Agile Project Management

Overview

Traditional software development can be a risky process and will usually provide a project manager with a number of challenges. Uncertainty in estimating, changing requirements, problems with quality, meeting time and budget constraints, the list of potential pitfalls facing a project manager is almost endless. To try and solve or mitigate these problems, many companies are now pursuing an agile development strategy. This course provides participants with an introduction to common agile methods and principles. Following this, the course focuses on Scrum, an iterative incremental process commonly used with agile development.

Who is it for?

Project and programme managers, team leaders, analysts, developers and anyone who will be involved in agile projects.

Description

Course Content

Traditional Project Management
What is a Project?
What is Project Management?
What is a Successful Project?
Project Variables
Project Management Process
System Development Methods
Why Do Projects Fail?

Agile Development
The Agile Manifesto
Agile Manifesto Principles
An Agile Approach to Projects
Working as One Team
Working in Short Iterations
Focusing on Business Priorities
Inspection and Adaption
Real and Apparent Project Goals

Introduction to Scrum
Scrum Theory
Starting Scrum
Product Backlog
Sprint Planning Meetings
Sprint Backlog
Sprints
Sprint Reviews
Sprint Retrospectives
Daily Scrums
Pigs and Chickens
Scrum Roles – ScrumMaster, Product Owner, The Team
Customers and Stakeholders

Planning
What Makes a Good Plan?
Planning Failures
Causes of Planning Failure
Multiple Levels of Planning
Agile Planning
Continual Planning
Release Planning
Prioritisation
Combining Risk and Value in Prioritising
Financial Prioritisation
Benefits and Costs
ROI Analysis
NPV

User Stories
Requirements Gathering
What Are User Stories?
Levels of Detail
Splitting a Story
Conditions of Satisfaction
Using Index Cards for User Stories
Defining Done
Collecting Stories
Advantages of User Stories

Estimating
Cone of Uncertainty
Traditional Estimating
Agile Estimating
Process of Estimating Duration
Estimating Size with Story Points
Velocity
Estimating Velocity
Ideal Time and Elapsed Time
Estimating in Ideal Days
Shared Estimates
Estimation Scales
Estimating Techniques – Expert Opinion, Analogy, Disaggregation
Splitting User Stories
Planning Poker
Re-estimating

Sprints
Sprint Prioritisation
Sprint Planning
Sprint Duration
Tracking Progress
Burndown Charts
Daily Sprint Backlog Trend
Ideal Line of Progress
Task Boards
War Room

Scrum Teams
Successful Teams
Scrum Approach to Teams
The Group Approach
Functional Leadership
Leadership Checklist
Motivation
Morale

The objectives of this course are to enable particpants to:

• Understand the need for, and principles of, agile methods.
• Recognise the constituent parts of the Scrum method.
• Plan, manage and close a development project using agile practices.

Requirements

A basic understanding of the nature of projects and the techniques used in traditional project management.