What is Agile project management?

Agile project management takes an adaptive approach to managing product development projects, focusing on continuous releases, incorporating customer feedback, and ongoing improvement. These frameworks are an iterative methodology, meaning there are frequent pauses so teams can reflect on their work to see if they can make improvements for the next phase. Agile project management is typically associated with software development. Still, any project susceptible to change can use it to help manage efficiency, reduce risk, and approach problems more dynamically and flexibly.

Scrum and Kanban are the two most common frameworks under which traditional Agile project management can fall. Others include Extreme Programming (XP), Adaptive Project Framework (APF), Extreme Project Management (XPM), Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM), and Feature Driven Development (FDD).

Read more: What is an Agile Team and How to Build One

Agile methodology values

There are four main pillars of Agile project management, including:

• Teamwork versus siloed efforts and rules: Agile teams value collaboration over following predesigned steps and working independently.

• An end product that works versus comprehensive documentation: The most critical outcome for Agile teams is to have a product that works. Documentation is secondary.

• Adapt to change versus sticking to a plan: Flexibility and adaptability are significant components and benefits of Agile project management. Teams can shift workflows and strategies instead of derailing an entire project.
• Customer collaboration versus contract negotiations: Customers are a vital part of the product build because they can guide teams in the right direction, making customer collaboration a higher priority than the details of a contract.

Related: Why is Critical Thinking Important to Business Teams?

Agile project management methodologies

There are several variations of the Agile framework. Here are some of the most common methodologies:

Scrum

Scrum is an Agile project management methodology that uses sprints—fixed-length iterations of work. Scrum teams complete work from two sources of backlogs. The first is the product backlog, a prioritized list of features from the product owner. The other is the sprint backlog, meaning working on issues from the product backlog until it’s time for the next sprint. Scrum teams have unique roles:

• A Scrum Leader’s job is to remove all obstacles that prevent the proper execution of daily tasks.
• The product owner is responsible for optimizing and managing backlogs to ensure project success.
• Cross-functional team members are responsible for completing sprints until there’s a finished product.

Scrum teams meet daily to discuss anything affecting their active tasks, such as bottlenecks and roadblocks. They also navigate through different steps called the four ceremonies of Scrum:

1. Sprint planning: This ceremony marks the beginning of the project by determining deliverables for the upcoming sprint.
2. Sprint demo: A meeting where team members share what they completed in the last sprint.
3. Daily standup: A 15-minute standing meeting where team members discuss their progress so others can sync. They stay standing to ensure meetings don’t go beyond the time limit.
4. Sprint retrospective: This meeting is a sprint review reflecting on what worked well and what didn’t to help teams identify how to improve the next sprint.

Kanban

Kanban is another popular agile methodology. This framework matches the workload to the team’s capacity and focuses on completing tasks as quickly as possible, allowing teams to react to change faster than a scrum team. Kanban uses cards to represent tasks, and instead of backlogs, they have columns representing the different stages of tasks. All work is scoped, ready to execute, and highly visible so the team can immediately move on to the next one when they complete a task. The Kanban Agile framework has four components:

1. List of work: These are the stories or tasks teams must complete.
2. Columns or lanes: This is a section on a Kanban board that differentiates tasks according to work streams, team members, and projects.
3. Workload limits: This is the maximum amount of work a team can do at one time.
4. Continuous release: A team can release a completed task at any time while they work at their capacity limit.

Extreme Programming (XP)

Software developers typically use XP, an Agile methodology highlighting values that allow teams to work more effectively. It has similarities to Scrum’s daily standups and has regular iterations and releases, but Extreme Programming is more technical in its approach. XP focuses on “how” things will get done. The five values of Extreme Programming are:

• Courage
• Communication
• Simplicity
• Respect
• Feedback

Adaptive Project Framework (APF)

The Adaptive Project Framework, also called Adaptive Project Management (APM), addresses the unknown factors that can suddenly appear during a project. The APF technique works well for IT projects when a traditional project management framework doesn’t apply. The basis for this methodology is the idea that resources can change over time. For example, a timeline can shift, a team member may transition to a different role, or budgets may change. Adaptive Project Management focuses on the resources at hand, not on the ones a project may need.

Extreme Project Management (XPM)

Project managers typically apply Extreme Project Management strategies to projects with significant complexities and high uncertainty. Sprints are short, lasting only a couple of weeks maximum, allowing for many iterations of self-correction, frequent changes, and trial-and-error approaches. XPM generally requires significant flexibility, and it’s common for teams to shift strategies weekly.

Adaptive Software Development (ASD)

This Agile framework enables employees to adapt quickly to changing requirements. ASD focuses on continuous adaptation and has three phases that allow team members to continually learn as the project progresses:

• Speculate
• Collaborate
• Learn

ASD has a non-linear structure, so it’s not uncommon for phases to overlap and have team members in all three at once. Adaptive Software Development is more likely to identify and solve problems faster than standard project management methods because of its fluidity and the constant repetition of the three phases.

Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)

The DSDM is an Agile framework focusing on a project’s entire lifecycle. With so much to focus on, the Dynamic Systems Development Method has a more rigid foundation and structure than other methods. The four main phases of DSDM are:

• Business and feasibility study
• Prototype iteration or functional mode
• Design and build iteration
• Implementation

Feature Driven Development (FDD)

Feature Driven Development is a blend of Agile best practices. This iterative project management method focuses on the exact features of a product the team is developing. The team prioritizes tasks according to customers’ desired features, so the feature-driven development heavily relies on customer input. Since the framework phases are constantly moving, you can implement fixes quickly when errors occur and update projects frequently.

Related: How Project Management Skills Can Benefit Entire Teams

Responsibilities of Agile project managers

Whichever Agile methodology you choose to support your product development, seeing your team’s progress can help you plan future sprints or work. Some responsibilities of an Agile project manager are:

Agile project estimating

Agile project estimating helps Kanban and Scrum teams understand their capacity. Many Kanban teams set their limit for each column based on their previous team size and experience. Conversely, project estimating identifies necessary work that Scrum teams must do in each sprint. Many Agile teams use unique estimating techniques such as story points, planning poker, or ideal hours to determine a numeric value for a particular task, giving them a reference point to refer back to during sprint retrospectives.

Agile reporting

Agile reports can help you visualize the team’s progress through actionable insights and check your project estimates for accuracy.

Backlog management and grooming

Development teams pull their work from the product backlog for every sprint. A project manager maintains and grooms the backlog to help their teams achieve goals by continually removing and adding tasks based on changing circumstances.

Effective communication

A project manager’s primary responsibility is to communicate accurate information about the status of projects to team members, including senior leadership. Effective communication keeps all parties apprised and working toward the same goals.