Managing Projects Using Agile Methods

Many project professionals are seeing a demand for Agile practices in a variety of industries and organisations, and are eager to learn and apply them.

Organisations, too, are seeing value in using Agile practices to deliver projects more quickly, with less wasted labour and costs due to misunderstood or ill-defined requirements. This workshop will help participants learn various frameworks for delivering and managing AGILE projects.

Audience

• To understand they key principles of AGILE methods and to learn AGILE best practices

• Teach you the common language of AGILE

• To understand how to leverage Agile principles and use them in traditional projects

• To understand common approaches to software development (recognising that your team is involved in networks infrastructure more than software development)

Outcomes

• Understand the benefits of adopting an agile mindset

• Appreciate the principles associated with managing Agile projects

• Learn and apply essential practices of the SCRUM Framework

• Use commonly accepted ‘Agile’ practices to manage Agile projects

• Gain awareness of other frameworks such as Kanban and XP

Outlines

Module 1: Agile Principles

• Frameworks Compared

• Agile Principles

• Introduction & Key Concepts

• Agile Manifesto

• Self-Organising & Empowered Team

• Scrum Characteristics

• Planning Horizons: Product, Release, Iteration

• Scrum Teams and Scrum Master

Module 2: Initiating a Scrum Project

• Basic units of measurement

• Waterfall – Man Days, Weeks/Months

• Agile – Story Points, Iterations

• Minimum marketable features (MMF)

• The Vision: Setting Direction

• Developing Stories and Story Cards

Module 3: Planning a Scrum Project

• Estimate initial team velocity (Points per iteration)

• Sprint Planning Meeting

• Determining the Sprint Goal.

• Creating Sprint Backlog

• Determining units of complexity.

• Spike Solutions

• Planning Poker

• Scheduling prediction

Module 4: Executing a Scrum Project

• Open Access to Information

• Daily Standup Meeting

• Information Radiator

• Retrospectives and Showcases

• Understand and review the BVCs

• Impediments and Impediment Cards

• Sprint Review – End of Sprint

Module 5: Controlling a Scrum Project

• Sprint burndown chart

• Release burndown chart

• Project or Product Burnout Chart

• Cumulative Flow Charts

• Risk Burndown Graph

• Risk Register (Also known as Risk Census)

• Reporting to Senior Management

Module 6: Introduction to XP Methodology

• Key principles that can apply to any project

• The XP release cycle

• XP Role: Customer, the XP Coach

• Incremental builds Customer involvement

• Participatory Design

• Refactoring

• Test-first (test-driven) development

• KANBAN Boards in XP