Agile Project Management with Scrum

In this article, I will be talking about important aspects of Agile Project Management with Scrum and following this process how it will be beneficial for the organization you are working for or the teams or the products. Before we go deep into the topic let us understand the basics of Project Management and the difference between Project Management and Agile Project Management.

Basic Agile Project Management with Scrum

What is Project Management?

Why is it important to have for each and every project?

As the word itself “Project Management” describes that it deals with a lot of managerial aspects of a Project. So a project can be best described as a temporary name for a process where a unique product or service is developed with the help of diverse teams.

A project has a definite start and end which makes it a time constraint and at the same time gives a responsibility to make it successful in stipulated time.

In order to design, plan, execute, and demonstrate the project life cycle we all need “Project Management”. This comes with great responsibility, an individual coming up to this role is not easy and at the same time requires a lot of commitment.

After all the whole project execution is in the Project Manager’s hands.

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What are the constraints for Project Management?

1. The first and foremost constraint for Project Management is to make sure that we complete or achieve all goals related to the project is completed without any inconsistency.
2. Make sure the requirements are completely developed and are intact with the client requirements
3. Make sure that resource planning, budget allocation, quality assurance is not at all compromised and all are executed under the estimated limits.
4. So far we have talked about the primary aspects of Project Management that make it be successful but the second factor that we need to take into consideration is the challenge of Optimizing the existing outcome and maintenance allocation.

If all these constraints are given high priority and also at the same time given equal importance then the project can be classified as successful project implementation.

What is Agile Project Management? How is different Agile Project Management from regular Project Management?

To understand this clear and straight, let’s understand what is Agile Project Management :

In general, terminology, when we discuss Agile Project Management or Agile methodology, it is classified as an incremental approach or iterative and incremental method of management.

It focuses on the current short-term scope for a stipulated amount of time and then focuses on the next step of deliverables. Using this approach will help the business to evolve the product slowly and at the same time, the product can be evaluated in the current market.

There are several agile methodologies that one can follow, some of them are :

1. Scrum
2. XP
3. Kanban etc.

Well, for now, we will only concentrate on Scrum and understand its process or methodology.   

[ Related Article: Agile Project Management Certification Guide ]

What is SCRUM?

SCRUM is one of the Agile Project Management Methodology where the managing style of the project is different compared to that of Traditional Project Management. Few bullet points about SCRUM :

1. SCRUM is an agile project management methodology that controls the entire project process tackling complexities and focuses on building products that meet business needs.
2. It is a simple framework for effective team collaboration
3. When it comes to SCRUM we need to talk about Sprint, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective

Well in this article we will not go into detail about these but we will focus on Agile Project Management with Scrum and the benefits this process has to offer the businesses.

So to define Agile Project Management in a simple sentence, it caters to or looks for continuous project improvement by setting small goals, and all together will be able to complete the big picture of the project.

So what let’s understand the difference between regular Project Management vs Agile Project Management:

The traditional Project Management model follows a Waterfall model.

Well, these are a few differences between Regular or Traditional Project Management vs Agile Project Management.

When compared, Agile Project Management has more benefits than Traditional Project Management. With a closure observation, it is found that a combination of the Traditional and Agile Project Management styles would be more beneficial.

So after going through the differences between Traditional Project Management vs Agile Project Management, it makes it evident that Agile Project Management has an edge and focuses more on customer satisfaction and urges for more communication while building a product or providing a service.

So now let’s go through some of the benefits that Agile Project Management with Scrum has to offer for project teams:

Higher Product Quality:

As per agile development, in this case, it is Scrum.

As the development goes on it also includes testing time. So the tasks that were committed for a particular sprint include the development and testing of the developed code. This will enable the teams to continuously validate and confirm that their product development is intact and results in higher product quality.

[ Related Article: Scrum Workflow ]

The chances of having last-minute risks or quality issues in Agile Methodology (Scrum) is comparatively less.

Increased Project Control:

As per the SCRUM methodology, teams will focus and commits to tasks based on sprints. This process is repeated during the project execution. This gives an ability for the team to go through three main topics.

I.e.

What has been completed so far?
What are the tasks that is left over?
Any possible risks identified?

By evaluating these three concepts for the project on a regular basis makes it more controlled and chances of identifying risks at the very last moment are negligible.

Customer Focus:

Agile methodology ( SCRUM) is more focused on customer opinions. As the development and the end product is developed in time-based sprints, it is easy for the clients to physically see the product once it's developed.

[ Related Article: Scrum Tutorial for Beginners ]

During this process, real-time feedback is gathered from the customers and clients. This helps to reduce the unseen circumstances.

Adaptability:

The entire requirements are segregated into small user stories. These user stories are again divided into meaningful tasks that the technical team would understand. With his process, a lot of questions and clarifications are necessary.

With constant and repetitive communication we get to have a clear requirement set and if the requirements are to be changed, the project team will be flexible to adapt to these changes, unlike traditional project management.

Increased ROI:

All the information (i.e. requirements, tasks, allocation, etc) is already defined and they are very transparent. With this being the process it is easy for the team to execute and show more productivity compared to the traditional Project Management.

As the projects are executed within time and budget, it is always a good aspect when it boils out to monetary aspects. Also, the product development is pretty quick compared to traditional project management. So chances of using the product by customers at an early stage are possible which is also one source of revenue generation which aids in ROI.

Conclusion

Well, I hope you have enjoyed reading about traditional Project Management and Agile Project Management and the benefits it can offer to your businesses. There is obviously more to it if you encounter more and think it is worthy to read, please comment in the comments section.

Happy reading and manage your project well by understanding Agile Project Management with Scrum Techniques.