Agile project management

In an agile environment, you would typically be working on highly technical projects such as developing software programs, although many organizations see the value in utilizing some of the best practices outside of software design.

Think of the word agility, which is the ability to think or move quickly. Agile projects are not predictive at all. We may only know in the beginning that our HR department wants a new payroll system. We have no idea what features they want yet, how they imagine the software working, or what the final result will be. Instead, we plan at the last responsible moment, and we work closely with the customer to collect requirements. If those requirements change it's okay because we are only running in very short sprints or iterations. The team is only a week to four weeks into work at any given moment. Change is okay and is expected. Front-loaded planning isn't an aspect of agile and, in fact, documentation without working products, service, or software is a colossal waste of time and provides no value to the organization. This is due to the rapid changes occurring regularly. In Chapter 10, Formal Project or Phase Closure and Agile Project Management, we will cover sprint cycles and key aspects of agile frameworks.