Agile Project Management can be used for a wide range of applications and industries such as construction, healthcare or automotive manufacture,although it is most often referred to with regards to software development. What all Agile Projects have in common is that they use iterative and incremental methods of design and build, and are of most use for business areas where change is likely to occur continuously.
How are Agile Projects Managed?
Part of appeal of Agile and Agile Project Management is that original project plans are expected to change, consequently the emphasis is not on upfront design, doing away with roles such as Project Manager, Enterprise Architecture or Test Manager. Project Management tasks are designated to either the Scrum Master, the Product Owner or the Development team members. However due to thought that Scrum is not the best it can be and that code quality can be improved upon, has resulted in a growing following for the unofficial Sprint Zero or Sprint 0 (not recognized by the Scrum Alliance). This is considered by many as a black-lash to what is perceived by many as a Upfront design deficiency in Scrum, - the most popular Agile framework.
The Sprint Zero term describes a period dedicated to defining Agile Project Management related tasks. The 0 implies pre Sprint or prior to the project start, is a period typically lasting about 2 weeks, and and is often used to set goals as well as planning related tasks for the areas listed below.
- Architecture
- Optimizing Product Backlog
- Release Planning
- Priotization Tasks
- QA + Test Management tasks
Most if not all such tasks could be assigned to the Product Owner, Scrum Master or amongst the team (perhaps with exception of Test Management and Enterprise Arctitecture). So one could argue that the Sprint 0 is not needed. With regards to QA + Test, and Enterprise Architecture, any such role within the Agile team is not recognised by the Scrum Alliance. The re-imagining and upgrading of traditional Software development roles such as Test Manager or Enterprise Architecture to be more Agile is a result of a perceived lack of upfront design (areas for improvement) within Agile Development. In the traditional forementioned roles pre planning is key and therefore, collaboration between these two roles provides synergy.
What tools are used for Agile Project Management
ALM Software is a set of tools designed for working with Agile, codeBeamer ALM was designed to scale up Agile Development for Enterprise use with the Scaled Agile Framework. There are many features of ALM Software that simplify Agile Project Management. No provider has a more complete, holistic experience than our own codeBeamer ALM. Features that are of particular interest for Agile Project Management include:
- Project Browser – Great for large enterprise with large numbers of projects.
- Demand Management – Elicit feature suggestions from across all departments.
- Requirements Re-use – Access and reuse Requirements from any of your other codeBeamer based projects.
A complete list of features can be found here.
