The document provides an overview of Agile project management practices. It defines Agile as an iterative approach to development with deliverables in short sprints. Agile allows for continuous collaboration and visibility into the project. It notes that Agile projects historically have lower failure rates and better ability to adapt to changes compared to traditional waterfall methods. The document outlines Agile principles and mechanics, including self-organizing teams, daily stand-ups, product backlogs and sprints.

1. 1/6/2017
Agile Project Management | Dr. Padmavathi Bhamidipati
DR. PADMAVATHI
BHAMIDIPATI
AGILE PRACTICES OVERVIEW

2. Agile practices overview 2017
We have been hearing the word ‘Agile” a lot these days, many organizations are
shifting their project management approach from waterfall to Agile. Why we are
considering Agile is the preferred project management approach then the
Waterfall? We are going to get some of these answers as we read through this
paper.
So what is Agile? Agile is the iterative way of development and delivery of a
product or a service. The development and delivery happens in small iterations
called sprints and each sprints ranges from 2- 3 weeks. At the end of each sprint
we are able to deliver value to our customers. Unlike the waterfall method where
customers are able to perceive the value only at the end of the project. There is
no visibility with respect to what is actually going right or wrong in between.
In case of Agile framework, by the virtue of iterative deliveries there is continuous
collaboration. Client has the visibility of the product or service at any given point.
Why we should adopt to Agile? What happens in case we are not able to change?
In the competitive world with swift changes in the technologies and market
trends, if we do not change we will have to lose the business.
Want to quote a 2010 Standish Group Chaos Report on IT Projects. As per this
report projects that followed Agile are 49% successful and failure is only 9%,
where as in Waterfall failure rate is 29% and only 14% projects were successfully
delivered.
When we look at the challenges both waterfall and agile are similar with 57% and
49% but in Agile the challenges mitigated by incremental and iterative way of

3. Agile practices overview 2017
development. Retrospections and daily meetings also help to reduce the
challenges.
CHAOS report and its results would encourage us to adopt to the Agile way of
working especially during evolving market trends and innovations in technology.
When exactly we can adopt to Agile or when to be Agile? Agile could be best
adopted when the requirements are not so clear or requirements are still
evolving. When we are using new technology in our development, to adopt to the
changing market trends agile can be adopted.
What are the benefits of following Agile Methodologies?
That gives the 4 benefits of the Agile Methodologies over waterfall. Let us discuss
the following diagram in little detail.
Visibility – Agile projects are highly visible to all the stakeholders of the projects
owing to the iterative deliveries
Figure 1: Agile Methods Vs Waterfall

4. Agile practices overview 2017
Adaptability – is high, as there an opportunity for the continuous feedback from
the customer via Product Owner to the development team. There is all possibility
to add any feature that is important to go to production and release in next 2-
weeks. So this makes agile projects to be highly adaptable.
Risk – Agile projects run with low risks. As here is progressive elaboration of the
features. Highest value features are considered as priority for development and
daily standups helps the team to resolve any risks that are creeping up to get
resolve before they become issues.
Business Value – Agile projects always deliver high value items and keep focusing
on the prioritizing value to the product and to the customers. This by continuously
adding value.
By the above explanation it is evident that the Agile projects are highly visible,
adaptable, with low risk and provide high business value.
In Agile we have very lean, self-organized and highly skilled team to work on the
iterations and deliver the business value to the clients. We have Product Owner
mostly from the business, Scrum Master and team (consists of Developers,
Testers, BA’s etc.). Team size usually will between 6-9.
Figure 2: Scrum Team

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We value customer collaboration over comprehensive documentation in Agile so
we have very lean documentation or that can be managed via Agile JIRA, unless
documentation is mandated by the clients. The artifacts we value in agile are the
Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Solution Designs. Since we capture requirements
and scope in the form Story Points there is no need for us to have any SOW or
project definition document.
In Agile we use 5 levels of Planning Product Vision, Product Roadmap, Release
Planning, Iteration Plan and finally we have daily stand up meetings. Agile
planning could be represented as below:
Customer Responsibility
Frequency Estimated Planning Acceptance
Yearly T-shirt Vision Statement Product Owner
Quarterly S-M-L Roadmap Features/Epic Product Owner
Monthly Points/Fibonacci Release Plan Stories Product Owner
Weekly Hours Iteration Tasks Team
Daily Minutes – 30 mins Daily Standup Activities Team
Let us look into the principles that are guiding Agile Practices
1. Highest priority is customer satisfaction through early and frequent
deliveries.
2. Welcome requirements change even late in the development. Agile
process harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software, frequently ranging from few weeks to few
months.
4. Business people and developers must work together – collocated team
5. Build projects around motivated individuals.
6. Promote face to face conversations by virtue of collocated team set up.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
9. Give continuous attention to technical excellence
10.Simplify – maximizing the work not done.
11.Self-organizing teams
12.Retrospection is the key in teams, sprints.

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Figure 3: Agile Principles
Agile is not one single Methodology but conglomeration of various methodologies
in to one single umbrella, like Scrum, Kanban, DSDM, XP etc.

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Figure 4: Agile Umbrella
Flow of Requirements till the delivery of potentially shippable working software.
Product Owner being visionary and responsible for the ROI of the project adds the
Features/Epics based on the prioritization to the Product Backlog. Product
backlog will have all fine grained, high priority items at the top of the list and are
picked up in to the Sprint backlog and from there the team starts working on
those high priority items.
Epics in the product backlog are broken down to User Stories and Story Points and
finally to tasks that are estimated and carried out for coding. Each sprint ranges
from 2-4 weeks of duration and at the end of each sprint a business
value/shippable product/working software is delivered to the client.

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Figure 5: Agile Mechanics
In scrum Product back log will be prioritized by the Product Owner and based on
the priority the Release planning is done based on the highest value of the
product that need to be released. Release plan drives the Sprint backlog and plan.
Figure 6: Product Backlog to Release Plan

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