priorities. By focusing on this value, we are preparing ourselves with the fact that changes are
coming in our way and the team needs to deal with these changes. Agile team members welcome
changes at every stage, they consider changing requirements as good things (Flower, 2004). Once
the team is mentally ready for upcoming changes, they become adoptive in approach and
techniques. With this approach and emphasis on continuous feedback, you can get the data you
need during the development process, not after, allowing the team to make more impactful choices
based on actual conditions, not just predicted conditions.

Reduce Project Failure Risk.

In projects, risks are inevitable. We have to deal with a lot of risks, some are identified at the start
of project and some during the project. Sticking to a certain plan can help not to deviate with the
project scope, cost or timelines but what if, we are moving towards the wrong direction while
following that plan it can enhance the risk and lead to project failure. By adopting this value
“Responding to Change over following Plan” we can easily look for the changes which are coming
in project’s way to minimize the risk of project failure. Defiantly, every change catered will have
some cost which becomes the part of project budget but the chances of project failure, customer
rejection and come up with the wrong project reduces.

Enhanced Customer Satisfaction.

At the end of day customer satisfaction or acceptance is required to mark a project successful one.
Customer satisfaction is achieved when the customer is kept in loop about the project progress and
the feedback he is providing is taken as constructive feedback, welcome changes which are coming
in the form of feedback and getting things done smoothly. The agile value we are discussing here
is about welcoming changes, responding on those changes immediately and incorporating them in
project mainstream. Agile teams cannot work in isolation, they require continuous customer and
business collaboration (Flower, 2004). Agile value gives more importance to customer and
encourages the team to work closely with customer or other stakeholders of project to ensure that
the project you are undertaking or the product is of their choice and customer is getting what he
actually wanted to get as the end result of project.
Weaknesses.

Deviation from Project Budget and Timelines.

One of the weaknesses for which team or project manager has to look closely is, changes are
important in when it comes to agile project management methodologies but while responding to
those changes one must not forget that what was the actual business requirements stated in the
contract. Every organization do project for the purpose of business, and every change coming in
project will have a cost and time and there is a high chance that, while responding to those changes
both the parties are compromising on budget and deadlines. Team must be able to look if the
change customer want is worth accommodating or not (Boehm, 2002). To manage this weakness,
there should be mechanism that which change is important and should be integrated in project and
for which changes we need to say no.

Managing Project Teams Motivation.

Project teams work on multiple deliverables and at the start of project they have a goal to put all
their efforts in a way to create a specific product. They know the product/goal early and they are
motivated to achieve that goal. Dealing with projects in which there are continuous changes in
project’s product and team is not sure that what is their target product so there is a chance that they
loose motivation to do the work at some point of time. Agile with a lot of feedback makes the work
difficult and complex (Constantine, 2001). It the role of project manager/scrum master to keep the
team motivated and let them remind that the target product is same as they have discussed in the
start of project, changes are only of functionality and of features.

Practices in Agile.

Agile project management has a lot of practices which are being used in different frameworks of
agile. Not all practices are useful in every framework and with every value of agile. In this
assignment we will be focusing on few practices and try to formulate a link between practices and
the selected agile manifesto.
Short Iterations.

Agile focuses on continuous delivery of project in small deliverables and chunks at regular
intervals of times to have the continuous acceptance and feedback from customer. For that one of
the techniques is to have shorter iterations for deliverables and make continuous improvement. If
we do not follow the concept of short iterations, the deliverable we will be releasing in project will
be of some size and for it will be hard to make changes in those deliverables. The value which we
have selected, enables team to respond to change and by implementing this practice of agile we
can provide the smaller chunks of project deliverables and get continuous feedback from customer.
In case of changes requested by customer or stakeholders, it will be easy for teams to make those
changes and implement in project mainstream.

Shorter iterations also work in risk reduction, for example if we have a deliverable which can take
around 8 weeks to get completed by the assigned team. Once delivered, the feedback comes from
stakeholders to make few changes in it. We have to make those changes in 8 weeks work which
requires a lot of rework, time and cost and the risk is high. If we implement the practice of shorter
iterations, and break the deliverable into pieces of 2 weeks size. Once delivered to the customer,
team can get to know about the change after 2 weeks there are two benefits. Firstly, the size of
rework will be small and it will have minimum cost and time for rework to be done. Secondly, we
can always manage our rework time within remaining 6 weeks of other pieces of deliverables
which certainly reduces the risk in project.

Communication as Priority.

Communication is a skill for any person working in capacity of project manager, team member,
scrum master, from management or acting as just a stakeholder for the project. Communication as
priority is taken as a practice in agile project management because communicating the right
information, at the right time at earliest is very important if team has to get the full advantage of
agile frameworks, manifesto and principles. Communication from both the parties, either it is from
the team who are doing the project work or from the customer who is providing the feedback or
changes to the team. As we discussed earlier, changes which are communicated early in the project
as feedback has less impact in terms of project constraints and the risk is also reduced. So,
communication must be taken as priority while dealing with the value of manifesto which is
‘Responding to change over following a plan’.

Conclusion.
Change is said to be a valuable tool for developing great products. Teams using agile principles,
value of responding to change over following a plan and can respond to changes on time are able
to come up with valuable, innovative and realistic products. Traditional project management took
changes in project as a threat to project and this un-welcoming nature of traditional approach
restricted the teams to innovate and leads a lot of projects either towards failure or with the product
that remained useless for people (Lyton, 2016).

Agile project management not only opens the window to welcome changes but also took the liberty
to come up with the projects which looked like a dream in past. Responding to changes from
customer at regular intervals and integrating the feedback of project stakeholders continuously
made projects less risky and enhanced the probability of project becoming successful. Another
aspect of responding to change which we have discussed above is customer satisfaction and sense
of involvement during the project lifecycle strengthen the professional relationships in project
environment.
References.

• Highsmith, J. Cockburn, A. (2004), “Agile Software Development: The Business of

Innovation”, IEEE Computer,
http://www.jimhighsmith.com/articles/IEEEArticle1Final.pdf Accessed on 10/10/2004

• Fowler, M. (2004), “The New Methodology,”

http://www.martinfowler.com/articles/newMethodology.html Accessed on 12/12/2004

• Boehm, B. (2002), “Get Ready for Agile Methods, with Care,” IEEE Software
Development, pp.64-69

• Constantine, L. (2001), “Methodological Agility,” IEEE Software Development, pp.67-

69.

• Lyton, M. C. (2016), Applying Agile management value:4 Responding to change over

following a plan, https://www.dummies.com/article/business-careers-
money/business/project-management/applying-agile-management-value-4-responding-to-
change-over-following-a-plan-171462

• Singh, G. (2020), How Responding to change over following a plan always works for
agile, https://medium.com/agile-shake/how-responding-to-change-over-following-a-plan-
always-works-for-agile-a5ee918a64df