Agile Project Management
15.06.2020 | İlker Dikmen
gembaakademi.com
Agile Project Management
Although the word “no change, no life” is valid at all times, the time required to adapt to the change is getting shorter day by day. Organizations that cannot adapt to change have to withdraw from the race in shorter periods than before.
With Agile Project Management approach, besides fast and low cost targets flexibility is an indispensable element. Agile project Management approach can have caused resistance and anxiety in companies managed with strict disciplines about projects and programs. Rapid changes require fast communication, fast decision-making processes and, accordingly, the need for rapid reporting. The exponential development of technology makes all these needs possible through digitalization. Project performance and KPIs are available to monitored by project stakeholders in real time and that simplifies our work and reduces the need for qualified personnel compared to the traditional project management approach.
In order to talk about the biggest advantage of Agile Project Management approach, we have to look at the weaknesses of traditional project management (waterfall model). Let’s look at the steps of a waterfall model.
In this case, to which step should we go back when there is an update request in the test step just before the project closing? In this case, going back to beginning ruins all the initial predictions. The fact that many projects are completed with low performance and big losses or not completed arises from these models. This losses are understandable due to the conditions of the last century.
However, continuous and fastly developments in technology increase the customer expectations at the same rate. At this point, Agile Project Management, comes to meet our needs. Agile project management prevents these losses by performing a different approach to the control (test) phase.
What makes the difference in the Agile Project Management approach is that it is based on iteration. The meaning of on the Project Management side; We can say that “It is the method of closing the whole project by completing its small parts”. We can think of each iteration as different mini projects that complete the whole. Unlike the waterfall model, losses are minimized by repeating the control step for each iteration.
Integrating customer feedbacks and controls for each mini step with Agile Project Management provides significant advantages compared to the Waterfall model;
Flexibility: Due to the short time between the iterations, it is easily integrated into the updates that arise in line with the demands.
Involving the Customer in the Process: Each completed iteration is evaluated by the customer. In this way, the product, service and customer expectations that come out at the end of the project are been met.
Accessible: All project stakeholders are aware of the positive and negative situations that occur at each step. Feedbacks and actions are taken on time. Thus, repeated problems are prevented.
