A gile Project Management Best P r acti c es and Essays

A gile Project Management: Best P r acti c es and Methodologies WHITE P APE R A gil e Project Management: Bes t P r acti c e s and Methodologies 1. The Art of Project Management 2. Traditional Project Management Methodologies 3. Agile Project Management Methodology 4. Agile Frameworks 4.1 Scrum: roles, sprints and artifacts 4.2 Kanban: comprehensive solution to handling work in progress 4.3 Lean: eliminating waste in software engineering 5. Agile Software Engineering Best Practices: Extreme Programming Conclusion References 1. T he Art o f Project Management Regardless of the industry, project management has proven to be a crucial element of a company's efficiency and its eventual success. In fact, projects are usually 2.5 times more successful when proven project management practices are used [1] . As defined by Gartner , project management is "the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements" [2] . Being an integral part of software engineering process along with the business analysis and requirement specification, design, programming and testing, the project management has been a matter of considerable debate for years. Regardless of the scope, any project should follow a sequence of actions to be controlled and managed. According to the Project Management Institute (PMI) , a typical project management process includes the following phases: 1. Initiation; 2. Planning; 3. Execution; 4. Performance/Monitoring; 5. Project close. Used as a roadmap to accomplish specific tasks, these phases define the project management lifecycle. Yet, this structure is too general. A project usually has a number of internal stages within each phase. They can vary greatly depending on the scope of work, the team, the industry and the project itself. In attempts to find a universal approach to managing any project, humanity has developed a significant number of PM techniques and methodologies. 2. T r aditional Project Management Methodologies Based on the above-described classic framework, traditional methodologies take a step-by-step approach to the project execution. Thus, the project goes through the initiation, planning, execution, monitoring straight to its closure in consecutive stages. Often called linear , this approach includes a number of internal phases which are sequential and executed in a chronological order. Applied most commonly to the construction or manufacturing industry, where li ttle or no changes are required at every stage, traditional project management has found its application in the software engineering as well. Known as a waterfall model , it has been a dominant software development methodology since the early 1970s, when formally described by Winston W. Royce : Ther e ar e tw o essentia l step s commo n t o al l computer progra m developments , regardles s o f siz e o r complexity. Ther e i s firs t a n analysi s step , followe d secon d b y a coding ste p .. . Thi s sor t o f v er y simpl e implementatio n concep t is i n fac t al l tha t i s require d i f th e effor t i s sufficientl y small an d i f th e fina l produc t i s t o b e operate d b y thos e who buil t i t - a s i s typicall y don e wit h compute r program s for interna l use. W a t er f all Model Waterfall model has a strong emphasis on planning and specifications development: it is considered to take up to 40% of the project time and budget . Another basic principle of this approach is a strict order of the project phases. A new project stage does not begin until the previous one is finished. The method works well for clearly defined projects with a single deliverable and fixed deadline. Waterfall approach requires thorough planning, extensive project documentation and a tight control over the development process. In theory, this should lead to on-time, on-budget delivery, low project risks, and predictable final results. However, when applied to the actual software engineering process, waterfall method tends to be slow, costly and inflexible due to the numerous restrictions. In many cases, its inability to adjust the product