Agile Project Management FOR DUMME&* by Mark C. Layton WILEY John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Table of Contents»#» « Introduction / About This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 1 Conventions Used in This Book 2 How This Book Is Organized 3 Part I: Understanding Agile 3 Part II: Being Agile 3 Part III: Working in Agile 3 Part IV: Managing in Agile 3 Part V: Ensuring Agile Success 4 Part VI: The Part of Tens 4 Icons Used in This Book 4 Where to Go from Here 5 Part 1: Understanding Agile 7 Chapter V. Modernizing Project Management 9 Project Management Needed Makeover 9 The origins of modern project management 10 The problem with the status quo 11 Introducing Agile Project Management 13 How agile projects work 15 Why agile projects work better 17 Chapter 2: The Agile Manifesto and Principles 19 Understanding the Agile Manifesto 19 Outlining the Four Values of the Agile Manifesto 21 Value 1: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools 21 Value 2: Working software over comprehensive documentation 23 Value 3: Customer collaboration over contract negotiation 25 Value 4: Responding to change over following a plan 26
Agile Project Management For Dummies Defining the 12 Agile Principles 27 Agile principles Agile principles of quality 31 of customer satisfaction 28 Agile principles of teamwork 32 Agile principles of project management 34 Adding the Platinum Principles 37 Resisting formality 37 Thinking and acting as a team 38 Visualizing rather than writing 38 Changes as a Result of Agile 39 The Agile Litmus Test 41 Chapter 3: Why Agile Works Better 43 Evaluating Agile Benefits 43 How Agile Approaches Beat Historical Approaches 47 Greater flexibility and stability 48 Reduced nonproductive tasks 51 Higher quality, delivered faster 53 Improved team performance 53 Tighter project control 55 Faster and less costly failure 55 Why People Like Agile 56 Executives 56 Product development and customers 57 Management 58 Development teams 59 Part U: Beinq Aqite 61 Chapter 4: Agile Frameworks 63 Diving Under the Umbrella of Agile Approaches 63 Reviewing the Big Three: Lean, Extreme Programming, and Scrum 67 An overview of lean 67 An overview of extreme programming 69 An overview of scrum 70 Putting It All Together 74 Chapter 5: Putting Agile into Action: The Environment 77 Creating the Physical Environment 78 Collocating the team 78 Setting up a dedicated area 79 Removing distractions 80 Going mobile 81
Table of Contents Low-Tech Communicating 82 High-Tech Communicating 84 Choosing Tools 85 The purpose of the tool 85 Organizational and compatibility constraints 86 Chapter 6: Putting Agile into Action: The Behaviors 87 Establishing Agile Roles 87 Development team 89 Product owner 90 Scrum master 92 Stakeholders 94 Agile mentor 95 Establishing New Values 95 Commitment 96 Focus 97 Openness 98 Respect 98 Courage 99 Changing Team Philosophy 100 Cross-functionality 100 Self-organization 102 Self-management 103 Size-limited teams 104 Mature behavior 105 Part 111: Working in Agile 107 Chapter 7: Defining the Product Vision and Product Roadmap 109 Planning in Agile 110 Planning as necessary 112 Inspect and adapt 113 Defining the Product Vision 113 Step 1: Developing the product objective 114 Step 2: Creating a draft vision statement 115 Step 3: Validating and revising the vision statement 117 Step 4: Finalizing the vision statement 118 Creating a Product Roadmap 118 Step 1: Identifying product requirements 119 Step 2: Arranging product features 121 Step 3: Estimating and ordering the product's features 123 Step 4: Determining high-level time frames 126 Saving your work 126
K Agile Project Management For Dummies Chapter 8: Planning Releases and Sprints 127 Refining Requirements and Estimates 127 What is a user story? 128 Steps to create a user story 129 Breaking down requirements 133 Estimation poker 134 Affinity estimating 137 Release Planning 138 Completing the product backlog 139 Creating the release plan 141 Sprint Planning 142 The sprint backlog 143 The sprint planning meeting 144 Chapter 9: Working Through the Day 151 Planning the Day: The Daily Scrum 151 Tracking Progress 154 The sprint backlog 154 The task board 158 Agile Roles Within the Sprint 159 Creating Shippable Functionality 161 Elaborating 162 Developing 162 Verifying 163 Identifying roadblocks 164 The End of the Day 167 Chapter 10: Showcasing Work and Incorporating Feedback 169 The Sprint Review 169 Preparing to demonstrate 170 The sprint review meeting 171 Collecting feedback in the sprint review meeting 173 The Sprint Retrospective 174 Planning for retrospectives 175 The retrospective meeting 175 Inspecting and adapting 177 Chapter 11: Preparing for Release 179 Preparing the Product for Deployment: The Release Sprint 179 Preparing the Organization for Product Deployment 182 Preparing the Marketplace for Product Deployment 183
m Table of Contents }f[ Part W: Managing in Agile... 185 Chapter 12: Managing Scope and Procurement 187 What's Different About Scope in Agile 187 How to Manage Scope in Agile 190 Understanding scope throughout the project 190 Introducing scope changes 192 Managing scope changes 193 Using agile artifacts for scope management 195 What's Different About Procurement in Agile 195 How to Manage Procurement in Agile 197 Determining need and selecting a vendor 198 Contracts and cost approaches for services 199 Organizational considerations for procurement 202 Working with a vendor 204 Closing a contract 205 Chapter 13: Managing Time and Cost 207 What's Different About Time in Agile 207 How to Manage Time in Agile 209 Introducing velocity 209 Monitoring and adjusting velocity 210 Managing scope changes from a time perspective 215 Managing time by using multiple teams 216 Using agile artifacts for time management 219 What's Different About Cost in Agile 220 How to Manage Cost in Agile 221 Creating an initial budget 222 Creating a self-funding project 223 Using velocity to determine long-range costs 224 Using agile artifacts for cost management 226 Chapter 14: Managing Team Dynamics and Communication 227 What's Different About Team Dynamics in Agile 227 How to Manage Team Dynamics in Agile 228 Becoming self-managing and self-organizing 229 Supporting the team: The servant-leader 234 Working with a dedicated team 235 Working with a cross-functional team 237 Establishing an agile environment 238 Limiting development team size 240 Managing projects with dislocated teams 241 What's Different About Communication in Agile 243 How to Manage Communication in Agile 245 Understanding agile communication methods 245 Status and progress reporting 248
Agile Project Management For Dummies Chapter 15: Managing Quality and Risk 251 What's Different About Quality in Agile 251 How to Manage Quality in Agile 254 Quality and the sprint 254 Proactive quality 256 Quality through regular inspecting and adapting 261 Automated testing 262 What's Different About Risk in Agile 264 How to Manage Risk in Agile 266 Reducing risk inherently 266 Identifying, prioritizing, and responding to risks 271 Part V: Ensuring Agile Success 275 Chapter 16: Building a Foundation 277 Commitment of the Organization and of Individuals 277 Organizational commitment 278 Individual commitment 279 How to get commitment 279 Will it be possible to make the transition? 280 What is the best timing for moving to agile? 281 Choosing the Right Project Team Members 282 The development team 282 The scrum master 283 The product owner 283 The agile champion 284 The agile mentor 284 The project stakeholders 285 Creating an Environment That Works for Agile 286 Support Agile Initially and Over Time 288 Chapter 17: Being a Change Agent 289 Making Agile Work in Your Organization 289 Step 1: Conduct an implementation strategy 289 Step 2: Establish a transformation team 290 Step 3: Build awareness and excitement 290 Step 4: Identify a pilot project 291 Step 5: Identify success metrics 293 Step 6: Train sufficiently 294 Step 7: Develop a product strategy 295 Step 8: Develop the product roadmap, the product backlog, and estimates 295 Step 9: Running your first sprint 295 Step 10: Make mistakes, gather feedback, and improve 297
Table of Contents Xtii Step 11: Mature 297 Step 12: Scale virally 299 Avoiding Pitfalls 299 Questions to Prevent Problems 303 Part Vh The Part of Tens 307 Chapter 18: Ten Key Benefits of Agile Project Management 309 Better Product Quality 309 Higher Customer Satisfaction 310 Team Morale 310 Higher Increased Collaboration and Ownership 311 Customized Team Structures 312 More Relevant Metrics 313 Improved Performance Visibility 314 Increased Project Control 314 Improved Project Predictability 315 Reduced Risk 315 Chapter 19: Ten Key Metrics for Agile Project Management 317 Sprint Goal Success Rates 317 Defects 318 Total Project Duration 319 Time to Market 319 Total Project Cost 320 Return on Investment 320 \ New Requests Within ROI Budgets 324 Capital Redeployment 324 Satisfaction Surveys 325 Team Member Turnover 326 Chapter 20: Ten Key Resources for Agile Project Management 327 Agile Project Management For Dummies Online Cheat Sheet 327 The Agile Alliance 328 The Scrum Alliance 328 The Project Management Institute Agile Community 328 Agile Leadership Network 329 Scrum Development Yahoo! Group 329 InfoQ 329 Lean Essays 330 What Is Extreme Programming? 330 Platinum Edge Index 331 330