Chapter 1: Defining Agile Project Management


Those of you who have managed projects in a technology environment know that balancing the needs of the project management (PM) process against those of a creative technical team is something of an art. You risk stifling innovation with too much process. With too little process, you risk never getting the project completed. The mismatch occurs when you try to employ classic PM methods in an agile environment. While many companies have spent significant money and energy customizing common PM processes to their specific situations, they are still finding that it is more of an art than a science, where certain project managers thrive and others struggle. Building on classic PM methods can take you only so far in the uncertain environment that's so typical of projects pushing the boundaries of technological and business innovation. Agile PM will provide some new concepts and techniques that I've seen to be effective in dynamic environments and that, hopefully, will help you advance your project management foundation in these challenging areas.

Overextension

A primary reason that expanding on classic PM methods is not as effective in certain areas is that it is simply being overstretched. Over the years, classic PM has evolved into a wide and solid platform for delivering all sorts of projects in all kinds of environments. People have taken comprehensive, classic PM methods and customized them for their unique situations. In turn, this has further validated and expanded the classic PM platform. I have yet to encounter a company that hasn't done some type of PM customization for its specific business, yet the core methods always come back to the classic fundamentals. However, like any platform, classic PM has its constraints, and as we stretch it to address the new scenarios that lie on the fringe of the platform edges, it becomes less effective (see Figure 1-1). It is in these fringe areas at the edge of the classic PM platform that agile PM comes into play.

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Figure 1-1: The relationship between classic and agile PM platforms.

As you continue to advance your project management methods to keep pace with your changing project and business requirements, it is generally easier to build off an established idea or concept, rather than starting from scratch. In the agile environment, the problem is that there isn't a good foundation to start from because classic project management has been overextended. This book will attempt to correct that situation. Agile PM can be viewed as a new foundation element, perhaps just a single post, that will help support the extensions of the classic PM platform in such a way as to enable its practitioners to more effectively manage projects in an uncertain environment.




Agile Project Management(c) How to Succeed in the Face of Changing Project Requirements
Agile Project Management: How to Succeed in the Face of Changing Project Requirements
ISBN: 0814471765
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 96
Authors: Gary Chin

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