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What Is Agile Project Management? | An Ultimate Guide

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Agile project management is an iterative and collaborative method that divides larger projects into smaller, more manageable tasks and shorter time segments. These smaller phases are called sprints or iterations.

Agile project management has grown in popularity in recent years as teams strive to tackle project management challenges in a more flexible and dynamic manner. Read on to learn more about the benefits, history, and implementation of Agile project management. 

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What is Agile Project Management?

Agile project management is a methodology that focuses on breaking the larger project lifecycle into more approachable portions of time and smaller tasks. Rather than delivering project deliverables and products at the conclusion of a project, Agile project management prioritizes the delivery of a working product throughout the process, allowing the project team and all types of stakeholders involved to work closely together during the course of the project execution while providing feedback—not just during the project post-mortem. 

Compared to other more traditional methods of project management, Agile project management is less rigid, which gives teams the ability to pivot in new directions as needed and adapt to changing circumstances or project needs.

Key Agile Principles 

According to the Agile Alliance , there are 12 foundational principles of Agile project management:

• Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through the early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development . Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
• Deliver working software (or products) frequently , from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale .
• Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
• Build projects around motivated individuals . Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done .
• The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation .
• Working software (and products) are the primary measure of progress.
• Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
• Simplicity —the art of maximizing the amount of work not done— is essential .
• The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams .
• At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

Read more: Agile Software Development Methodology & Principles

Comparing Agile to Traditional Project Management

Agile vs waterfall: fast facts.

Agile and Waterfall are two of the most well-recognized project management methodologies today. The two methods are often referenced as opposites, but the relationship between Waterfall and Agile is more complex than that. 

Here are a few fast facts about Agile and Waterfall:

• The Agile methodology was created as a response to some of the limitations that fast-moving project teams faced when navigating projects using more traditional methods, namely, Waterfall.
• Teams are not exclusively limited to the use of one methodology over another. While one project may require the rigid structure of Waterfall, another may require the flexibility of Agile.
• Moreover, hybrid approaches combining Agile and Waterfall are possible in project management. In select circumstances, project teams may find great success in combining specific guidelines from Waterfall and Agile.

Overall, there are 6 main factors to consider when comparing Agile and Waterfall.

Read more: Agile vs Waterfall: What’s the Difference?

Popular Agile Frameworks

Defining frameworks in project management.

Project management frameworks represent a smaller subset of project management methodologies that provide more room for application. Whereas project management methodologies represent rigid rules and practices for completing a project, frameworks operate as a subset of methodologies, offering more flexible adaptations of how those rules can be applied in project management. Kanban

The Kanban framework is based on the Japanese word kanban , meaning visual card. Fittingly, the Kanban framework uses a card-like layout to represent each task within a project, dividing the project as a whole into three categories: to-do, in progress, and completed. As tasks hit milestones, they are moved under the category that reflects their current status, which makes it easy for project teams to visualize where individual tasks are in the larger project lifecycle. 

Whereas Kanban largely focuses on project visualization and task management strategies for applying Agile, Scrum breaks down projects into smaller “sprints” of time that are isolated from the rest of the project. Once these periods of time are divided, a unique form of project manager, called a Scrum Master, helps guide the team through each Sprint and facilitates significant Agile Scrum ceremonies . The Scrum framework also outlines other unique meeting types, roles, and more. 

eXtreme Programming (XP)

XP is an Agile framework geared toward software development teams that aims to help teams overcome common challenges in creating software. XP has 12 supporting processes that help outline the framework: 

• Planning game 
• Small releases 
• Customer acceptance tests 
• Simple design 
• Pair programming 
• Test-driven development 
• Refactoring 
• Continuous integration 
• Collective code ownership 
• Coding standards 
• Metaphor 
• Sustainable pace

Pros and Cons of Agile

History of Agile Project Management

Agile project management came about as a response to the 1990s technology boom when developers of new technologies realized the limitations of methodologies, like Waterfall, that were not designed to produce a tangible product quickly. 

In response, a group of 17 developers met in Snowbird, Utah, to discuss ideas together as “organizational anarchists” seeking to find a better way. After three days of discussion, they settled on the foundational ideas of modern Agile project management. 

Agile has gone on to become one of the most frequently methodologies, and at present, several Agile project management software tools are available to help make the application of this approach smooth for project teams.

Read more: What is Project Management?

Who is Agile best for?

While Agile may not be the best choice for every team or every project, there are a variety of situations where Agile practices can be a great fit:

• When project parameters are uncertain or rapidly changing
• Ongoing projects without a predetermined timeline
• For projects or teams that need a high degree of flexibility
• Software development teams and product developers who need a working product ASAP
• For teams who are facilitating collaboration between multiple teams (such as developers and marketing personnel)

When should Agile NOT be used?

Agile is a powerful methodology, but it isn’t the best choice in every situation. Here are some examples of situations where Agile should not be used:

• Projects or teams that need a very predictable project timeline
• Projects or teams that need clear project outcomes and a high level of documentation
• Projects with strict budgets
• Teams that struggle to self-organize or struggle with unpredictable staffing

Can I use the Agile methodology in combination with another methodology?

 In short, yes. Hybrid approaches to projects often happen when a team wants to include certain parameters of a project management methodology, but not others.

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What Is Agile Project Management? The Ultimate Guide

Updated: May 29, 2024, 4:07pm

As an entrepreneur, you probably spend your day trying to hit many different moving targets. Your client wants one thing on Monday and something else on Wednesday. New emerging technologies or competitors force you to make adjustments. Hitting a moving target would be much easier if you could adjust your shot after you pull the trigger.

Enter Agile project management. Agile project management is a popular methodology for tracking various roles, responsibilities, deadlines and other factors of a project. When used properly, Agile can save organizations a great deal of time, frustration and money. Here’s how it works.

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What Is Agile?

Agile is an iterative, introspective and adaptive project management methodology. In an Agile practice, a project is broken up into sub-projects. These are typically referred to as sprints. At the end of each sprint, stakeholders and the team review their work, make adjustments for the next sprint, and repeat until complete. The point of Agile is the constant, incremental delivery of value throughout the project, instead of all at once at the end.

Agile project management has its roots in software development. Development cycles are much shorter now than they used to be. Software developers could take years to bring a product to market. In some cases, the software was obsolete before it could get into consumers’ hands.

Traditional project management structures were in part to blame. They are very rigid and linear. It is difficult to adapt to problems that arise and nothing is released until all the work is complete.

The framework addresses many business problems by embracing the chaos. It is designed to account for the fact that you will run into unexpected problems. It knows that, inevitably, you’re going to have to make a change to get to your desired outcome.

Agile allows your team to take aim at a general direction, build something then reassess the situation. Many teams both in and out of the software industry find this approach helpful in accomplishing difficult, complex tasks.

Agile Project Management: An Example

Let’s say you’re building an app. A product owner takes input from stakeholders. These can be executives, customers or both. They’ll say something such as, “We want an app where users can create and sell widgets to each other.” From these interactions, the product owners create a backlog. The backlog is a list of all tasks that need to be completed to achieve the overarching goal.

Next, the team holds a pre-sprint meeting. They review the backlog and determine how much work they can take on. Once they commit to the work and divvy it up, the sprint begins. A sprint typically takes a few weeks, but no longer than a month. At the beginning of each day, the team will meet for a stand-up meeting. These are brief, everyone stands up (to ensure the meeting is brief), and you review the previous day’s work and make adjustments if needed.

At the end of the sprint, the team and stakeholders review progress, commit their work, make adjustments for the next sprint and reiterate. This continues until the overarching goal is reached.

In basic terms, Agile is all about breaking up complex tasks into simple sprints. When used correctly, they can make a huge difference in your team’s productivity and morale.

The Agile Manifesto

Like most great theories, Agile is presented in a manifesto. Here, the forgers of Manifesto for Agile Software Development (commonly known as the Agile Manifesto) define the four core values and 12 principles of Agile project management.

Agile project management requires highly collaborative, flexible teams that can deliver constant value through each iteration. This makes sense, considering that Agile is inherently introspective, and focused on constant fine-tuning to optimize results.

Four Core Values of Agile Project Management

The four core values to Agile include:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

12 Principles of Agile Project Management

The 12 principles of the methodology build upon these values, according to the Agile Manifesto:

• The highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
• Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference for the shorter timescale.
• Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
• Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
• The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
• Working software is the primary measure of progress.
• Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
• Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential.
• The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
• At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

Different Kinds of Agile Project Management Methodologies

The Agile family tree of project management methodologies has many branches. All the Agile project management theories adhere to the main tenets of Agile, but they do so in subtly different ways. We won’t go over the entire family here. But we will discuss two of the most popular flavors of Agile.

The founders of Scrum define it as “a lightweight framework that helps people, teams and organizations generate value through adaptive solutions for complex problems.” Scrum is built on the ideas that we learn by doing, waste should be minimized, and we should focus on what’s most important. Scrum should be leveraged against a team of multi-tool players who collectively create increments of value through each iteration.

In a Scrum practice, the Scrum team is made up of a product owner, a Scrum Master, and the development team. The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the end goal, while the Scrum Master is responsible for maintaining Scrum and getting the most out of the development team. The development team does the work.

Scrum is the most popular Agile method. In survey results presented in the 14th Annual State of Agile Report , 75% of respondents said they practice Scrum or a Scrum-hybrid.

Kanban relies on visualizations and controls to track and manage the workload. A basic Kanban board is made up of three columns: “Request”, “In Progress” and “Done”. But many companies will create columns for each step in their workflow.

Each project is visualized as cards on the Kanban board, and progresses through each column until the work is complete. A “work in progress” (WIP) limitation is created and applied to each column to prevent the team from stretching themselves too thin by committing too much work. From there, it’s a matter of maintaining a steady, sustainable pace, and adjusting as needed to optimize processes.

According to the 14th State of Technology, 63% of respondents said that they used Kanban in their organizations.

Leverage Agile in Your Environment

Agile project management isn’t a one-size-fits-all methodology. The efficacy of Agile depends on the goals you are trying to achieve. If you’re shooting at a stationary target and cannot deviate from a predefined path, then Agile might not be your best bet. But if you are trying to hit a moving target and you need to get the most out of the time and resources at your disposal, then Agile might be the answer to your problems.

The people on your team are also something you should consider before implementing Agile. Culture and buy-in is a big deal, and the wrong culture and a lack of buy-in are leading causes for Agile to fail, according to the State of Agile Report. But more importantly, people are a central component of Agile. You need a team of multi-tool players that can work together, adapt to changes, and stay focused on the goal.

If you decide Agile isn’t right for your team, consider implementing one of the other project management methodologies .

Frequently Asked Questions

Are agile project management certificates worth it.

While you don’t need to get certified to implement agile into your own business, getting agile project management certifications can help you improve your skills and advance your career.

Is Agile for software development only?

No. Others have found success with Agile—or at least using certain components of Agile—outside of software development. Folks in the automotive, R&D, and other industries have found success in Agile. Stand-up meetings are common in a variety of work environments, from restaurants to boardrooms. Kanban boards are popping up everywhere, like on whiteboards at law offices and on windows in property management offices.

Are there certifications for Agile Project Management?

Yes. You can earn Agile project management certificates from a variety of accredited colleges and universities, as well as through professional and trade organizations.

Do I need to buy a project management tool to implement Agile project management into my business?

You don’t need to purchase specialized Agile project management solutions to deploy or be successful with Agile. However, there are a wealth of project management solutions that can enhance, augment, and improve your Agile practice.

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Agile project management: Principles, benefits, tools, tips, and when to make the switch

Geared toward continuous improvement, the agile methodology can greatly increase your project’s prospects for success. here is everything you need to know about agile project management, from certification to training to software and more..

Agile project management definition

Agile project management is a methodology used primarily in software development that favors flexibility and collaboration, incorporating customer feedback throughout the project life cycle. The methodology takes an iterative approach to development, breaking down work into small, manageable cycles called “sprints” to focus on continuous improvement in the development of a product or service.

In addition to emphasizing iterative development, in which each sprint results in a potentially shippable increment, agile project management incorporates cross-functional teams who work closely with stakeholders in a process that allows for adjustments as requirements evolve and formalizes feedback loops at the end of each sprint.

Agile project management vs. traditional project management

Agile project management differs from traditional project management, often called waterfall, in a number of ways. Whereas waterfall follows a more rigid, linear approach in which requirements are gathered up front, agile project management’s emphasis on iterative development allows for adaptability and flexibility along the way. Agile’s sprint methodology also differs from traditional project management, which typically advances in distinct phases, from requirements gathering to implementation to deployment.

Agile’s approach to customer feedback also affords more continuous collaboration with stakeholders to better align deliverables to end-user needs. Whereas waterfall typically divides team members into siloed roles, agile project management is cross-functional with team members often taking on more than one distinct role. Although agile does value documentation, it is not as heavily emphasized as it is in traditional project management, for which documentation is often very detailed and assembled in advance.

Compared to traditional project management, agile provides project teams, sponsors, project leaders, and customers many project-specific benefits, including:

• More rapid deployment of solutions
• Reduced waste through minimization of resources
• Increased flexibility and adaptability to change
• Increased success through more focused efforts
• Faster turnaround times
• Faster detection of issues and defects
• Optimized development processes
• A lighter weight framework
• Optimal project control
• Increased focus on specific customer needs
• Increased frequency of collaboration and feedback

When to use agile project management

As with any other methodology, however, agile is not well-suited for every project, and sufficient due diligence is always recommended to identify the  best methodology for each unique situation . Agile project management is most effective when a project’s requirements are not fully discernible from the outset or are likely to evolve over the project’s duration. It is also a good fit when regular feedback is necessary or would be beneficial for aligning deliverables to customer needs. Agile project management is also a strong choice when time-to-market is essential or when dealing with projects of high complexity, as agile’s cross-functional, iterative approach enables teams to deliver solutions quicker while addressing issues as they arise.

Agile may not work as intended if a customer is not clear on goals, the project manager or team is inexperienced, or if they do not function well under significant pressure. Throughout the development process, agile favors the developers, project teams and customer goals, but not necessarily the end user’s experience. Due to its less formal and more flexible processes, agile may not always be easily absorbed within larger more traditional organizations where there are significant amounts of rigidity or flexibility within processes, policies, or teams. It may also face problems being used with customers who similarly have rigid processes or operating methods, or on projects subject to strict regulation and documentation, those with fixed contracts and scope, or environments in which stakeholder feedback is unavailable or feedback participation is likely to meet resistance.

The benefits of agile

Agile was originally developed for the software industry to streamline and improve the development process in an effort to rapidly identify and adjust for issues and defects. It provides a way for developers and teams to deliver a better product, in a faster manner, through short, iterative, interactive sessions/sprints. In the era of digital transformation, with many companies migrating to a digital workplace, agile is a perfect fit for organizations looking to transform how they manage projects and operate as a whole. Agile can help ensure company-wide process and methodological alignment. In terms of business benefits, both the digital workplace and agile provide:

• Increased flexibility
• Increased productivity
• Increased transparency
• Higher quality deliverables
• Decreased risk of missed objectives
• Increased stakeholder engagement and satisfaction

Agile project management principles

There are 12 key principles that still guide agile project management today:

• Customer satisfaction is always the highest priority and is achieved through rapid and continuous delivery.
• Changing environments are embraced at any stage of the process to provide the customer with a competitive advantage.
• A product or service is delivered with higher frequency.
• Stakeholders and developers collaborate closely on a daily basis.
• All stakeholders and team members remain motivated for optimal project outcomes, while teams are provided with all the necessary tools and support, and are trusted to accomplish project goals.
• Face-to-face meetings are deemed the most efficient and effective format for project success.
• A final working product is the ultimate measure of success.
• Sustainable development is accomplished through agile processes whereby development teams and stakeholders are able to maintain a constant and ongoing pace.
• Agility is enhanced through a continuous focus on technical excellence and proper design.
• Simplicity is an essential element.
• Self-organizing teams are most likely to develop the best architectures and designs and to meet requirements.
• Regular intervals are used by teams to improve efficiency through fine-tuning behaviors.

Organizational hurdles to adopting agile

Organizations looking to adopt agile for project management my encounter any of a number of common hurdles, such as the following:

• A company structure or culture that does not adequately support agile: Although project teams may be ready for agile development, the rest of the company may not be on board. Sponsors, executives, and functional leaders must also buy into and support agile for it to be truly effective.
• Unclear understanding of the impact to the overall business goals: Simply executing projects using agile methodology isn’t enough to reap the desired benefits. Projects can still be executed in ways that don’t provide the entire business with the results that help achieve sustainable growth. Strategic alignment is still critical.
• Rushed testing cycles: Sprints can create a risk of rushed testing cycles. In the process of trying to get through sprints as quickly as possible, teams can become more focused on the timeline and miss simple aspects of the testing cycle, which can have potential significant repercussions. Defects can go undetected or are detected too late.
• Limited agile skill: Although agile is rapidly taking root, top agile talent can be hard to find and attract. Limited agile talent means limited benefits for companies wanting to execute projects using this methodology.

For a deeper look at how to make the shift, see “ Agile project management: 16 tips for a smooth switch to agile .”

For insights into how organizations go wrong with agile, see “ 7 simple ways to fail at agile ” and “ 5 misconceptions CIOs still have about agile .”

Popular agile methodologies

Within agile there are some frequently used or  popular methods , with Scrum,  Kanban , and Lean being the most popular. Some agile methods include:

• Dynamic System Development Model, (DSDM)
• Extreme Programming (XP)
• Adaptive software development (ASD)
• Agile Unified Process (AUP)
• Crystal Clear methods
• Disciplined agile delivery
• Feature-driven development (FDD)
• RAD(Rapid Application Development)

To find out which methodology is right for your project or organization, see “ Comparing agile project management frameworks .”

Combining agile with other methodologies

The opportunity exists to combine agile with other methodologies such as waterfall to create a hybrid solution. Companies sometimes use waterfall to handle one or more phases — such as planning — where these do not require rapid or repetitive steps. Planning in particular requires a more comprehensive, methodical, often slower approach to defining, analyzing, and documenting aspects of a project. This makes waterfall a better approach. Once a project enters the development phase, rapid and repetitive changes require a different approach and this is where agile kicks in to deliver the best results in the shortest amount of time.

This hybrid approach aids in making agile even more adaptable within various industries or to suit the more unique nature of a project, product, or service.  Again, due diligence is required to determine the suitability and capacity of the different methods and processes available.

Agile project management and Scrum

Scrum is a powerful framework for implementing agile processes in software development and other projects. This highly adopted framework utilizes short iterations of work, called sprints, and daily meetings, called scrums, to tackle discrete portions of a project in succession until the project as a whole is complete. There are three key roles within Scrum: the  Scrum master , product owner, and Scrum team members:

• The product owner creates and prioritizes a product backlog (work to be done).
• Teams select items from the backlog and determine how to complete the work.
• Work must be completed within a sprint (usually two to four weeks).
• The Scrum master meets with teams briefly each day to get progress updates.
• Sprint reviews are conducted at the end of each sprint.
• The process starts again until all work or backlog is complete.

Agile project management tools, templates and resources

There are also many templates available from companies like Microsoft that project managers can use rather than re-creating the wheel. Here are just a few among several others available from Microsoft: 

• Agile glossary
• Agile process guides
• Use agile in Microsoft Project

Agile project management software vendors also typically have built-in agile templates in their software.

Agile project management software

Companies using agile are likely to leverage software geared to agile development in order to get the full benefits of this methodology. Here are just some of the agile solutions available:

• Atlassian Jira + Agile : This is an agile project management tool that supports Scrum, Kanban, and mixed methodologies. This project management software comes with a comprehensive set of tools that help Scrum teams perform events with ease.
• Agilean : Agilean automates workflow management for small and midsize IT companies fitting different verticals. It is customizable and has 50 built-in templates.
• SprintGround: This is a project management tool created for developers to organize work and help them track progress.
• VersionOne : This project management solution is built to support the  Scaled Agile Framework  at all levels.

For a deeper look at agile project management software options, see “ Top 11 agile tools for project management .”

Key agile skills

There are six key agile project management skills or attributes that all project managers should have:

• An ability to cut through unnecessary work and focus only on essential work
• Sound judgment under pressure and the ability to remain calm under stress
• Strong motivation and coaching skill to guide and support teams throughout a project
• Exceptional organizational abilities to keep everything straight and prioritize
• The ability to think and make decisions quickly as circumstances change rapidly
• A high level of adaptability in order to accept change and reduce unnecessary confusion and risk

Agile project management certification and training

As agile methodology picks up speed, so does the demand for professionals with agile knowledge and experience. Here are the most popular agile-focused certs for benchmarking your knowledge.

• Agile Programme Management (AgilePgM)
• Agile Project Management (AgilePM)
• Professional Scrum Master (PSM)
• Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO)
• Certified Agile Project Manager
• SAFe Agilist
• SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager
• SAFe Scrum Master
• Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
• ICAgile Agile Fundamentals (ICP)
• ICAgile Agile Product Ownership (ICP-APO)
• ICAgile Agile Team Facilitation (ICP-ATF)
• ICAgile Business Agility Foundations (ICP-BAF)
• ICAgile Agile Project and Delivery Management (ICP-APM)
• PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)

For a more in-depth look at these certs, see “ Top 16 agile certifications available today .”

The future of agile

As competition is continually increasing and time to market is also shrinking, agile offers numerous benefits and limited drawbacks. As more companies make the shift to a digital workplace that is highly dependent on speed, flexibility and increased productivity, agile or hybrid methodologies will become increasingly necessary. Its application in multiple industries and alignment with the benefits offered by a digital workplace model, indicate that agile adoption rates will continue to increase across industries around the world.

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Are you looking to learn about Agile project management ?

Agile project management is a modern project management approach that breaks your project down into smaller, more manageable chunks. You work on each of these chunks during 1-2 week intervals called sprints, helping you easily incorporate customer feedback and make project changes.

As a result, a number of companies have started adopting the Agile approach, making it one of the most common project management methodologies today. Agile adoption within software development teams increased from 37% in 2020 to 86% in 2021.

However, what is Agile project management exactly ?

We have everything you need to know about managing agile projects it in this article.

Looking for an easy way to manage your Agile team all in one place? Get ClickUp’s Agile Management Template for free here!

What Is Agile Project Management?

Why does traditional software development fail, what are the benefits of agile project management.

• Which Companies Follow Agile Project Management?

What Are The 12 Principles Of Agile?

What is the structure of an agile team.

• What are The Different Agile Project Management Methods?

How Does Agile Project Management Work?

Roadblocks with agile methodologies.

Let’s get started!

Agile project management is a modern project management method that dramatically improves the efficiency, adaptability, and success rate of projects. It breaks your project down into short 2-week development cycles called sprints.

Agile is really successful because it actively involves customers in the development process by creating continuous feedback loops for them.  Recent project management solutions have started to incorporate Agile functionalities and features to help facilitate this improvement in productivity.

What are the differences between traditional project management and Agile?

Tr aditional project management methods like Waterfall involve working for months (and even years) at a stretch to deliver a final working product. In Agile, however, there are continuous releases of the working software every one or two weeks. 

Sure, adopting Waterfall lets you work uninterrupted, but it’s putting a whole lot of faith in yourself! Are you really that sure that your customers are going to love all of the features you’ve spent months/years on? 

Agile techniques help your team make quick modifications to your project in line with changing customer needs and project realities.

Unlike traditional project management methods like the Waterfall methodology , Agile embraces change and welcomes customer feedback and user stories into its development process . Adaptability, productivity, and customer focus are the core facets of it.

That’s why it’s called Agile!

Check out our detailed comparison of Agile vs Waterfall , to get a better idea of how these methodologies differ .

Traditional methods are nearly guaranteed to exceed their budgets and timelines. Moreover, customers are always less satisfied with software built with this approach.

There are two major reasons why it’s faulty:

1. Unrealistic and rigid plans

“Here’s the annual plan . Do this”

Essentially, that’s how traditional software development works.

A cross-functional group of senior leaders will decide what the software should look like and determine a timeline and budget. They will tell the project manager to make a project plan to complete the project within those time and budget constraints.

However, top-down plans are unrealistic because they don’t consider the inputs of those people who will actually do hands-on work on the project. 

Rigid plans are also counterproductive because they make it difficult to quickly change the work when something goes wrong. Besides, they also put enormous pressure on the developers, which affects their productivity.

Want to stay productive when working from home but not sure how to? Here are 10 tips to help you out .

2. Incorrect assumptions

Every project begins with a vision of what the output is supposed to look like. This vision is based on certain assumptions about what would be most useful to the customer.

But that’s all they are: assumptions.

After the project initiation , you might find that several of these assumptions turn out to be different from the facts. And when you deliver the project, the customers might change their minds about what they want. 

Which can make you tear your hair out, we get it.

That’s a completely acceptable reaction.

However, that’s also perfectly normal customer behavior too . Customers can’t be expected to be 100% clear about what they want. 

Only once they experience the product can they truly offer meaningful feedback.  

The truth is, human beings are not great at predicting what they want. 

The only way a customer will actually know what’s useful to them is through actually using the product.

A common challenge in traditional development is that you spend months building a tool based on assumptions about what your customers want.

And if you are wrong? 

Your customers reject your product, and you lose millions in dollars of project work.

This waste was all too commonplace before companies started implementing Agile methodologies.

With numerous acceptance tests , Agile helps you work closely with end-users and change the direction of the project based on their feedback. This makes a massive difference to the success and quality of the final products. 

You’re literally building a product for the customers and by the customers!

Why break up your work?

As you’re breaking down your project into smaller segments, it helps you quickly release each segment to your customer base when it’s completed. This helps you get instant customer feedback for each sprint and make any necessary changes and fixes immediately. 

How does this help?

With continuous improvement and the continuous integration of product features based on customer feedback, there’s a lower chance of delivering something that doesn’t match your customer’s final expectations. Additionally, as you’re making the changes immediately, you’re creating self-organizing teams that manage themselves.

How long are sprints?

Unlike the Waterfall approach , Agile sprints are usually short and run between two to four weeks. This short turnaround time ensures that things move quickly, and you implement feedback as soon as possible.

Ever wonder why the Agile project management method is so popular?

It’s because the project management methodology works !

Here’s a closer look at a few of the numerous benefits you get when you switch to an Agile framework :

1. Better customer satisfaction

Unlike other management methodologies, a high degree of customer satisfaction is Agile’s project success metric. 

Instead of assuming what a customer may want or need, the Agile approach actively collaborates with them to give them a product they’re happy with. This is largely down to the sprint-based approach, where you have regular intervals to accommodate user stories and opinions at all project stages.

2. More adaptability

Unlike other project management methodologies, Agile welcomes change. 

It’s an extremely adaptable project management methodology , allowing you to deal with sudden project scope and feature changes with ease!

Confused about what project scope is? Learn more about project scopes.

3. On-time and budget

Adaptability helps project teams develop collaborative decision making to make tradeoffs between time and budget constraints over project goals . Consequently, projects experience faster turnaround times and stay within budget.

Cost savings and time savings?

Talk about the best of both worlds!

4. Better teamwork

As this methodology prioritizes face-to-face collaboration, it results in better teamwork. Everyone actively works together to make the customer happy and accommodate user stories. 

Additionally, Scrum meetings are the perfect place for your team to build chemistry and resolve any pending issues or queries. 

5. Increased motivation

Agile’s sprint-based approach is the perfect way to boost team morale . As they only work on smaller, short-term project goals , they can complete them quickly and feel a sense of achievement. This will motivate them to carry on and complete more sprints faster!

Look at it like this:

Since you’re splitting your project into shorter, more achievable deliverables, you can complete more deliverables. And that means rewarding yourself more.

Bonus: Check out our guides on Agile Metrics & KPIs & Agile Story Points ! 💜

Which Companies Follow Agile Project Management ?

The popularity of the Agile approach has exploded in the past decade and is widely applied in managing software development work . 

It’s now followed by companies, including Fortune 100 companies (IBM) mid-sized companies (Red Hat) to startups (ClickUp).

Although Agile is primarily used in software development, it’s also used in domains such as professional services, manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, etc.

Get the top Agile project management tips from Agile experts

The Agile Manifesto is a document that was developed by Jeff Sutherland and Martin Fowler. It’s a body of knowledge that defines what the Agile methodology stands for and what its guiding principles are.

• Customer satisfaction must always be your highest priority. The only way to do this is through early and continuous test-driven, sustainable development.
• Always embrace changing product requirements , even if they’re at the latter stages of the development process. These iterative (recurring) changes help you target a customer’s needs and wants better
• Deliver working results like products and services frequently. That’s the only way to get continual customer feedback and adapt the next version in line with what customers genuinely need 
• The primary mark of a successful project is a working product or working solution that satisfies a customer’s needs
• Aim for test-driven sustainable development. Your agile team must be able to maintain constant pace and high quality work indefinitely
• Continuous dedication to technical excellence will help you adapt to customer feedback and deliver a final product that satisfies their needs
• Team members and project stakeholders must actively collaborate for continuous improvement. Actively working together is the only way to get a clear, shared understanding to implement customer feedback
• Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the support and environment they need to get the work done
• Face-to-face conversation, in person, is the most efficient way to collaborate over projects. After all, we’re all a little tired of video meetings, right now!
• The best project work comes from self-organizing teams. When teams can manage themselves, they need less supervision, and your project can progress faster
• Simplicity is a core element of the Agile framework. Simplicity can be viewed as cutting down any unnecessary steps and procedures from your general management process
• Remember to constantly evaluate your team’s progress at regular intervals. Use this to fine-tune your future sprints and processes

How do these principles help ?

The Agile Manifesto gives you a very clear measure of what a successful product should be. As long as it satisfies your customers’ wants, it’s a good product. By emphasizing a sustainable incremental and iterative approach to software development, you can support constant changes without getting bogged down or burn out. This will help you maintain high-quality work

As your team is constantly in touch with your customers, there’s no chance of them misunderstanding what your customers really need from a product 

Additionally, by following an adaptive project framework for changing requirements, you’re able to give customers their priority items first, even if they’ve only informed you of this later on. No more hyperventilating after last-minute change requests! 

As you cut down on unnecessary steps and processes, it’s easier to speed things up to cope with changing project demands

What are the 4 core values of Agile?

The 4 core values of the Agile method are:

• Customer collaboration is key
• Embrace change
• Individuals over software
• Working software over extensive documentation

Here’s a breakdown of each one:

A. Customer collaboration is key

The manifesto for Agile also prioritizes customer satisfaction over contract negotiation .

This Agile value states that the only way to truly satisfy the customer is to continuously involve them in the test-driven development process .

Your project team must routinely turn to your customer base for hands-on experience on how the product is shaping up. It’s then up to your team to tweak your project as per your customer’s recommendations. 

This constant collaboration process is the only way to create a final product that meets your customer’s product requirements .

Sure, you could try and simply read their minds to find out what they want, but we’re not sure about how successful that’ll be!

B. Embrace change

Most other project management methodologies view change as an unnecessary spike in project cost . This makes agile the best project management methodology for non-profits , especially for those planning events !

However, that’s not the case with the Agile projects.

The Agile Manifesto understands that change is the only way to eliminate waste and achieve continuous improvement . 

That’s because initial assumptions about a project often prove to be incorrect. And when that’s the case, trying to fit the project requirements to those faulty assumptions leads to inferior products that no one really wants!

*ahem* foldable smartphones *ahem*

That’s why every Agile sprint gives your team ample opportunities to review every project development phase and make easy changes to them, offering you greater flexibility.

C. Individuals over software

One of the major benefits of the Agile Manifesto is that it prioritizes individuals and interactions over the software products and processes.

Because, no matter how complex and advanced your Agile tools and Agile processes get, there’ll always be a human element attached to it. And it is this human element that’s integral to understanding customer needs and adapting to them

D. Working software over extensive documentation

Agile prioritizes delivering working software or a working prototype over carefully documenting everything. 

For example, when you’re under time constraints, Agile practices emphasize on value delivery , i.e. delivering a final finished product over documenting what you are doing for future reference.

You can always document things later, but if you don’t prioritize delivering the end product, you’ll miss your deadline!

However, that doesn’t mean this project methodology views documentation as useless. While it doesn’t prioritize it to the extent that the Waterfall approach does, documentation is essential for reviewing sprints and trying to optimize them.

You need something to look back on and be proud of, right?

If you want a more detailed look at these values, check out our detailed guide on Agile values .

An Agile team is usually a small unit with a product owner leading the way, helping the team understand what the customers need. The project manager, in turn, is in charge of making the development team members do their job properly.

However, the best thing about the Agile methodology is that it’s adaptable to your entire business setup. That’s why you’ll rarely find two Agile practitioner companies with the exact same team setup!

Want more clarity on how Agile teams work? Here’s our complete guide .

What are The Different Agile Project Management Method s ?

There are tons of variations on the Agile project management methodology . 

However, four of the most popular are:

• Extreme Programming

Here’s a small breakdown of each:

1. Scrum project management 

Scrum project management is a popular Agile development method . 

The Scrum framework is characterized by:

• A Scrum master (project manager) and a self-organizing Scrum team  
• Breaking down the entire project life cycle of a product into separate time boxes called sprints
• A Scrum team which works in sprints that last from one to four weeks
• Cross-functional groups with overlapping responsibilities
• Best For : Longer projects that constantly evolve and change. For example, developing a new software product when you’re unsure of what users want

At ClickUp, we love Scrum. It’s one of the reasons why we also love writing about it!

For a quick brief on it, check out our article comparing Agile vs Scrum .

And if you’re really curious about Scrum, we have tons of resources explaining what it is and how it works. 

To get started, we recommend these articles:

What is Scrum project management?

What is a Scrum master?

What are Scrum roles?

What are Scrum artifacts?

What are Scrum values?

Kanban is a visual-first Agile methodology that just happens to sound like Marie Kondo’s newest organizing technique.

The Kanban methodology is characterized by:

• Prioritizing the amount of work that’s in progress over everything else
• Always visualizing your workflows for simpler task scheduling and management
• Not having a timeboxed development life cycle
• Best For : Managing projects where priorities regularly change , and work-in-progress tasks may be abandoned

Here are our in-depth guides on Kanban project management and Kanban boards .

3. Lean software development

Lean software development is another frequently-used Agile project management method. As you might have guessed from it’s name, it’s all about removing unnecessary excess from your projects.

Here’s a quick look at some of the Lean principles :

• Minimizing wasteful and unnecessary activities at all project stages
• Focusing on value provided to the end customer and optimizing the whole rather than small parts
• Simplifying and shortening the software development life cycle
• Empowering individual team members to work on project activities themselves (something not usually present in a Waterfall project)
• Best For : Simplifying current processes and delivering only what is valuable (not everything possible). For example, when your development times are too high, and users aren’t adopting new features, use the Lean principles to solve this

In case you were wondering what those principles were, here’s our guide on Lean principles .

4. XP ( Extreme Programming )

The Extreme Programming form of Agile project management is characterized by:

• Focusing on the technical aspects of software development in particular
• Setting up consistent project stages for software developers
• Prioritizing face-to-face conversation within cross-functional teams
• Best For : Most complex software development projects

If you’re curious about XP, here’s our article on what XP is in Agile .

The Agile project management method can be broken down into two distinct processes: planning and sprints .

Here’s a step-by-step guide to both:

1. Project planning

As with any other methodology , the Agile process starts with project planning meetings . 

However, unlike the Waterfall approach , the Agile method emphasizes agility and minimal waste. 

That’s why your Agile planning stage shouldn’t be needlessly drawn-out and detailed. Just follow these three simple steps:

Project vision statement

This is a quick description of your project’s scope, project milestones , and deliverables. It’ll highlight the product vision, the targeted product specifications, and how it will satisfy customer needs.

Product roadmap

Your product roadmap highlights all the features you’re planning to add to the product specifications . It’ll also mention how each of these features is beneficial and how it helps the customer. 

Most roadmaps also include a rough timeline of when each feature is expected to be released.

Product backlog

A product backlog contains all the items in your product roadmap. However, this isn’t a concrete list of backlog items. Most teams add features to this backlog as changes are made, and new features are requested.

Unlike the Waterfall methodology, the Agile process prioritizes change. That’s why you should never view your project plan and backlog as unchangeable. Instead, look at it as a rough blueprint that you’ll keep editing as an agile project moves along.

Here are two other key concepts to keep in mind:

Release plan

Each project will have several release plans at progressive stages. Each of these plans will include a set of features to be released during a specific development cycle, called a sprint. It’s like a roadmap for your customers, giving them an idea of what’s to come (and what to be excited about!)

This is the deliverable at the end of the Agile sprint , such as a new feature that’s been developed.

Sprints are the backbone of any Agile process. They’re short development cycles that can range from a few days to even a couple of weeks. 

Here’s how they help:

• They break your project into smaller, more manageable parts. Instead of looking at one long-term goal, your team breaks the project into smaller increments that are more achievable. This, in turn, leads to continuous delivery and increased feelings of achievement and motivation!
• Sprints give your team the opportunity to constantly re-evaluate your project at every single development phase . This makes it easier for you to accommodate customer feedback and change things around

There are also four key meetings associated with sprints. Here’s a brief breakdown of each:

Sprint planning

Sprint planning sessions begin with your project team agreeing on the project goals and deliverables associated with it. They’ll go over who needs to perform which task and the expected timebox for this sprint. During the sprint planning stage, the sprint backlog is created.

The back log is the back bone of your project!

To understand this better, check our detailed article on sprint backlogs .

Daily Scrum meetings

Daily stand-up Scrum meetings are a core part of the Scrum framework. 

This Scrum meeting is usually a short 15-minute face-to-face conversation that gives your scrum teams a daily status update on what’s going on.

In the Scrum methodology, these are meetings that your software teams have on a daily basis, to discuss the previous day’s developments and plan ahead. They’ll go over roadblocks faced, things they learned, and any additions to the backlog.

Sprint review

The sprint review is a meeting where the teams present the project deliverables of an Agile sprint to the project sponsor, other stakeholders, and the customers. The product owner plays an active role here and will gather feedback from the stakeholder and customers and update the product backlog accordingly.

For a comprehensive look at this meeting, here’s our article on sprint reviews.

Sprint retrospective

The sprint retrospective takes place at the end of each sprint. It’s where the project team goes over the entire process to find out what worked and what didn’t. It’s a great way to determine what needs to change in future sprints to achieve optimal customer satisfaction. 

Learn more about sprint retrospectives.

3. User stories

Another big element of the Agile method is creating user stories around the features or products you’re working on. It forces developers, project owners, and product managers to go on a joint effort to think about how the user will respond when using the feature.

This way, you’re putting yourself into the shoes of your customers instead of thinking for them. We wouldn’t be surprised if Agile teams scored super high on empathy tests as a result!

Typically, user stories are short and descriptive statements. This can be stored in your task description with the feature you’re working on, or in the list description in ClickUp .

Here’s a basic example of a user story:

As a <<user>>, I want <<to do this>> so that <<I achieve this>> .

With user stories, the conversation changes from writing detailed requirements to discussing how the feature will be used and what it can do. 

When writing user stories, ask, “What will the user do, and what will it help them accomplish?” 

Sometimes this will be different for the various use cases . Oftentimes, teams will do this activity together, along with every relevant stakeholder (like the project sponsor ) towards the beginning of a project or sprint. 

If you want a detailed look at how all these parts come together, check out our article explaining Agile software development and the Agile environmen t .

While Agile project management is one of the most useful management methodologies, an Agile environment doesn’t suit every team or organizational structure.

Here are three cases against Agile adoption:

• If your executive team and project managers are inexperienced and unaccustomed to dealing with sudden changes
• If your company’s management team is culturally more comfortable working with rigid, standard work processes
• If your company takes a wild wild west approach to new processes and without setting up best practices.

However, this doesn’t mean that traditional organizations will never be able to adapt to an Agile project management environment.

Here are three things you can do to prepare yourself for an Agile environment:

Develop clear processes

Inconsistencies in agile processes and practices was voted the top agile adoption barrier for 46% of those surveyed in the State of Agile Report . If your company is going to embrace the agile methodology, make sure you have the key stakeholders in place and take an organized approach.

Consider Agile training and certifications: 

Accredited training organizations like the Project Management Institute and Agile Alliance give you the Agile coaching and resources you need to brush up on the Agile mindset . Once you get your thinking caps on and pass their PMI-ACP exam, you’ll have everything you need to become an Agile practitioner or even an Agile mentor .

For more information on this, check out the Top 7 Agile project management certifications.

Use the right Agile project management tool:

Tools like ClickUp are built for Agile project management practices. Once you start using them, you’ll have no difficulty moving on from your existing management methodologies and quickly adopting a scaled Agile framework !

Here’s our guide on the best Agile tools for a better look at what you should be working with.

It’s no secret that Agile project management is one of the world’s most popular project management methodologies.

It’s simple and quick to help your team breeze through your tasks and projects in no time! 

Additionally, as it emphasizes the change in response to customer feedback, you can rest assured that you’ll be putting out a product that your customers love.

If you’re looking to adopt Agile project management methods, why not try a software like ClickUp? 

It has everything you need to manage your projects and sprints effortlessly! Sign up for ClickUp’s forever free version today

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What are Agile Methodologies? How & When To Use Them [+Example]

Henny Portman is partner of HWP Consulting. He has 40 years of experience in the project management domain. He was the thought leader within NN Group of the PMO domain and responsible for the introduction and application of the PMO methodologies (portfolio, program and project management) across Europe and Asia. He trains, coaches and directs (senior) program, project, and portfolio managers and project sponsors and built several professional (PM(O) communities. He is an accredited P3O, PRINCE2, MSP, MoP, PRINCE2 Agile, AgilePM, and AgileSHIFT trainer, and a SPC4 SAFe consultant and trainer too. He is a P3M3 trainer and assessor and PMO Value Ring Certified Consultant (PMO Global Alliance). In addition, Henny is international speaker and author of many articles and books in the PM(O) field.

Agile methodologies represent ways of working that prioritize people, team members, and teamwork over the use of specific processes. Learn how to put them to work on your project team.

Agile methodologies are a set of flexible and iterative approaches to software development and project management. The core principles of agile methodologies prioritize collaboration, adaptability, and customer satisfaction. Instead of following a rigid, linear plan, agile embraces change and focuses on delivering smaller, incremental improvements over time.

What Are Agile Methodologies?

Agile methodologies represent ways of working that prioritize people, team members, and teamwork over the use of specific processes, and prioritizes results over sticking to specific deliverables or contracts.

They also prioritize flexibility and creating work iteratively and in increments, rather than segmented and rigid phases (a characteristic of waterfall —read more about agile vs waterfall ). 

Project planning happens continuously throughout the project, rather than all at once at the beginning. The goal is to deliver working software at each iteration or development cycle. Both software development teams and project teams more generally might choose to work this way.

The Benefits Of Agile

Some of the major benefits of agile ways of working include:

• It creates engagement between clients and end users, and increases customer satisfaction
• It can often support culture changes within organizations
• It provides more flexibility, which allows for more project control and the ability to pivot to changing customer needs or business needs
• It reduces waste in the form of meetings and activities that waste time and don’t offer value to the project or end product
• It supports faster detection of bugs and other issues, meaning a quicker turnaround time when it comes to fixing them
• It allows for more accountability and diversity of ideas

Agile Methodologies, Frameworks, & Approaches

In this article, I touch on the following methodologies, frameworks, and approaches, all of which are rooted in the agile principles .

• DevOps / (Bus)DevOps
• Design Thinking

Agile Project Management (AgilePM)

Prince2 agile.

• PMI-Agile Certified Professional (PMI-ACP)

Project Half Double

• Agile Program Management (AgilePgM)
• Scale Agile Framework (SAFe)

Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS)

Scrum at scale (s@s).

• Spotify Model
• Scaled Agile Lean Development (ScALeD)
• Agile Fluency
• Open Space Agility (OSA)
• Agility Scales
• Disciplined Agile (DA)
• Toyota Production System (TPS)

Agile Digital Services (AgileDS)

• Management of Portfolios (MoP)
• Standard for Portfolio Management (SfPfM)
• Agile Portfolio Management (AgilePfM)
• Evidence-Based Portfolio Management (E-B PfM)
• Bimodal Portfolio Management (Bimodal PfM)
• eXtreme Programming (XP)
• Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD)
• Test-driven development (TDD)
• Behavior-Driven Development (BDD)
• Feature-Driven Development (FDD)
• Experiment-Driven Development (EDD)
• User Experience Design (UX Design)
• Agile Business Analysis (AgileBA)
• Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)
• Agile Modeling (AM)

As I said, I don’t go into depth on the approaches that are geared towards the portfolio-level, engineering-level, or organizational culture. So, I’ve put in bold the methodologies that I do cover in some depth in this article. For others, you can find more detail on my blog .

A Bird’s Eye View Of The Agile Forest

To get a first impression of the different approaches, I tried to bring some structure into the jungle of approaches, methods, and frameworks. 

In the image below, which I call my “ bird’s eye view on the agile forest ”, I position the 41 best-known agile approaches in a structure (some are in more than one spot). This picture is based on a simpler version in the book Scaling Agile In Organisaties that I published in 2017.

Below, I break down the structure of the picture. 

In the dark blue boxes, we see agile approaches that are only applicable in IT-focused organizations. All other approaches are in light blue, meaning that they can be used within IT and non-IT-oriented organizations.

The approaches, frameworks, or methods are positioned within two main sections: the “one-time programs/projects” section and the “business as usual/indefinite” section. Some fit within both, so they span the entire area.

Then, the approaches, frameworks, or methods are clustered based on which level they generally operate upon: engineering, team, programme or portfolio level.

Even though it’s light blue, the team level is really applicable in both IT-oriented and non-IT-oriented product development, services development, and operations. Meanwhile, the engineering level focuses specifically on IT-oriented product development.  

I also cluster some methods based upon their target: are they product-targeted, team-targeted, or culture-targeted? The business as usual or indefinite umbrella frameworks that are used more permanently (both product-targeted and team-targeted) focus specifically on IT and product development. The culture-targeted approaches help organizations increase their agility.

A few caveats:

• I haven’t mapped all the known approaches, frameworks and methods in this figure. And, to be honest, I think there is a lot of duplication, and it’s likely that commercial drivers play a role, too, to “develop” the next kid on the block without added value in comparison with the existing approaches, frameworks or methods.
• The line between IT and non-IT applications is not set in stone . For instance, the one-time, temporary projects and programme frameworks and methods are suitable for both IT and non-IT. 

Agile Methodologies That Digital Project Managers Should Know

In this section, I’ll give an overview of some of the most important methods and approaches that digital project managers should know. All mentioned frameworks or approaches embrace the Agile Manifesto and use some form of Scrum, but they differ depending on factors such as whether they are team- or product focused, what level they’re applied on, and more.

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Team-Level Agile

When teams start working with Agile, Scrum is often chosen. This is an obvious choice, but the question is whether this is always the right choice. In this Roman Pichler blog post , the link was made with the life phase of a product. 

During the first phase of a commercial product lifecycle, in which the commercial product is finally put on the market for the first time, the uncertainty is high, and the focus is on on-time delivery of the first market-ready product. A deadline has been set and that date must be met. 

During this phase, the focus of the entire development team is on delivering a commercially marketable product. The Scrum Master helps by removing blockers for the team, streamlining the agile workflows being used, and championing the team and the project, without organizing the team itself. Scrum teams should be self-organizing.

This development process is perfect for Scrum with its iterative approach, being able to deal with uncertainty and working together on the result (the commercial product). Optionally, a second launch can take place with a next set of important functionalities, so that eventually a mature product is put on the market. 

Scrum is centered around 5 main ceremonies , which are as follows:

• Backlog grooming
• Sprint planning
• Daily scrum (also sometimes called a daily standup)
• Sprint review
• Sprint retrospective

Each ceremony is timeboxed according to the length of the sprint itself. Many of these ceremonies have been adopted (wholly or in part) by teams running other agile software development methodologies, to form a patchwork or approximation of Scrum. Read about the differences between Scrum and Kanban (covered below).

In addition to Scrum, on the team level, you will see frameworks such as Kanban (as described in the Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams), or its relatives Scrumban, DevOps, and BusDevOps. This can be used within both IT environments and non-IT environments.

During the course of the product lifecycle, we see the amount of uncertainty and requested changes decrease. At this moment you can make good use of Kanban. In a continuous flow, user stories can be picked up, developed, and deployed one by one by individual team members.

In case there is only one permanent agile team to develop and maintain a product or service, and the team uses Scrum or Kanban with a product owner who prioritizes the product backlog, you might ask if there is a need for a project manager. I would say no, leave that team alone.

Get more info on using Kanban for project management here , and more about the differences between Kanban and agile here .

DevOps, (Bus)DevOps, and CI/CD 

If one looks at the often difficult transfer to production environments, the time-to-market can be shortened by properly arranging the transfer and reducing the number of transfer errors when development and production teams are merged, and the integration testing and deployment are automated (Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, CI/CD). In this way a DevOps team is created.

Scrumban is the combination of Scrum and Kanban (also known as a hybrid project methodology ). In the first instance it was intended as a transitional model to switch from Scrum to Kanban and let the team experience Lean and Kanban concepts.

Nowadays it is an approach in which the team has chosen to work according to Scrum with sprints, but to use the Kanban board and system to continually view and improve its working method to optimize the flow of units of work (ex. user stories).

Scaling Up Towards Product Or Program Level Agile

In order to be able to use an agile way of working in an organization of some size, just having individual agile teams is in most organizations not enough. There are examples of organizations who have or are in the middle of creating a loosely coupled architecture based on micro services (ex. Bol.com in the Netherlands). Each autonomous agile team manages one or more micro services.

However, in most of the organizations the agile way of working needs to be scaled up, and where possible the overarching alignment needs to be taken care of. This can be done by a project manager or by institutionalizing the coordination. 

When institutionalizing the coordination, the project manager disappears but many project management tasks are fulfilled by others (ex. the integration team in Nexus, the Release Train Engineer and the Product Manager in SAFe, etc).

To institutionalize coordination, management of dependencies, and integration between the different permanent agile teams within the “business-as-usual” side, there are various frameworks available.

Nexus, as described in The Nexus Guide, is a framework for product or software development initiatives with three to nine Scrum Teams, in Sprints of up to thirty days. Nexus is the answer of Ken Schwaber, one of the founding fathers of Scrum, to the scalability of Scrum. 

It requires more than just the will and the agile behavior of the different Scrum teams to work together to deliver an integrated product. Nexus is based on and builds on Scrum and the rules and roles formulated in the Scrum guide. We can position Nexus over the team and program levels of SAFe, but it does not offer provisions on portfolio level.

Scrum at Scale (S@S, developed by Jeff Sutherland and Alex Brown) is a modular framework. The starting point at S@S is that an all-encompassing one-size-fits-all framework is not possible, but that every time we have to look at scaling the underlying Scrum principles. 

The framework can be tailored for your own organization by adding the needed S@S modules. S@S builds on the well-known Scrum framework. By analogy with Nexus you could therefore say that S@S is the answer from Jeff Sutherland, next to Ken Schwaber, the other founding father of Scrum, on the scalability of Scrum.

Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS, developed by Craig Larman and Bas Vodde) is an agile framework with rules, based on principles and doing experiments. 

The LeSS company offers a freely accessible knowledge base (less.works) containing the integrated approach, principles, process descriptions, definitions, roles, examples, et cetera, for large-scale, mainly IT-related, product development. Transparency is also a key concept within LeSS. The first version dates from 2005 and since then, work is constantly being done on the use and further development of LeSS.

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

Scaled Agile Framework ( SAFe , developed by Dean Leaffingwell) is a framework to enable the scaling up of agile teams in order to create better systems, create higher employee engagement, and make use of correct cost considerations. 

This is the mission of the scaled agile organization and of the founder of SAFe, Dean Leffingwell. The scaled agile organization offers a knowledge base that is freely accessible to everyone, with an integrated approach in the form of process descriptions, definitions, roles, examples, etc. for Lean and Agile product development. 

SAFe is based on five core competencies: lean-agile leadership, team and technical agility, DevOps and release on demands, business solutions and lean systems and lean portfolio management.

Looking back at my map of the methods, in the “Business as usual/indefinite” section, we can see the above methods of SAFe, LeSS, Nexus, and S@S in the product-targeted section. They all relate to examples where multiple teams work on a single complex product or value stream (product-targeted frameworks). 

There’s a division between product and team targets, namely on the basis of cooperation between teams. In other words, can the individual teams work autonomously (with a team focus)? Or, do they have to work together to deliver a new or modified product (with a product focus)?

Additionally, several approaches (not listed in the figure) make a distinction between products that need cooperation between a maximum of nine teams (in total the team of teams must not exceed the Dunbar number of 125-150 people) and a team of teams of teams (ex. SAFe large solutions, Nexus+, LeSS Huge). An example of this in the real world occurs at Philips, a Dutch medical equipment supplier who uses SAFe and works with 20-30 teams on a single product.

The Spotify Model and ScALeD

Looking to the product-targeted frameworks, we see approaches that support IT departments maintaining dozens or hundreds of applications or services. In these settings, the dependencies between the teams are minimal (multiple team targeted frameworks). 

Here, the Spotify model (developed by Henrik Kniberg, Anders Ivarsson, and Joakim Sundén) can be positioned, but also Scaled Agile Lean Development (ScALeD, developed by Peter Beck, Markus Gartner, Christoph Mathis, Stefan Roock, and Andreas Schliep). 

For both groups, there are essential interfaces between the teams in areas such as data integrity, security, and architecture that may not (but sometimes will) ask for coordination when implementing changes. In this group I don’t expect to find a project manager. Because these teams are autonomous, I believe that a project manager will not add value.

On the left side of the map, we see the one-time project frameworks. These are frameworks where the role of project manager is needed. Most of them are a further development of the more traditional project management frameworks:

Agile Project Management (AgilePM, which is derived from Dynamic Systems Development Method, aka DSDM) comes from Agile Business Consortium. It’s a method by which different, possibly permanent, agile teams and non-agile teams are coordinated for the duration of a project.

The AgilePM method for managing agile projects consists of a framework, comprising a philosophy, derived principles, and four building blocks: people, workflows , products, and applications.

The AgilePM philosophy is that every project must be aligned to clearly defined business goals and must focus on the early delivery of products that provide real added value to the business organization.

PRINCE2 Agile  (derived from PRINCE2 from AXELOS) includes both the existing PRINCE2 and the agile way of thinking. The agile way of thinking must be seen as agile behavior, concepts, frameworks, focus areas, and techniques. The existing PRINCE2 principles, processes, and themes remain, but should be tailored using the agile way of working and the project itself. 

PRINCE2 Agile searches for the best of both worlds where the emphasis lies in the use of PRINCE2 within project direction and project management, and an agile approach in the product delivery. Depending on the project situation you can apply more or less of the PRINCE2 or agile way of thinking.

Here’s a short video I created about PRINCE2 Agile.

PMI Agile Certified Practitioner or PMI-ACP (in addition to the PMBoK Guide of PMI) is not a stand-alone framework, but it is a certification based on different books (and the frameworks and underlying techniques described therein). 

Within PMI-ACP, seven domains are identified, each of which is subdivided into a number of task areas. The domains are Agile principles and framework, value-driven delivery, stakeholder management , team performance, adaptive planning , problem detection and solutioning, and continuous improvement.

Project Half Double is run by a community of dedicated project management practitioners who are passionate about what they do. It was co-created in an iterative way by a community of dedicated project management practitioners.

The methodology is based on the four building blocks to achieve double the impact in half the time: impact, flow, leadership, and local translation. 

Impact is all about stakeholder satisfaction. Flow represents high intensity and frequent interaction in project work, learning, and impact. Leadership shows that leaders must embrace uncertainty and make the project happen. Local translation is the fact that you have to tailor the methodology to the needs of the organization.

Disciplined Agile (DA) 

Disciplined Agile (DA) covers both one-time projects and programs as well as business as usual product development. The DA toolkit is a process decision toolkit that describes how agile software development, DevOps, IT, and business teams work in enterprise-class settings.

Disciplined Agile (DA) offers a portfolio process in which, in addition to projects, a number of “business-as-usual” aspects are taken into account, such as the permanent teams and the operational management of existing IT solutions.

Agile Digital Services (AgileDS) is there for delivery and the continuous operations, support, and maintenance of that service (permanent agile delivery team, using the product/service lifecycle).

Learn More About Agile Methods, Frameworks, & Approaches

The concept of enterprise project management focuses on aligning projects with the strategic goals of a company. Agile methods, frameworks, & approaches can be very useful for this.

Want to learn more about how to use Agile methodologies? Check out our expert-created courses in the DPM School.

9 Best Scrum Courses & Certification Options For 2024

12 Best Kanban Courses To Take In 2024

How to easily share digital assets: 6 expert best practices.

• 1.  Project Management Basics
• 2.  Project Management Methodologies
• 3.  Project Management Life Cycle
• 4.  Best Project Management Software
• 5.  Team Collaboration Tips
• 6.  Agile Methodology Basics
• 7.  Agile Project Management Tools & Techniques
• 8.  Project Management Frameworks
• 9.  Resources
• 10.  Glossary
• Advanced Terminology
• Methodologies
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• Project Management Guide

What Is Agile Methodology in Project Management?

What is Agile methodology?

Agile methodology in project management is a structured approach that segments projects into manageable phases, focusing on continuous improvement. It is an iterative process that involves planning, execution, and evaluation.

In this article, we share everything you need to know about Agile methodologies, Agile project management, Agile methodology frameworks, and how to implement them in your team. We’ll also share our Agile teamwork template to get started with Agile even faster.

Agile methodologies overview

The Agile Manifesto for Software Development put forth a groundbreaking mindset on delivering value and collaborating with customers when it was created in 2001.

Agile’s four main values are:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

You can read more about the four pillars of Agile in our Agile guide.

Understanding the 12 Agile principles

The 12 Agile principles guide teams on how to work more flexibly and respond quickly to changes, which is key in project management. Here’s a quick overview of the 12 Agile principles:

• Make customers happy through early and continuous delivery of useful software.
• Embrace changing requirements, even in later stages.
• Deliver work frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference for the shorter timescale.
• Stakeholders and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
• Build projects around motivated individuals, giving them the environment and support they need, and trusting them to get the job done.
• Face-to-face conversations are the most effective method of communication.
• The main measure of progress is working software.
• The working pace should be constant yet sustainable.
• Pay continuous attention to technical excellence and good design.
• Keep things as simple as possible.
• The best results come from self-organizing teams.
• The team reflects on how to become more effective at regular intervals, adjusting behavior accordingly.

To learn more about each principle and tips on applying them, check out our full guide on the 12 Agile principles . This guide will help you understand how to use these principles to run projects more smoothly and effectively.

What is Agile project management?

Agile project management is a process for managing a project that involves constant collaboration and working in iterations. It works off the basis that a project can be continuously improved upon throughout its lifecycle and adapt to changes quickly.

What are the benefits of using Agile methodology?

Agile is one of the most popular approaches to project management because it is flexible, it is adaptable to changes, and it encourages customer feedback.

Many teams embrace this approach to achieve the following benefits of Agile :

• Rapid progress: By effectively reducing the time it takes to complete various stages of a project, teams can elicit feedback in real time and produce working prototypes or demos throughout the process
• Customer and stakeholder alignment: Through focusing on customer concerns and stakeholder feedback, the Agile team is well positioned to produce results that satisfy the right people
• Continuous improvement: As an iterative approach, the Agile project management methodology allows teams to chip away at tasks until they reach the best end result

You can read more about the six stages of the Agile lifecycle in our Agile guide.

See below an example from Wrike’s Agile project management dashboard from our Agile teamwork template . 

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Types of Agile methodologies

Agile project management is not a singular framework but an umbrella term that includes a wide range of methodologies, including Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming (XP), and the Adaptive Project Framework (APF).

Scrum It is ideal for projects with rapidly changing requirements, using short sprints.

Kanban It visualizes project progress and is great for tasks requiring steady output.

Lean It streamlines processes, eliminating waste for customer value.

Extreme Programming (XP)   It enhances software quality and responsiveness to customer satisfaction.

Adaptive Project Framework (APF) It works well for projects with unclear details, as it adapts to constantly evolving client needs.

You can learn more about the different types of Agile methodologies in our guide.

Agile methodologies vs. traditional approaches

So, how do these Agile methodologies compare to traditional approaches to project management? Let’s highlight the Waterfall approach as an example.

When working with this traditional methodology, teams would follow a strictly linear sequence: requirements gathering, design, build, test, deliver. They are required to complete one phase before moving on to the next one. Changes are difficult to incorporate once a stage is completed and customer interactions are limited. As a result, Waterfall suits projects with fixed guidelines and minimal changes. 

By comparison, Agile methodologies are far more fluid in nature. Every Agile framework emphasizes a degree of adaptability, breaking projects into phases and embracing changing requirements. Through iterations and incremental efforts, they incorporate collaboration and customer feedback, leading to continuous improvement.

Agile in software development

Agile enables software development teams to stay adaptable.

With an iterative and adaptive approach, the aim is to produce the highest-quality software product that puts the customer at the heart of the process. By prioritizing flexibility, Agile teams can quickly react to changes, deliver products faster, and thrive in a collaborative environment.

By building Agile teams with the right qualities — such as self-organization and effective collaboration — you can accelerate the software development process while leaving space for vital customer feedback.

One of the most compelling reasons to adopt the Agile approach in software development is the dynamic workflows and work systems that contribute to a better end product. By listening to customer feedback and carrying out several iterations and rounds of software testing, you can iron out any kinks along the way and build the best possible software.

The Agile software development lifecycle helps you break down each project you take on into six simple stages:

• Concept: Define the project scope and priorities
• Inception: Build the Agile team according to project requirements 
• Iteration: Create code factoring in customer feedback 
• Release: Test the code and troubleshoot any issues
• Maintenance: Provide ongoing tech support to ensure the product remains serviceable
• Retirement: The end of the product lifespan, which often coincides with the beginning of a new one

Read more about the Agile software development lifecycle in our Agile guide.

Agile methodology in non-software projects

While many think of the Agile methodology as a solution mostly for the software industry, its applications extend far beyond.

Here are some examples of Agile practices in action in various project types:

Marketing campaigns

By bringing together designers, marketers, writers, and colleagues from other departments, you can build a cross-functional team ready to tackle marketing campaigns. Using sprints and a task backlog, you can identify the highest-priority tasks and streamline the execution.

To explore this approach, download this eBook: 7 Steps to Developing an Agile Marketing Team . 

Event planning

Agile methodologies lend themselves well to event planning, as each part of the event can be broken down into a sprint, and daily standups or Kanban boards can help you maintain a clear strategic direction at all times.

Product development

As you might imagine, since Agile methodology works for virtual products, it can work just as well for physical products. This time, though, instead of troubleshooting code, you’ll be diagnosing and fixing prototypes.

Generally, to get the best out of any of the Agile methodologies for non-software projects, you should always aim to keep the customer in mind. Just as Agile development must factor in the end user, non-software use cases benefit from a customer-focused approach.

By integrating the customer and their feedback in everything you do, you can better organize your priorities and plan your phases. It’s also a good idea to evaluate whether you need a systematic approach to tackling major projects or an easy-to-follow visual workflow for a series of smaller projects, as this can influence which framework is best for your team.

With Wrike’s Agile template, you can kick-start your product development in no time.

How to implement Agile methodology into projects

If you’re wondering how to apply these theoretical frameworks to your team’s workflows, here’s a step-by-step guide for Agile methodology process implementation:  

1. Choose the right Agile framework

Your first priority is to select the right Agile framework for your team. 

Here’s a reminder of some of the most popular options:

• Scrum: Principle-based project management
• Kanban: Visual workflows and processes
• Scrumban: Hybrid of Scrum and Kanban
• XP: Customer-focused product development
• APF: Versatile teamwork
• Dynamic systems development method (DSDM): Focused on the software development lifecycle

When selecting an Agile framework, consider the size of your team, the specific project requirements, and the level of experience your team has with the various methodologies. 

The more you know about your team and the projects you handle on a regular basis, the easier it will be for you to pick the right framework every time. 

2. Assemble your Agile team

An Agile team isn’t like any ordinary team.

If you want to find success with any of the Agile methodologies, you need to build a team with clear roles and responsibilities and a culture of collaboration.

What are some of the responsibilities of an Agile team?

• Self-organization : One of the cornerstones of an Agile team is the ability to self-organize. In Agile project management, the onus is on individual team members and teams to take initiative and organize themselves in a way that will lead to the highest output.
• Cross-functional collaboration: Going hand in hand with the need for self-organization is the Agile demand for cross-functional collaboration. Agile teams have to relay information across departments and be able to work closely with a range of colleagues.
• Iteration planning: Specific to Agile project management, iteration planning requires team members to outline the scope of individual sprints according to the product backlog.

3. Plan the project

Now that you’ve selected one of the Agile methods and assembled your A-team, it’s time to plan out your project.

Meticulous planning is one of the secret ingredients of successful Agile project management.

From the outset, you need to spend time clearly defining your project goals and scope. This will prevent unexpected setbacks and allow you to break down each portion of the project into manageable sprints (if you’re using Scrum).

You might also draw up a product backlog during the planning phase, which is most common in software development projects. The product backlog allows you to assign a priority level to your tasks so everyone on the team knows what they should focus on.

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4. Manage stakeholder expectations 

Before you get your project underway, it’s important to check in with any key stakeholders to make sure you factor in their feedback.

Depending on the level of their involvement, your project stakeholders may then want to be kept in the loop throughout the process or at least receive regular updates. Creating feedback loops eases any uncertainty on the stakeholder end and allows you to stay open to change should it be necessary at any stage of the process.

5. Measure success 

Measuring project success is key to making meaningful progress with your Agile methodology of choice.

By paying attention to what worked and what didn’t during the project management process, you can extract key lessons to apply to future Agile projects. 

There are various ways to effectively track progress and measure success with Agile projects:

• Daily standups: Brief meetings to discuss obstacles and find solutions
• Sprint reviews : Informal sit-down meetings to present work and solicit team feedback
• Retrospectives: Reflections on past work to inspire and influence future progress

You should also introduce key performance indicators (KPIs) before embarking on any new major project, as getting specific will help you establish milestones and measure progress.

Implement Agile processes with Wrike

Now, you’re probably ready to start using Agile in project management following the steps we’ve shared . Wrike’s work management platform can support your team with resources to manage sprints, backlogs, and more.  

Our Agile teamwork template will help you set up your processes and launch your first project with Agile. Once you’re underway, you can use Agile Kanban boards to manage your team’s workflows, visualizing progress and simplifying the process of assigning and completing tasks.

You can also use Wrike to oversee progress across your different departments  with cross-tagging and project dashboards that update to reflect changes in real time.

So, get started with Agile today and empower your projects in one platform.

Further reading:

• Agile Methodology Basics
• Agile Guide
• Scrum Guide
• Kanban Guide
• Should Your Business Go Agile? (Infographic)
• 8 Attitudes Guaranteed to Sink Your Agile Projects
• Is Agile Viable for Marketing Teams?

Artem Gurnov

Artem is a Director of Account Development at Wrike. He previously held the role of Project Manager, overseeing a team of customer success managers (CSMs). Over the years of building teams and scaling business processes, he has successfully deployed multiple projects, from automating client outreach to setting up work prioritization tools for sales reps and CSMs.

Basic Project Management

• Project Charter
• Project Management Stakeholders
• What is a Project?
• Work Breakdown Structure
• Project Objectives
• Project Baseline
• Project Management Scheduling
• Project Management Work Packages
• Project Management Scope
• Scope Creep

Advanced Project Management

• What is PERT?
• Network Diagram
• Risk Management
• Cost Estimation
• Feasibility Study
• Monte Carlo Analysis
• Project Integration
• Cost Management
• PMI Project Management
• What To Do With Certification
• Certification
• Become Certified
• PMP Certification
• Best Certification

Software Features

• Critical Success Factors
• Capacity Planning
• User Role Access Permissions
• Time Tracking
• Budget Tracking
• Request Forms
• Work Assignments
• Version Control
• Dependency Managements
• Project management Milestones
• Project Management Software
• Project Management Tools
• Project Management System
• Gantt Charts

What is scrum?

Scrum is a lightweight framework designed to help teams collaborate on complex products iteratively and incrementally to deliver high value. It is built on the principles of empiricism and lean thinking.

How it works

Scrum values, empiricism and iteration.

• Explore certifications

What is the scrum framework?

Scrum is a lightweight yet incredibly powerful framework. Scrum relies on cross-functional and self-managing teams to deliver products and services in short cycles, enabling:

• Fast feedback
• Quicker innovation
• Continuous improvement
• Rapid adaptation to change
• Delighted customers
• Reduced time from idea to delivery

The term scrum comes from a 1986 Harvard Business Review article ( The New New Product Development Game ) in which authors Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka made an analogy comparing high-performing, cross-functional teams to the scrummage used by rugby teams. Ken Scwaber and Jeff Sutherland first introduced scrum as a framework at the Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages & Applications (OOPSLA) conference in 1995 in Austin, Texas.

Though it has its roots in software development, today scrum is used in almost every industry so that teams can solve complex problems and deliver innovative products and services that truly delight customers.

Scrum essentials in under 10 minutes

Scrum is the most widely used and popular agile framework. The term "Agile" describes a specific set of foundational principles and values for organizing and managing complex work based on the Agile Manifesto . The creators of the manifesto also considered the words "lightweight" and "adaptive," and eventually all agreed that "agile" was the most effective term for their purposes. The Agile Manifesto was published on February 11, 2001.

Scrum embodies agile principles by enabling teams to adapt quickly to changes (in market requirements, conditions, new regulations, etc.), prioritize customer feedback, and deliver work in manageable increments. Scrum is considered agile because of the agile principles and values it supports:

The Agile Manifesto explains how its creators came to value:

"Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more."

Scrum benefits

Practicing scrum offers several advantages, including:

• Minimized risk
• Enhanced ability to manage changing priorities 
• Ability to uncover bottlenecks in teams and organizations that get in the way of value delivery
• Increased transparency for stakeholders by delivering working product increments frequently
• Opportunities to inspect and adapt, thereby making course corrections based on what is learned

This framework incorporates inspection and adaptation at regular intervals, helping teams to continuously improve their interactions, reduce time to market, and increase customer satisfaction through regular feedback loops. Moreover, scrum's emphasis on transparency and collaboration fosters a more engaged and motivated team environment, which can lead to higher productivity and better outcomes.

Scrum teams inspect each increment of functionality as it is completed and then adapt what will be done next based on learning and feedback, minimizing risk, and reducing waste. This cycle repeats and continuously gives the stakeholders, business, and the scrum team the opportunity to adjust to changing market conditions, competition, and other reasons for pivoting.

Scrum's effectiveness lies in its simplicity and flexibility, described later in this page. While it is possible to practice scrum without embodying the scrum values and empiricism (i.e. mechanical scrum), the true benefits of adopting scrum can only be achieved when the scrum team and the organization embody the scrum values and empiricism. Along with organizational and culture shifts catalyzed by adopting those values, the framework has practices based on three core components: Scrum consists of: 

• Accountabilities
• Events 

These core components, along with a few simple rules, work together to create a cycle of continuous improvement and adaptation, ensuring that the teams and the organizations can respond swiftly to changes and deliver high-value products effectively.

Scrum accountabilities

Scrum has three accountabilities (previously called "roles") ensuring that every aspect of the shared work is managed effectively.

• Developers: Professionals in the scrum team who work together to create any aspect of the product. They create the product increment(s) during the sprint. People with any skill needed to build the product take on the accountability of a developer. Depending on the nature of the product, the skills will be different. 
• Product  owner : The product owner develops and communicates the product goal, owns the product backlog, and ensures the team is always addressing the highest value work. They also balance the needs of stakeholders, customers, and the team. They know and understand the domain, the market for their products, and they are passionate about delivering results that customers and users want and need.
• Scrum  master : The scrum master leads and guides the organization in its scrum adoption and practice. The scrum master helps the team build the product and become the best team they can be by guiding them to use scrum and embody agile principles. They coach the team toward effective use of the events and artifacts. Their day may include helping the team manage impediments, and they are often essential to the growth of the team as a whole as well as individuals. 

There are also many ways scrum masters serve the organization, including coaching the organization and stakeholders in scrum adoption and empiricism.

The scrum team is made up of these accountabilities. A team has one scrum master, one product owner , and the developers. The size of a scrum team is usually fewer than 10 people. The team is self-managing and cross-functional. Many responsibilities of a traditional project manager are divided between the accountabilities while other project management responsibilities may become unnecessary.

Scrum events

There are five events in the scrum framework. These events are valuable opportunities to inspect and adapt the product or the way the team works together (and sometimes both).

• The sprint : The core of scrum, a timeboxed period (less than one month long and frequently 1-2 weeks) during which one or more increments are created. The sprint contains all of the other events.
• Sprint planning : The entire scrum team establishes the sprint goal. The developers forecast what work they believe they can accomplish during the sprint to support the goal, and how the chosen work will be completed. Planning should be timeboxed to a maximum of 8 hours for a month-long sprint, with a shorter timebox for shorter sprints. Based on the sprint goal and the forecast, an initial plan is also created. The scrum team may invite other people to sprint planning to provide advice or input on relevant work.
• Daily scrum : During daily scrum, the developers inspect the progress toward the sprint goal and adapt plans as necessary. It's a brief daily event led by the developers to inspect and adapt. It is timeboxed to 15 minutes. Daily scrum is not the team's only opportunity to adapt their plans; they often communicate about needed pivots outside of this event. In daily scrum, the team may synchronize their daily work, identify blockers, and discuss collaboration that needs to take place. Daily scrum helps the team understand if their latest plans will get them closer to achieving the sprint goal and they pivot if needed. 
• Sprint review : The entire scrum team inspects the sprint's outcome with stakeholders and determines future adaptations. Stakeholders are invited to provide feedback on what that scrum team has achieved so far and on the future direction of product development. The product backlog is adapted based on these conversations.
• Sprint retrospective : The conclusion of the sprint, the retrospective is the team's opportunity to inspect their own interactions, collaborations, processes, tools, and any other factors they deem relevant to their ability to continuously improve.

Product backlog refinement

Refinement is a continuous activity used to prepare product backlog items for the upcoming sprint plannings. Teams may adjust details such as description, order, and size. It is not a scrum event. Some teams prefer a recurring meeting, usually done once or twice per sprint. Other teams prefer to refine backlog items as needed. 

While the product owner is ultimately accountable for the state and the content of the product backlog, they can delegate product backlog management to others (but cannot delegate the accountability). The buck stops with the product owner.

Scrum artifacts

Scrum artifacts enable transparency, inspection, and adaptation. They provide visibility into the work being completed so that anyone—the team, stakeholders, managers, etc.—can inspect the results and identify areas where an adaptation may benefit the product.

• Product backlog : An ordered or ranked list of everything that might be needed to improve the product, along with the product goal. The product goal is the commitment to the product backlog and is part of the product backlog.
• Sprint backlog : It consists of the sprint goal plus the set of product backlog items the product owner and developers have forecasted they can complete during the current sprint (they may not finish them all), plus a plan for delivering the increment and achieving the sprint goal. The sprint goal is the commitment for the sprint backlog and does not change during the sprint (while the “scope of work” may actually change). As the plan changes (during the sprint or during daily scrum) those changes are reflected on the sprint backlog. 
• Increment: When a product backlog Item is completed (as per the quality attributes defined for the product - captured usually in the Definition of Done) in such a way that it delivers value and is usable, it becomes an "Increment." Each increment is additive because it does not break what has been previously completed and will continue to work indefinitely into the future when new PBIs are completed. The commitment to the increment is the definition of done.

Scrum artifact commitments

In the scrum framework, each artifact is accompanied by a specific commitment that ensures the work focuses on delivering quality and value. 

• Definition of Done for the increments : The Definition of Done establishes the quality measures for the product that the product backlog items must meet to be considered complete. Once a product backlog item meets the definition of done, it becomes an increment. 
• Sprint goal for the sprint backlog: A specific and singular goal for the sprint that clarifies the sprint's purpose. The sprint goal is the commitment to the sprint backlog. This goal helps everyone focus on the essence of what needs to be done and why. The sprint goal must allow the developers to be flexible about the exact "scope" of work that is done. The sprint goal brings cohesion to the work done during the sprint. 
• Product goal for the product backlog : A clear understanding of the product's overarching objective is essential for teams to effectively organize the work.The product may have multiple product goals over its lifetime, but only one at a time.

How it all works together

Scrum accountabilities, artifacts, and events work together within the sprint. The product owner defines the direction of product development with a product goal using information from stakeholders and users. They identify and define pieces of value that can be delivered to move closer toward the product goal.

The product owner ensures that the product backlog is ordered so that the team knows what is most important. The developers can help the product owner further refine what needs to be done, and the product owner may rely on the developers to make trade-off decisions. This is where refinement becomes an important practice for the scrum team.

Getting started

While the framework defines the bare essentials, here are some considerations to get started:

• Define the "product" and the "boundary" of the product
• Form new scrum teams
• Define product goal and a few product backlog items 
• Create a definition of done

During sprint planning, the scrum team collaborates to create the sprint goal. Based on the sprint goal, the developers pull work (usually from the top) of the product backlog and decide how they will complete it. The team has a set time frame, the sprint, to achieve the sprint goal. They meet at the daily scrum to inspect progress towards the sprint goal and plan for the upcoming day. Along the way, the scrum master keeps the team focused on the sprint goal and can help the team improve as a whole. 

Wrapping up the sprint

The scrum team shares its sprint results with stakeholders in sprint review. They may adapt the product backlog as part of that review and in sprint planning. 

The team has a sprint retrospective to discuss what went well and what didn't go well during the sprint. They may discuss collaborations, tools, communication, and practices that supported or hindered their ability to achieve their sprint goal. They develop action items based on what they discussed in order to improve future sprints.

In sprint planning, the team chooses the product backlog items for the next sprint and the cycle repeats. 

Transitioning to an agile framework such as scrum requires a new mindset and overall cultural adjustments. And, like all change, it doesn't come easy. But when teams and organizations fully commit to scrum, they'll discover a new sense of flexibility, creativity, and inspiration—all of which will lead to greater results.

The scrum value of commitment is essential for building an agile culture. Scrum teams work together to support each other in their pursuit of the product goal and sprint goals. This means that scrum teams trust each other to follow through on what they say they are going to do. When team members aren’t sure how work is going, they ask. Scrum teams only agree to take on tasks they believe they can complete, so they are careful not to overcommit.

Courage 

The scrum value of courage is critical to a scrum team’s success. Scrum teams must feel safe enough to say no, ask for help, and try new things. Agile teams must be brave enough to question the status quo when it hampers their ability to succeed.

Focus 

Every member of the scrum team focuses on the work at hand to support the sprint goal.

Openness 

Scrum teams consistently seek out new ideas and opportunities to learn. Scrum teams are also honest when they need help and open with their team and stakeholders about the challenges they face.

Scrum team members demonstrate respect to one another, to the product owner, to stakeholders, and to the scrum master. Scrum teams know that their strength lies in how well they collaborate and that everyone has a distinct contribution to make toward completing the work of the sprint. They respect each other's ideas, give each other permission to have a bad day once in a while, and recognize each other's accomplishments.

Scrum operates on core elements that make it exceptionally suited for handling complex, evolving projects. This framework facilitates a balance between structure and adaptability, enabling teams to efficiently tackle changing demands and deliver quality outcomes. Through its elements, scrum provides a lightweight set of enabling constraints for teams to follow as they work through uncertainties and aim for continuous improvement in their work.

The three pillars of empirical process control

Scrum is based on the theory of empirical process control, which relies on transparency, inspection, and adaptation.

Transparency

Effective decision-making requires transparency of the process and of the product's progress and a shared language among participants to ensure everyone understands what they're seeing. 

The five scrum events provide appropriate opportunities for transparency, inspection, and adaptation.

Regular inspections of ongoing work are essential for maintaining the intended process and achieving the desired outcome. Integrating these inspections seamlessly into the workflow prevents any disruption. 

Sprint review and sprint planning offer an opportunity to inspect progress toward the product goal, and retrospectives offer opportunities for the team to inspect their teamwork, collaborations, and processes. This process promotes continuous improvement while ensuring progress continues unhindered.

Adaptation involves making timely adjustments to the process or product whenever deviations arise. Scrum teams have the flexibility to adapt the product backlog, product, and their future plans every sprint. This ensures that any necessary changes can be implemented as rapidly as the balance of demands and capacity allows.

Iterative and incremental product management

Scrum combines iterative and incremental approaches.

Iterative 

In an iterative process, teams repeatedly cycle through rounds of delivery to arrive at a desired outcome. Each iteration brings the team closer to its goal, allowing for adjustments based on learning and feedback. This cycle of iterative improvement is a key characteristic of scrum, allowing teams to systematically make progress with each iteration.

Incremental

Incremental refers to a series of small improvements to an existing product or product line that usually helps maintain or improve its competitive position over time. Incremental innovation is regularly used within the high-technology business by companies that need to continue to improve their products to include new features increasingly desired by consumers. The way scrum teams deliver pieces of functionality into small batches is incremental.

Explore scrum certifications

Scrum Alliance certification courses offer in-depth training by leaders in agile and scrum. Choose from courses that focus on a specific scrum team accountability or an agile skill. Foundational role-based courses like the Certified ScrumMaster and all of the skill-based courses have widely applicable training that you can implement right away, no matter your role.

View or edit this activity in your CPD log.

What is agile  project management?

Agile project management  is an  iterative  approach to delivering a project throughout its  life cycle .

Iterative or agile life cycles are composed of several iterations or incremental  steps towards the completion of a project. Iterative approaches are frequently used in  software development  projects to promote velocity and adaptability since the benefit of iteration is that you can adjust as you go along rather than following a linear path.

One of the aims of an agile or iterative approach is to release benefits throughout the process rather than only at the end. At the core, agile projects should exhibit central values and behaviours of trust, flexibility, empowerment and collaboration.

Did you know that developing an agile mindset can enable project success? Read the latest research on Dynamic Conditions for Project Success

Common myths and misconceptions around agile, do you know your scrum from your sprint find out about different agile methodologies, read our handy glossary of popular agile terminology to find out what they mean, why do we need agile project management.

We need agile project management because it helps us focus on what matters. Becoming more agile through organisations and team’s brings flexibility to change and allows us to deliver value often with continuous feedback.

The goal is not to ‘be agile’ the goal is to improve. With an incremental and iterative approach, we increase predictability and control risk.

Traditional project management vs agile project management

What are the principles of an agile way of working.

The agile management philosophy concentrates on empowered people and their interactions, and early and constant delivery of value into an enterprise. 

Iterative or agile project management  focuses on delivering maximum value against business priorities in the time and budget allowed, especially when the drive to deliver is greater than the risk. Some agile principles include:

• The project breaks a requirement into smaller pieces, which are then prioritised by the team in terms of importance.
• The agile project promotes  collaborative working , especially with the customer. 
• The agile project reflects, learns and adjusts at regular intervals to ensure that the customer is always satisfied and is provided with outcomes that result in benefits.
• Agile methods integrate planning with execution, allowing an organisation to create a working mindset that helps a team respond effectively to changing requirements.

Becoming agile

The move to becoming an agile organisation brings change. It impacts on the traditional culture and introduces new ways of working on projects – so not everyone will be convinced. What does it take to successfully introduce that change?

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Three common myths debunked

When approaching agile project management for the first time, it becomes apparent that there are various trains of thought. Some people believe it’s the best thing since sliced bread. Others are less convinced, seeing it as an excuse to wreak havoc on tried-and-tested delivery processes. We clear up some of the main misconceptions and share a holistic view of what agile project management is (and crucially, what it is not).

Watch: The practical adoption of scaled agile

Interview with Sue Clarke

This APM Research Fund study builds on the APM North West Volunteer study on the practical adoption of agile methodologies  which provided a review of approaches at a project level, this study aims to investigate the level of practical adoption of those programme and portfolio components addressed by   scaled agile  methodologies.  

The objective of the study was to understand the extent to which scaled agile tools, techniques and roles are practically in place in corporate portfolio, programme, project and development management methodologies, to determine the level of corporate commitment to exploiting scaled agile, e.g. pilot, full use, selective based on need, as well as drivers for selection or deselection of the framework based on the overheads.

What are the differences between an agile and waterfall approach?

These four aspects highlight the difference between agile and waterfall (or more traditional) approaches to project management:

• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Individuals and interaction over process and tools
• Responding to change over following a structured plan
• Prototyping/working solutions over comprehensive documentation

What are the benefits of agile working?

Agile approaches empower those involved; build accountability; encourage diversity of ideas; allowing the early release of benefits; and promotion of continuous improvement.

Agile helps build client and user engagement because changes are incremental and evolutionary rather than revolutionary: it can therefore be effective in supporting cultural change that is critical to the success of most transformation projects.

Agile allows decision ‘gremlins’ to be tested and rejected early: the tight feedback loops provide benefits in agile that are not as evident in waterfall.

What are agile techniques?

There are various iterative or agile techniques that can suit any project method, they’re not limited to agile. You also don’t have to use them all; choose the ones that work for you, your team and the project.

This infographic is brought to you by the interactive APM Learning module.

APM Podcast

Agile or agility a valuable addition to the project toolkit.

Emma meets Adrian Dooley, who has 45 years’ experience in project management. He is the founder and lead author of the Praxis Framework.

In this podcast, he shares how, in his experience, many fads rise to prominence and then become integrated into good practice. He believes agile will follow that same path.

Agile project management glossary

Iterative or agile terminology can be confusing. We have compiled a list of the most common agile terminology you may come across, and their definitions:

• Agile  – a project management approach based on delivering requirements iteratively and incrementally throughout the life cycle.
• Agile development  – an umbrella term specifically for iterative software development methodologies. Popular methods include Scrum, Lean, DSDM and eXtreme Programming (XP).
• Agile Manifesto  – describes the four principles of agile development: 1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. 2. Working software over comprehensive documentation. 3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. 4. Responding to change over following a plan.
• Backlog  – prioritised work still to be completed (see Requirements).
• Burn down chart  – used to monitor progress; shows work still to complete (the Backlog) versus total time.
• Cadence  – the number of days or weeks in a Sprint or release; the length of the team’s development cycle. 
• Ceremonies  – meetings, often a daily planning meeting, that identify what has been done, what is to be done and the barriers to success.
• DAD  ( disciplined agile delivery ) – a process-decision framework.
• Daily Scrum  – stand-up team meeting. A plan, do, review daily session.
• DevOps  (development/operations) – bridges the gap between agile teams and operational delivery to production.
• DSDM (dynamic systems development method)  – agile development methodology, now changed to the ‘DSDM project management framework’.
• Kanban   – a method for managing work, with an emphasis on just-in-time delivery.
• Kanban board   – a work and workflow visualisation tool which summarises the status, progress, and issues related to the work.
• Lean  – a method of working focused on ‘eliminating waste’ by avoiding anything that does not produce value for the customer.
• LeSS (large-scale Scrum)  – agile development method.
• RAD  (rapid application development) – agile development method; enables developers to build solutions quickly by talking directly to end users to meet business requirement.
• Requirements  – are written as ‘stories’ that are collated into a prioritised list called the ‘Backlog’.
• SAFe  (scaled agile framework enterprise) – agile methodology used for software development.
• Scaled agile  – agile scaled up to large projects or programmes, for example by having multiple sub-projects, creating tranches of projects, etc.
• Scrum  – agile methodology commonly used in software development, where regular team meetings review progress of a single development phase (or Sprint).  
• Scrum of scrums  – a technique to operate Scrum at scale, for multiple teams working on the same product.
• Scrum master  – the person who oversees the development process and who makes sure everyone adheres to an agreed way of working.
• Sprints  – a short development phase within a larger project defined by available time (‘timeboxes’) and resources.
• Sprint retrospective  – a review of a Sprint providing lessons learned with the aim of promoting continuous improvement.
• Stories  – see Requirements.
• Timeboxes  – see Sprints.
• Velocity  – a measure of work completed during a single development phase or Sprint.
• Waterfall  – a sequential project management approach that seeks to capture detailed requirements upfront; the opposite to agile.
• XP  (eXtreme Programming) – agile development methodology used in software development; allows programmers to decide the scope of deliveries.

Related reading

Read more about agile management tools and why we need them.

Change and disruption is a normal part of modern life. Twenty years ago, the median age of leading firms was 85 years; today it’s closer to 30 years... Read more.

It’s been 20 years since the term ‘agile’ first appeared as a set of principles for software development ... Read more.

Let’s first start with the very basics, what is scrum? ... Read more.

The use of agile in project management remains relatively new and is evolving for many organisations.

A panacea or placebo for project delivery?

This article looks at the benefits, or not, of applying an agile method of project management, as opposed to more traditional methods.

A study to understand scaled agile tools, techniques and roles.

Agile needs more from a project manager in way of communication for risks, issues and stakeholder management, as speed of resolution is of the essence. By members of the APM North West branch.

This paper will discuss the EVM techniques which have been adopted to provide the benefits of traditional EVM in agile projects.

Directing Agile Change

Directing Agile Change is the first ‘how to’ agile guide published by APM .  It seeks to recognise that agile is not limited to software development but can also be applied to many aspects of an organisation.

A Guide to Assurance of Agile Delivery

This guide shows how undertaking traditional assurance reviews can be adapted and adopted to ensure assurance activity of agile projects is both effective and valuable.

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The APM Community is our online community platform that connects our members faster and easier than ever before.

A Complete Guide to Agile Methodology in Project Management

The problem: There’s a lot of information out there about Agile methodology. Some of it is good. Some of it isn’t so good. Some of it is just plain bad.

That’s why we’ve put together this complete guide to Agile methodology. We’ll be covering:

What is Agile methodology?

Agile methodology advantages and disadvantages, agile methodology vs. traditional project management, types of agile methodology, misconceptions about agile methodology, 4 steps to create an agile workflow for your team, 3 tips for creating an effective agile workflow, 5 books on agile methodology worth reading.

Let’s get it on!

An Agile methodology is an approach to project management processes, mainly used for software development.

Stem from Agile Manifesto ’s values and principles, Agile methodology encourages flexibility, adaptability, communication, and collaboration in a team. It comes with many practices you can adopt to your team easily and achieve great results.

Agile Manifesto

Developed by 17 software development practitioners, Agile Manifesto is a declaration of 4 values and 12 principles in Agile methodology.

By following Agile Manifesto, you can develop better ways to build software, boost project performance, and enhance team collaboration.

Agile Manifesto’s 4 values include:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools . Once all members are on the same page, the team can resolve any issues with available tools or processes.
• Working software over comprehensive documentation . Documentation is necessary. But a working product is a much better option to fulfill customer expectations than tons of documentation.
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation . Instead of a one-time negotiation, involve customers over the whole product lifecycle to get to know their needs better.
• Responding to change over following a plan . Changes are unpredictable, inevitable, planned or unplanned, linear or nonlinear. That’s why a fixed plan doesn’t always work.

Agile Manifesto’s 12 principles:

• Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software . Keep customers updated with deliverables and iterations across regular intervals, rather than not receiving anything until final product delivery.
• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development . Be willing to adapt to last-minute changes and quickly work on change requests at any time, with minimal delay.
• Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale . Agile embraces sprints with a fast turnaround of workable products.
• Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project . Regular communication and interaction, as well as a constant feedback loop, is crucial.
• Build projects around motivated individuals . A motivated team is key to building successful products.
• The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within the development team is a face-to-face conversation . Face-to-face discussions are great for building trust, establishing close relationships, and enhancing understanding.
• Working software is the primary measure of progress . The focus should be on completed, working software, not hours spent, the time elapsed, or complicated documentation.
• Agile processes promote sustainable development . Maintain a consistent pace for each iterative cycle or sprint. Eliminate the need for overtime or crashing schedules while promoting frequent output of workable products.
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility . An Agile focus should be on improving the product and achieving advancements consistently over time while handling changes.
• Simplicity . Avoid or eliminate any additional documentation or work or process that doesn’t add value to the outputs. Focus on completing the requested project.
• The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams . An Agile team should be self-motivated, autonomous, and skilled to take ownership of their work and deliver the best results.
• At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly . The team should continuously advance their skills and processes to continually grow and improve.

No project management methods are perfect. Each of them has its pros and cons. So does Agile methodology.

Agile methodology advantages

• Changes included : Shorter planning cycles mean the team can refine and reprioritize the backlog to accommodate changes throughout the project.
• End-goal can be unknown : Agile can work even when the end-goal isn’t clearly defined at first. As the project proceeds, the goal will become more apparent.
• Faster, high-quality deliverables : By breaking down the project into iterations, the team can focus on high-quality development, testing, and collaboration. More testing helps identify bugs and solve them quickly.
• Strong team interaction : More frequent communication and face-to-face interactions among team members.
• Customers involved : Customers are part of project development. They can see the work being delivered and share feedback.
• Continuous improvement : Constant feedback loop encourages improvement and innovation.

Agile methodology disadvantages

• Planning can be less concrete : It’s possible if some deliverables may not be complete in time. Or, if additional sprints may be added at any time during the project, it’s okay as well.
• Team must be knowledgeable : Agile teams are usually small but highly skilled in a wide range of areas. They must understand the Agile methodology.
• It requires high levels of commitment : The Agile process requires all team members to have active involvement and collaboration.
• Documentation can be ignored : As said earlier, Agile prefers working deliverables over comprehensive documentation. This sometimes causes incorrect interpretation or misunderstanding.

Traditional project management approaches like the Waterfall model are linear, meaning all the phases of a process occur in sequence. The sequence can be like this: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closure.

In a traditional process, time and requirements are fixed. You handle one big release in the time of six months or so. And, you possibly get user feedback only after the project is launched in the market.

Here is a detailed comparison between Agile and traditional project management:

There are a lot of Agile methodologies out there. Here are just a few of them:

• Disciplined Agile (DA)
• Toyota Production System (TPS)
• eXtreme Programming (XP)

The list goes on.

Is it possible (and even necessary) to learn all of those? Probably not. Most teams simply don’t have the resources, or they don’t need to follow many methods.

So which Agile methodology should you focus on?

The answer to that question is different for every team. In this guide, we won’t cover every Agile methodology. We’re going to run through the Agile methodology types that have worked for us and many other teams.

These are Scrum, Kanban, and Extreme Programming.

Scrum is one of the most popular process frameworks for implementing Agile. It’s excellent for managing complex software and product development.

A Scrum process includes many fixed-length iterations, called sprints. Each sprint can last one or two weeks, allowing the team to ship software regularly. Stakeholders and team members will meet to plan the next steps at the end of each sprint.

Roles in Scrum :

• Product Owner: A Product Owner has the vision of what to build and deliver that to the team. They take charge of setting business and market requirements, prioritizing tasks, managing backlog, providing guidance, and communicating with all stakeholders.
• Scrum Master: A Scrum Master helps the team do their best possible work. They organize meetings, deal with roadblocks and challenges, and work with the Product Owner to ensure the backlog is ready for the next sprint.
• Scrum Team: A Scrum Team can include 5 to 7 members. They aren’t distinct roles like a programmer, a designer, or a tester. Each of them completes the set of work together.

Advantages of Scrum:

• More transparency and project visibility, thanks to daily standup meetings.
• Increased team accountability because there is no project manager. Everyone works and makes decisions together.
• Easy to accommodate changes thanks to short sprints and a constant feedback loop.

Disadvantages of Scrum :

• Risks of “scope creep” due to a lack of a specific end date.
• The team requires experience and commitment.
• The Scrum Master doesn’t have much authority over the team, so it’ll be a big problem if they lack experience.
• Poorly defined tasks can lead to inaccuracies.

The Kanban methodology emphasizes visualization. It paints a picture of the workflow process, so every team member can be aware of the work they need to complete.

Scrum and Kanban share the same goal—helping the team work effectively and promote collaboration.

But there are some significant differences between them, as shown below:

Kanban boards are a tool to implement the Kanban method. Traditionally, a Kanban board is a physical board with magnets, plastic chips, or sticky notes. But now you can easily apply Kanban using a tool or application.

Take the Upbase project management software as an example. It allows you to make online Kanban boards, create as many columns as you want—‘to do,’ ‘in progress,’ ‘done,’ ‘testing,’ ‘approval,’ whatever—or customize them with colors to represent different details.

Click here to get free, unlimited access to Upbase’s premium features .

And if you like the tool, don’t hesitate to grasp this chance:

Advantages of Kanban :

• Increase flexibility: There are no set phase durations.
• Reduce waste: It ensures the team doesn’t spend time doing work that isn’t needed.
• Easy to understand: The visual nature of Kanban makes it intuitive and easy to learn.
• Improve delivery flow: Kanban focuses on just-in-time value delivery.
• Minimize cycle time: Kanban helps reduce the amount of time it takes for work to move through the team’s workflow.

Disadvantages of Kanban :

• Outdated boards can lead to issues: The team needs to update boards. Otherwise, the boards can include inaccurate information.
• Teams can overcomplicate boards: The team needs to keep all boards clear and easy to follow.
• Lack of timing: Columns in a Kanban board are marked by phase, with no time frames associated.

Extreme Programming

Extreme Programming embraces project management best practices while maintaining extreme quality and extreme responsiveness to changing customer requirements.

Extreme Programming has 5 values. Here they are:

• Communication : Participants communicate with each other using whiteboards and face-to-face discussion.
• Simplicity : Do only necessary things and ensure everyone can understand requirements without trying to guess.
• Feedback : Provide feedback so the team can know where to improve and optimize their practices.
• Courage : Carry out actions that aren’t harmful to the team. This will reduce all organizational issues.
• Respects : All members show respect to each other and offer feedback that honors relationships.

Like Scrum and Kanban, Extreme Programming has its pros and cons.

Advantages of Extreme Programming :

• Save costs and time: Extreme Programming focuses on the timely delivery of final products. The team solves problems through discussion, so they don’t use too much documentation.
• Simplicity: Developers create extremely simple codes that can be improved easily at any moment.
• Visible and accountable process: Developers commit what they’ll accomplish and show progress.
• Constant feedback: All team members are willing to listen and make any changes needed in time.
• Faster production: Extreme Programming allows developers to produce the software faster thanks to regular testing at the development stage.

Disadvantages of Extreme Programming :

• Lack of focus on design: Extreme Programming is more focused on code than the design—which is essential for software applications.
• Don’t measure code quality assurance: This can lead to defects in the initial code.

The Internet is full of misconceptions around Agile methodology. We’ll take some and clear them up with an explanation.

1. Agile equals Scrum

Busting the myth: Agile and Scrum aren’t the same things .

As explained above, Scrum is just one of the many Agile methodologies.

2. Agile is anti-documentation

Busting the myth: Agile isn’t anti-documentation .

Let’s look at one of the Agile Manifesto values: “Working software over comprehensive documentation.”

Some people rely on this value to state that Agile doesn’t favor documentation. But it’s more accurate to say Agile prefers face-to-face communication than using written words.

Agile doesn’t urge a team to do documentation only for the sake of having it. It focuses on delivering a working product to customers rather than creating detailed (and complicated) documentation upfront.

3. Agile means no planning

Busting the myth: Agile isn’t anti-planning .

In the Agile process, planning is often less visible. It’s because the Agile team pursues planning as a series of smaller, recurring activities. They also adjust tasks if any change occurs during the execution phase.

4. Work must fit in a sprint

Busting the myth: Work doesn’t have to match a sprint .

From busting myth #1, we already know that Agile doesn’t equal Scrum. That means your Agile team doesn’t have to fit work into sprints.

Let’s say you apply the Kanban method. As shown early in this guide, Kanban doesn’t require “sprinting.”

5. Team members get to do whatever they like

Busting the myth: Agile needs well-disciplined teams . That means team members don’t get to do whatever they like.

Let’s go back to the nature of Agile. It’s all about a collaborative and iterative process. It involves adaptation based on discussions among the team.

That means all team members should be ready to help each other at any time. Each of them should collaborate and support each other. They should be open to acquiring new knowledge to contribute to the team’s performance.

You can achieve this by having a well-disciplined team, not through anarchy.

6. Agile doesn’t work for projects with deadlines

Busting the myth: An Agile project can have a deadline .

In an Agile environment, you don’t have to put deadlines on every task related to a given project. But you can set a deadline for the whole project.

Think this way: After all, your clients need to know when a project will be completed. They just don’t need to know the exact due date for each incremental task.

7. Agile works only within small teams

Busting the myth: Agile can work for a large organization too .

It’s true to say Agile works best when implemented in a small team. However, that doesn’t mean it won’t work for larger teams.

If you’re running a large organization and want to apply Agile, you can start small and then scale the implementation within your organization.

It can be tough to switch from Google Drive to OneDrive in one batch. But you can do that by breaking down the task into smaller chunks.

The same rule applies when you decide to implement Agile on all levels. You can’t do it at once, but you can make it happen step by step.

8. Agile is the sure-fire way to success

Busting the myth: Implementing Agile doesn’t mean you’ll succeed .

No matter which project management approach you use, you can fail if you apply the wrong way.

People resist changes. Problems with culture fit. Lack of team ownership. These are significant obstacles to your team’s success.

9. Agile equals software development

Busting the myth: Agile isn’t only for software development .

Agile can be applied successfully in any business environment. Agile Marketing, Agile Sales—these are real-life examples of using Agile in any area.

10. Agile requires each team member to be a generalist

Busting the myth: Every team member doesn’t have to know how to do everything .

It’s unrealistic to expect a person to be proficient in all skills. That’s not Agile’s principle.

Agile values individuals who possess skills in multiple areas or those who can adapt and develop different skills.

As a software developer, you can understand design or know how to solve support tickets. But you’re not asked to do so.

Having additional skills gives you more values, as your team can count on you if they need extra help.

11. Leaders have no role in Agile

Busting the myth: Leaders do have a role in Agile .

The difference is it’s not the same level of management as traditional managers have.

In an Agile team, a leader can be responsible for setting objectives, organizing work, motivating and communicating, measuring, and developing people.

Every software team has a process they use to complete work. At Upbase, we take an iterative approach to workflow management because it helps us meet our goal faster and exemplifies our team culture.

We’ve created our Agile workflow and applied it successfully. Follow our four steps if you want to start an Agile workflow for your team.

Step 1. Forming

First things first…

Make sure all members of your team understand Agile values and principles. Doing that helps your team adopt the right Agile practices.

Keep in mind the following:

• Implement and explain the Agile specialty roles to your team.
• Run Agile events like daily standups, sprint planning, and sprint retrospectives.
• Provide specific answers to any questions. If there is any doubt, try to solve it immediately.

Once all of your team members are one the same page, you can be sure your workflow will go smoothly.

Step 2: Storming

In this step, you develop your product backlog and divide it into sprints.

When doing that, involve all team members as they’ll be the ones executing the sprints. Explain to them what they need to accomplish if necessary.

Share each pain point with your team. In doing so, remember each member will have their own opinion. They may have slightly different values based on their experience, project, technology stack, and method in which they like to work.

Once you’re done with that, you can ensure your sprints are realistic, and everyone understands their responsibilities. Besides, it helps enhance your team collaboration and strengthen relationships.

Step 3: Norming

It’s time to define team roles.

For a Scrum Agile project, you’ll have to select a Product Owner and a Scrum Master.

If you apply another Agile methodology like Kanban, you may not need to assign these roles.

The key is to create a team that’s right for the Agile methodology you’re using.

Step 4: Performing

When your Agile team starts working, you should track performance to ensure they follow Agile values and principles.

You can apply these practices:

• Organize daily standups to keep a check on any movement or development.
• When your team starts working on their sprint’s backlog items, let the Product Owner pitch it to your customers. The goal is to collect customer feedback.
• When your team finishes adjusting the project based on customer feedback, undertake a sprint review before moving on to the next sprint.

Conduct this process over and over again until your project has been completed.

Here are some tactics you can use to make your Agile workflow more effective:

1. Simplify the work process

The sooner you create and implement a workflow for your team, the better.

Also, when doing that, simplicity is the key. Don’t create a 10-step workflow while you can keep it 5. Overcomplicating can make everyone confused and create resistance to change, which leads to low productivity.

A typical workflow can include 5 statuses: “To do,” “In Progress,” “Review,” and “Done.” But depending on the type of project, you may want to add other workflow statuses like “Editing,” “Design,” “Promoting,” or “Published.”

2. Choose the right tool

It’s one thing to understand how you can implement Agile; it’s another thing to choose the right tool that can help you make it work for your team.

But with about 250 project management tools out there, choice can be hard.

To make your life easier, here are two critical criteria you can use to filter the noise and pick up your perfect tool:

1. Choose an all-in-one Agile project management tool.

Having to switch between many apps leads to app fatigue and kills productivity. Your team is tired of apps—they need a more efficient way to work.

That’s where an all-in-one tool comes in. It includes multiple features in one place and provides solutions to many use cases. It’s a perfect choice to improve productivity.

Need proof? 67% of knowledge workers said that it would make their lives easier and better if they could complete tasks from one place.

2. Ensure your chosen tool is simple and easy to use.

So your team can quickly know how to work with it from the get-go.

Managing a project is hard, don’t make it harder. You can’t accomplish a project in 10 days while you have to spend half of that time learning how to use the software.

Go with a tool that helps you focus on the essentials, not the one making more work for you.

Take Upbase as an example.

Upbase is an all-in-one project management tool for both individuals and teams. You can use it to manage tasks, track project progress, share documents, to name but a few.

That means using Upbase only, you don’t need to switch between many apps anymore.

And the best part? It’s dead simple to use!

3. Optimize your workflow

It’s time to make your workflow more efficient, based on what you observed from the first project. Here are some ideas you can try:

1. Identify which steps you should remove/add/change in the workflow.

For each step, ask these questions:

• Was it an obstacle that prevented your team from getting work done faster?
• Was it too big? Do you need to break it down into smaller steps?
• Should you remove it or combine it with another step to simplify the process?

2. Create a set of metrics to measure workflow efficiency

Your team members should know the results of applying the Agile workflow. By telling them this data, you can encourage them to continue to follow the process.

Consider these questions to measure the efficiency of your workflow:

• How many steps were in the process?
• How many tasks were completed?
• How long did it take to finish the whole project or a task or a step on average?
• Which task that took the longest time to complete? And which one was the quickest?
• Was the workflow easy enough to onboard new team members?

A well-designed workflow leads to increased productivity, team engagement, transparency, commitment, and trust.

Thousands of books on Agile have been published over the last few years. If you search for ‘Agile’ on Amazon.com, you’ll get about 7,000 results .

That makes it hard to choose the right book to learn about Agile methodology.

To make your life easier, we introduce the best 5 Agile books that our team reads and learn along the way.

1. “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries

“The Lean Startup” is an ideal book choice if you just start your way to implementing Agile. You don’t need to have any background knowledge or experience to understand concepts in the book.

This book teaches you how to identify the target market and build a business around your potential customers’ demand.

Besides, the author gives you clear explanations of how you can use the Lean methodology. It’s easy to understand and apply techniques in real life.

2. “Agile Project Management QuickStart Guide: A Simplified Beginners Guide To Agile Project Management” by Ed Stark

The book gives you a great overview of Agile methodology, ways to use it, how to choose the best framework for your project, and more.

It also offers free lifetime access to tutorials, checklists, and cheat sheets to help you plan and execute your first Agile project.

3. “The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products” by Dan Olsen

Whether you’re running a new startup or an established business, this book will benefit you in many ways.

It emphasizes the importance of defining your target market’s needs to ensure your final products meet your potential customers’ expectations.

4. Scrum: a Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction

The book introduces everything about Scrum to you. It’s useful for those who are brand new to Agile and Scrum.

5. “Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time” by Chris Sims and Hillary Louise Johnson

Written by one of Scrum’s founders, this book is gold. You’ll learn why Scrum is beneficial, how to embrace the framework, and how to apply it to your team.

The book also goes deeper into Scrum than other books for beginners. Hence, it’s more suitable for those who already have a foundation on Agile or Scrum.

Go for Agile!

Now that you’ve understood a lot about Agile methodology.

Agile is meant to improve your work, not complicate anything. It can apply to many different businesses, and it can help you build an effective team.

Use Upbase today to implement the Agile methodology in your team, and let us know if Agile works in your organization. We bet you’ll enjoy it.

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All about agile project management.

Agile project management (APM) is a project philosophy that breaks projects down into iterations or sprints. The purpose is to produce bigger ROI, regular interactions with clients and end-users, and improved delivery of product features. 

Today, Agile is used in virtually every industry from software development to real estate. Keep reading to learn more about Agile project management, how it can help projects succeed, and the different project management software that uses Agile today.

Key Takeaways: Agile Project Management

• Agile project management (APM) offers a flexible and innovative approach to managing projects by breaking them down into sprints.
• Agile projects help reduce risk and improve overall product quality by encouraging feedback at each stage of the process.
• In 2001, Agile was started by a group of 17 software engineers who created the Agile Manifesto, a set of values and principles that govern Agile.
• Agile project management has produced seven frameworks. They are Kanban, Scrum, Crystal, Lean, FDD, Extreme Programming, and the Dynamic System Development Method (DSDM).
• Of the seven Agile frameworks, Kanban and Scrum are the most widely used.

What Is Agile Project Management?

Agile project management (APM) is a project management method that divides work into sprints to help reduce risk and improve overall product quality with an open feedback loop between the project owner, team members, and customers. 

Definition of APM

Used by product owners and managers worldwide, Agile project management offers a flexible and innovative approach to managing a project by breaking the project down into stages, also known as sprints. It is considered a flexible, iterative design and build process that does not rely on a pre-planned process, executed as the situation demands.

One major difference between the Agile framework and Agile workflow versus other methodologies is in its approach to adaptability to build projects and manage projects. Other project management methods conduct all planning before the project starts.

On the other hand, Agile project management methods rely on an iterative nature that accepts changes mid-way throughout the process with a face-to-face conversation between the project manager, scrum team, and clients. 

How Does Agile Project Management Work?

In a typical Agile development cycle, there are several small cycles or sprints. Each phase contributes to project completion and comprises a product and sprint backlog. A sprint backlog consists of a list of tasks to be completed, revolving around planning, design, testing, and release. With every sprint, new features are added to each product.

According to VersionOne’s 13th Annual State of Agile Report, “97 percent of respondents reported that their organizations use Agile development methods—up from 80 percent in 2011”.

History of Agile 

The earliest instances of Agile occurred around 1913, starting with Ford’s first Michigan automotive plant that reinvented the process of manufacturing with the first moving assembly line. The line assembled an entire vehicle from scratch, cutting the time spent building a car from half a day to less than two hours.

In the late 1970s with the advent of personal computers, consumer demand for electronic products hit an all-time high. This spurred the demand for effective project management systems for a customer’s competitive advantage. However, it continued to see a disparity between the client’s requirements and delivered projects with a nod to creating comprehensive documentation over client satisfaction.

In 2001, a group of 17 software developers led by Martin Fowler and Jim Highsmith created the Agile Manifesto, a document that drilled down four key values and Agile processes essential to project management and Agile projects.

In addition to the four key values, there were 12 additional principles based on customer satisfaction, streamlined delivery of the final product, dividing the project into sprints, and other Agile development methods its founders thought were critical towards completing a project.

Today, there are seven different Agile project management methodologies born out of Agile project management, which include Kanban, Scrum, Crystal, Lean, FDD, Extreme Programming, and the Dynamic System Development Method (DSDM) based on Rapid Application Development (RAD).

Why Choose Agile Project Management?

There are four major reasons for managing projects using Agile:

• High product quality.
• High customer satisfaction.
• Reduced risk.
• Better and faster ROI.

High Product Quality

One of the major reasons for choosing Agile project management over other methodologies is high product quality. High product quality takes into account the demands of all stakeholders. Regular quality control testing is done throughout the project development process.

High Customer Satisfaction

High customer satisfaction is another reason to choose Agile project management over other methodologies. This high customer satisfaction refers to periodic updates made to each customer, continuous and fast delivery of each sprint, and accepting change requests by the customer.

Reduced Risk

Using the Agile methodology in any project reduces the risk of exceeding budget and surpassing a deadline. This is done with improved communication between the project owner, stakeholders (developers), and the client. There are daily or weekly scrum meetings that have each team member asking what they have achieved since the last meeting.

Agile also encourages proper risk assessment and response. For example, many software development teams classified risk by assigning a value to each risk to determine which ones to prioritize. These are known as risk burndown charts or risk probability and impact matrices. There are also different response strategies depending on the risk, such as avoidance, exploitation, transfer/sharing, mitigating/enhancing, and accepting.

With Agile methodologies, collecting feedback early on and incorporating quality assurance testing throughout the project all contribute to reduced risk.

Better and Faster ROI

One of the biggest benefits of an Agile approach is turning in a better and faster ROI for all types of projects, including software development projects. A reason for this is due to Agile’s iterative process, where the first iteration or sprint can offer new functionality that increases ROI. This is in contrast to waiting until the end of the project to introduce a new feature.

In an Agile environment, better ROI also extends to reduced costs, defects, and delays. Spring cycles make it easy to identify and repair defects before they make it onto production.

Principles and Values of Agile Project Management

According to the Agile Manifesto, the four key values for Agile management are:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
• A working product is more important than comprehensive documentation.
• Customer collaboration comes before contract negotiation.
• Responding to change is preferred over following a plan.

Agile project management focuses on the importance of client communication and keeping the customer involved in all project phases . This is in stark contrast to the Waterfall development method that allows customers to provide feedback before and after work is completed.

Read: Waterfall vs Agile Methodology: What’s Better for Your Project?

Agile processes harness change, and unforeseen circumstances could include a revision to the final project scope, demand for extra features, and other customer-led feedback that alters time, cost, and resources.

Popular Agile methodologies adhere to the following 12 principles:

• Customer satisfaction through continuous delivery of the product.
• Divide large chunks of work into smaller and achievable tasks for quicker completion and easier integration of changes.
• Adhere to the decided timeframe for the delivery of a working product.
• Stakeholders must collaborate frequently to make sure the project is moving in the right direction.
• Create a supportive environment to motivate team members and encourage them to get the job done.
• Prefer face-to-face communication over other methods.
• Working software is the primary measure of progress.
• Try to maintain a constant pace indefinitely for development.
• Maintain the quality of the product by paying attention to details, leading to technical excellence.
• Maintain simplicity.
• Promote self-organization in the team.
• Regularly reflect on your performance for continuous improvement.

All of these project management Agile principles pay a nod to disciplined Agile delivery over traditional project management methods, dividing large volumes of work into smaller, manageable chunks, and getting buy-in from all stakeholders. It also believes in a customer-centric approach that demands face-to-face communication and gives team members a platform to speak on proposed changes.

Despite the changes to work, the goal continues to be producing all final deliverables, as evident by its “working software is the primary measure of progress” principle.

Lastly, a key Agile methodology principle is continuous improvement through iteration, where all mistakes are recognized and learned from. Many project managers may decide to engage team members in one-on-one or group sessions for this purpose.

6 Phases of Agile Project Management

The six phases/stages of Agile project management are:

• Maintenance. 
• Retirement.

The Concept phase of Agile project management refers to determining the project scope. In this stage, the product owner discusses all requirements and deliverables with the client, prioritizing a list of features in order of most to least important. All time, resources, and costs are factored in with a thorough and detailed analysis.

Inception in Agile project management refers to assembling the right development team to proceed. Team members will be identified and given all the tools and resources added to start the design process. The design process can incorporate mock-ups and light sketches of product infrastructure, taking input from the product owner, team members, and client. Consider this stage the brainstorming section.

Iteration is the longest phase in Agile project management. The first iteration or sprint will produce a bare-bones foundation, whereas future iterations will focus on additional features and improvements. Remember, the goal of Agile product development is to conduct work in short cycles or sprints, with each sprint allowing enough time to gather feedback, assess new risks, and guide future iterations.

Release in Agile project management refers to quality assurance. All checks are in place to evaluate the product and check for bugs, defects, and effective code. During this stage, developers are hard at work clearing out bugs and creating documentation and user training. Once the release stage is complete, the product’s final iteration can be released into the wild.

Maintenance

Maintenance is the critical stage where the product is fully available to customers by a development team and self-organizing teams. During this time, all product end-users are engaged with incoming documentation and user training by product builders. With Agile methodology demanding a dynamic systems development method, new iterations may often occur to upgrade the existing product for early and continuous delivery.

In Agile project management, retirement refers to the time a product becomes expired, is soon to be replaced with new software, or is phased out altogether due to new business demands, a lack of sustainable development, increased competition, etc. These result in “end-of-life”: activities by developments, including withdrawing all support and notifying end-users the product is no longer available.

APM Methodologies

One of the benefits of Agile is its flexibility. Five popular Agile methodologies or frameworks used in Agile project management are:

• Kanban. 
• Extreme Programming. 

Lean Development

• Crystal. 

All of these Agile methods and Agile project management practices have their own strengths and weaknesses connected with sprint planning and the composition of software teams.

Scrum is a visual way of managing projects that group tasks into columns based on progress. The technique helps teams work together and adapt to changes and problems by breaking the project up into chunks — these tasks are then worked on in sprints. With feature-driven development, this allows only one sprint to be planned and managed at a time.

Another one of the key benefits of Agile is powerful visualization tools. Kanban is a highly visual representation of projects that allows users to create a Kanban board and label tasks and subtasks into three key categories: “to do,” “doing,” and “completed.” Many popular project management tools like ClickUp and monday.com feature Kanban boards that use intuitive drag-and-drop functionalities to project cards. Consider the Kanban board a preferred choice for Agile team visual learners and designers.

Unlike Scrum’s Agile methodology, sprints are not planned and managed one at a time, but collectively.

Extreme Programming

Also referred to as XP, this framework works similarly to Scrum but incorporates 12 supporting Agile approaches that are software-centric, which include:

• Planning games.
• Small releases.
• Customer acceptance tests.
• Simple design.
• Pair programming.
• Test-driven development.
• Refactoring.
• Continuous integration.
• Collective code ownership.
• Coding standards.
• Sustainable pace.

Lean development shares some of the same Agile project management methodologies as Agile with newer principles that include the following:

• Eliminating waste.
• Build quality in.
• Create knowledge.
• Defer commitment.
• Deliver fast.
• Respect people.
• Optimize the whole.

Started by Alistair Cockburn, one of the original Manifesto authors, for a 1991 IBM project, Crystal is an Agile project management process that focuses on individuals and interactions, not processes and tools.

It is based on two beliefs:

• Teams can find ways on their own to improve and optimize their workflows.
• Every project is unique and always changing, which is why that project’s team is best suited to determine how it will tackle the work.

Some family members of the Crystal methodology include Crystal Clear, Crystal Yellow, Crystal Orange, and Crystal Red.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Agile Project Management

Agile project management adheres to the Agile Manifesto, a set of values and principles that allow teams to work more effectively via product cycles or sprints. It emphasizes individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over documentation, improved change management, and customer collaboration over contract negotiation.

In simple terms, Agile in project management is an iterative approach to delivering work, also known as sprints. This offers improved risk management, client/stakeholder/scrum master feedback, and overall team collaboration over other project development methods like Waterfall.

There are seven Agile Project Management methods—Kanban, Scrum, Crystal, Lean, FDD, Extreme Programming, and the Dynamic System Development Method (DSDM). All of these Agile tools and Agile processes vary in terms of the number of releases, length of development cycles, amount of customer collaboration, length of development process, and other sprint planning considerations while remaining tied to Agile values.

The difference between Agile and project management is simple. According to the Project Management Institute, project management is the use of specific knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to deliver something of value to people. Agile is a methodology used in project management that delivers work using an iterative approach throughout the life cycle, seen vividly using a Kanban board. Short, incremental sprint planning (iterative approach) allows the Agile community, Agile teams, and scrum teams to be flexible to changes and new developments and less time for upfront planning.

Final Thoughts on Agile Project Management

There are many APM projects that can be used. Some notable types of projects include small to large software development, product development, and virtually any business where the deliverable can be produced in incremental sprints. Consider Agile even valid for opening up a new bookstore or upgrading a new franchise location.

Remember, all products could benefit from feature-driven software development thanks to collaborative working, shorter development cycles, and Agile practices. All of this can be achieved with improved communication between project owners/developers/clients, more frequent reviews, two-way communication, and a more collaborative work environment that values feedback.

To become proficient in Agile Development methodologies, there are several certifications available. Some of the more notable ones include PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) and the APMG International Agile Project Management certification. Both require a secondary degree and several hours of Agile training in addition to thousands of hours of general experience on project teams. With heavy study and real-world experience, these certifications enable you to become a scrum master.

Anyone working on Agile teams or looking to understand and use Agile principles in project management is encouraged to obtain PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) or APMG International Agile Project Management certification. Many members of teams work with these certifications on hand.

Max Abraham

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12 agile methodologies: Pros, cons, and when to use them

Last updated: May 2024

Agile methodologies provide a framework for software development that is centered around collaboration, iteration, learning, and value delivery. Development teams break large efforts into manageable increments and tackle them in time-boxed cycles. The idea is for your team to have a clear, unified approach for how to define and complete work — for more flexibility, faster time to market, and higher quality software.

Scrum is indisputably the most popular agile framework used by teams today. According to the most recent findings from one annual report , 87 percent of teams leverage scrum. Notably, this particular survey includes all types of teams — from marketing to IT to engineering. That is… a lot of teams. One reason that scrum is adopted by so many is that it offers a lightweight framework for continuous improvement, from sprint planning to retrospectives.

Try the sprint retrospective template below — with a free trial .

Start using this template now

Scrum is popular but it is not the only agile method. The workflows and processes that are optimal for other groups may not be right for you. Your specific industry, company culture, team size, and the type of product you are building will all influence the methodology you choose.

This guide goes deep on different methodologies that agile teams use — such as kanban , lean , and others — so that you can determine the best approach for your team:

Agile development principles

How to choose an agile methodology.

Different types of agile frameworks

Following agile principles can lead to greater productivity and team alignment. When you are flexible and willing to pivot quickly, you reduce risk — it is possible to move fast and give customers what they want.

There are four values at the core of agile approaches, as stated in the Agile Manifesto :

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

Building and delivering a winning product with an agile approach requires cross-functional collaboration across the entire organization: product, engineering, marketing, sales, and support. Whether or not your team follows agile principles, it is crucial to have guidelines and practices in place for how you will complete your work. When everyone understands and agrees on a method, it is easier to make progress towards your goals. You can achieve faster results and deliver a better customer experience .

Get more product development insights — sign up for our newsletter .

7 reasons to adopt an agile approach

• What is agile transformation?
• What is agile product management?

Agile is a state of mind, not a prescription — ideally it should feel expansive and freeing rather than confining. Brian de Haaff Aha! co-founder and CEO

Typically a CEO or CTO will select the methodology, with input and support from engineering team leads. If you are part of a group tasked with choosing which agile methodology to embrace, there are a variety of factors that you should take into account as part of your evaluation.

Organizational characteristics

Size: Smaller companies can often get started with more lightweight approaches, whereas larger enterprises benefit from sophisticated frameworks.

Industry: Some industries require specific checkpoints for security or regulatory concerns, which can impact the agile method the team follows.

Culture: Management styles, communication, and openness to change all influence workflow choices.

Product characteristics

Type: Hardware, software, IT, consumer — what it is you are building and for whom will play a role in methodology selection.

Maturity: Products have a lifecycle with distinct stages.

Complexity: Highly complex products require a defined framework that still allows for adaptability.

Team characteristics

Size: Scrappy startups will have people doing the work of several different roles versus an established company with many groups of engineers supporting.

Experience: Novice developers do not need the weight of a heavy framework, but will benefit from structure.

Location: Small co-located teams have different needs than groups dispersed globally.

• What is the product lifecycle?
• Best practices for managing a product development team
• The Aha! Framework for product development

What are agile best practices?

No matter which methodology you choose, remember that being more agile requires shifting the way you think about the work you are doing. It helps if everyone on the team can articulate the ultimate goal — the reason why you are shifting to agile and the value it will deliver to customers beyond the individual features you ship. This makes rallying the team around a specific way of working a bit smoother.

Regardless of which methodology you choose, you can plan on incorporating the following agile best practices :

Iterative cycles: Teams follow a repeatable cycle of development activities such as planning, design, development, testing, and deployment. Each iteration provides an opportunity to incorporate feedback and deliver a better product.

Incremental development: Developers break down large projects into smaller, more manageable units of work. Since each batch of work builds on previous increments, your product is constantly being improved. Updates come early in the process versus in a single release at the end of development.

Frequent communication: Alignment across the entire product development team depends on ongoing communication. Regularly connecting with cross-functional teammates minimizes costly rework. Agile teams touch base on capacity, work status, and any issues that need to be addressed.

Time-boxing: Developers focus on completing one task at a time before moving on to the next project or phase of work.

Retrospectives: Team members check in with one another at regular intervals (typically after a set time-boxed period like a sprint) to reflect on how to improve processes going forward. Agile retrospectives facilitate the kind of transparent, open communication that allows teams to constantly evolve.

What are best practices of agile development teams?

• How to structure your product development team
• What is an agile retrospective?

When to invest in agile workflow tools

You can always try to adapt an existing workflow tool to fit an agile framework. But bug-tracking tools, simple task management boards, and spreadsheet tools can only take you so far. As you begin to mature in your processes, you will likely find that you need an agile workflow tool that provides templates, reporting capabilities, and empowers you to collaborate closely with product management.

Deliver more value with Aha! Develop — sign up for a free trial .

Different types of agile development frameworks.

There are many different agile development methodologies that teams adopt. Some stick to a single methodology, while others opt to use multiple frameworks. Many also adopt a hybrid approach, combining elements of one methodology with others to meet their needs. For example, "scrumban" incorporates both the structure of scrum and the workflow visuals of kanban. Another example is The Aha! Framework — an approach to product development that fuses prescribed strategic planning with flexible agile work.

No matter which one(s) you choose to follow, each methodology promotes the elements at the root of agile development — flexibility, collaboration, iteration, short release cycles, and immediate feedback.

Crystal focuses on customization. It empowers agile teams to define the most effective way of collaborating, based on details like the number of team members and the specific type of project you are working on. As a developer, you have the autonomy to adjust processes and optimize workflows to fit your needs.

Dynamic systems development methodology (DSDM)

Dynamic systems development methodology (DSDM) combines the principles of time-boxing and collaboration with an emphasis on goals and business impact. It lays out distinct phases for tackling projects, from evaluating feasibility to creating prototypes to implementation. DSDM is typically selected by larger organizations and governments with the budget to cover overhead and implementation.

Extreme programming (XP)

Extreme programming is all about collaboration and transparency. XP espouses five key values: communication, simplicity, feedback, courage, and respect. Developers typically engage in pair programming — sitting together and writing code on one machine. Small teams that are co-located and close-knit can benefit from using XP.

Feature-driven development (FDD)

Feature-driven development espouses a customer-centric view to software development. By prioritizing user stories, FDD helps teams deliver more features that customers want. Work moves quickly — developers typically build each feature in two weeks. FDD can be useful for companies with a more rigid or hierarchical structure, where lead developers make decisions that impact the rest of the team.

Kanban is a visual method for managing workflows. Teams use a kanban board to quickly see the status of upcoming work. The goal is to reduce lead time by optimizing the flow of work and limiting the amount of work in progress. Kanban is popular with many types of agile development teams, as well as product and project teams.

Large-scale scrum (LeSS)

Large-scale scrum defines 10 principles for deploying and maintaining scrum across an entire company. LeSS was created to support organizations with multiple scrum teams. There are two configurations: one for two to eight scrum teams and one for more than eight scrum teams. LeSS co-creators Craig Larman and Bas Vodde co-wrote a book that outlines how teams can adopt the principles.

Lean software development (LSD)

Lean software development promotes a minimalist approach — eliminating waste, ensuring quality, and delivering quickly. Many growing teams rely on lean practices to help them create more functionality faster.

The Nexus framework was created by Ken Schwaber, one of the co-creators of scrum. It is an agile model that is used in tandem with scrum. Nexus adds an integration team composed of a product owner, scrum master , and integration team members. The nexus team is focused on facilitating dependencies and other issues between teams.

Rapid application development (RAD)

Rapid application development emphasizes speed and flexibility. Developers build prototypes, collect user feedback, and iterate often. RAD is ideal for highly skilled teams that need to develop a product quickly (within a few months) and are able to collaborate with customers during the process.

Scaled agile framework (SAFe®)

The Scaled Agile Framework is a set of principles, guidelines, and prescribed levels for implementing agile and lean principles at scale. SAFe is used by more than 70 of the 100 companies at the top of the Fortune 500 list.

Scrum is the most popular agile development methodology. Teams work in time-boxed sprints of two to four weeks and each person has a clearly delineated role, such as scrum master or product owner. After an initial planning session, teams meet daily and also have retrospectives at the end of each sprint to reflect on how to improve. Scrum is well-suited to small teams that are nimble, cohesive, and willing to pivot often based on stakeholder feedback.

Scrumban is a hybrid of scrum and kanban. It was initially developed as a way for teams to transition from scrum to kanban or vice versa. But over time it gained traction as a standalone methodology, not just as a stopgap. The scrum part of scrumban gives teams defined guidelines for roles, planning, and how to run sprints effectively. The kanban part of scrumban offers a way to balance work against resources with the pull system — plus visualizations of work in progress.

What about DevOps?

It is also worth mentioning DevOps , an approach to software delivery that grew out of agile philosophy. DevOps emphasizes short development cycles and continuous delivery of high-quality software. The focus is on close working relationships between the development and operations teams. Many principles of DevOps — such as automated testing, short feedback loops, and frequent collaboration — are seen in the agile development methodologies above.

Read next: What is agile transformation?

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• Product backlog vs. release backlog vs. sprint backlog
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What is scrum and how to get started

Scrum Guide - What it is, how it works, and how to start

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Streamline your project and easily plan, track and manage work across sprints. The Jira scrum template includes boards, backlogs, roadmaps, reports — and more!

What is scrum?

Scrum is an agile project management  framework that helps teams structure and manage their work through a set of values, principles, and practices. Much like a rugby team (where it gets its name) training for the big game, scrum encourages teams to learn through experiences, self-organize while working on a problem, and reflect on their wins and losses to continuously improve.

While the scrum I’m talking about is most frequently used by software development teams, its principles and lessons can be applied to all kinds of teamwork. This is one of the reasons scrum is so popular. Often thought of as an agile project management framework, scrum describes a set of meetings, tools, and roles that work in concert to help teams structure and manage their work.

In this article, we’ll discuss how a traditional scrum framework is comprised with the help of the  Scrum Guide and David West, CEO of Scrum.org. We’ll also include examples of how we see our customers stray from these fundamentals to fit their specific needs. For that, our own Megan Cook, Head of Product for Jira and former agile coach, will give tips and tricks in our Agile Coach video series:

Scrum featured content

A sprint is a short, time boxed period when a scrum team works to complete a set amount of work.

Sprint Planning

Sprint Planning is an event in scrum that defines what can be delivered in the upcoming sprint and how that work will be achieved.

Four agile ceremonies, demystified

Learn how to facilitate great agile ceremonies like sprint planning, daily stand-ups, iteration review and retrospectives.

The product backlog: your ultimate to-do list

What is a product backlog in agile or scrum? Learn about the best practices for managing and prioritizing a healthy product backlog.

Three steps to better sprint reviews

Learn how sprint reviews demonstrate the hard work of the entire team: designers, developers, and the product owner.

Standups for agile teams

Learn how standups contribute to a healthy agile program and some tips and tricks for you and your team.

What is a Scrum Master?

Learn what a Scrum Master is (and what they are NOT), and how the role supports and works with other members of an agile team.

Agile retrospectives: Use the past to define the future

A retrospective helps teams perform better over time. See what the agile community is saying and learn how to run your own retrospective meetings.

Agile Scrum Roles

Learn about the responsibilities and activities associated with the three major agile scrum roles: scrum master, product owner, and development team.

Scrum of scrums

Scrum of scrums is a scaled agile technique that offers a way to connect multiple teams who need to work together to deliver complex solutions. Learn how to scale scrum with examples from Atlassian and others.

Learn scrum with Jira

A step-by-step guide on how to drive a scrum project, prioritize and organize your backlog into sprints, run the scrum ceremonies and more, all in Jira.

From silo to cohesion with Jira Scrum Boards

Product feature.

The Jira Scrum Board is the visual display of progress during the development cycle.

Agile vs. scrum

People often think scrum and agile are the same thing because scrum is centered around continuous improvement , which is a core principle of agile. However, scrum is a framework for getting work done, whereas  agile is a philosophy. The agile philosophy centers around continuous incremental improvement through small and frequent releases. You can’t really “go agile”, as it takes dedication from the whole team to change the way they think about delivering value to your customers. But you can use a framework like scrum to help you start thinking that way and to practice building agile principles into your everyday communication and work.

The difference between agile and the definition of scrum can be found in the Scrum guide and the Agile manifesto . The Agile manifesto outlines four values:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

The definition of scrum is based on empiricism and lean thinking. Empiricism says that knowledge comes from experience and that decisions are made based on what is observed. Lean thinking reduces waste and focuses on essentials. The scrum framework is heuristic; it’s based on continuous learning and adjustment to fluctuating factors. It acknowledges that the team doesn’t know everything at the start of a project and will evolve through experience. Scrum is structured to help teams naturally adapt to changing conditions and user requirements, with re-prioritization built into the process and short release cycles so your team can constantly learn and improve.

While scrum is structured, it is not entirely rigid. Its execution can be tailored to the needs of any organization. There are many theories about how exactly scrum teams must work in order to be successful. However, after more than a decade of helping agile teams get work done at Atlassian, we’ve learned that clear communication, transparency, and a dedication to continuous improvement should always remain at the center of whatever framework you choose. And the rest is up to you.

The scrum framework

The scrum framework outlines a set of values, principles, and practices that scrum teams follow to deliver a product or service. It details the members of a scrum team and their accountabilities, “artifacts” that define the product and work to create the product, and scrum ceremonies that guide the scrum team through work.

Members of a scrum team

A scrum team is a small and nimble team dedicated to delivering committed product increments. A scrum team’s size is typically small, at around 10 people, but it’s large enough to complete a substantial amount of work within a sprint. A scrum team needs three specific roles: product owner, scrum master , and the development team. And because scrum teams are cross-functional, the development team includes testers, designers, UX specialists, and ops engineers in addition to developers.

The scrum product owner

Product owners are the champions for their product. They are focused on understanding business, customer, and market requirements, then prioritizing the work to be done by the engineering team accordingly. Effective product owners:

Build and manage the product backlog.

Closely partner with the business and the team to ensure everyone understands the work items in the product backlog.

Give the team clear guidance on which features to deliver next.

Decide when to ship the product with a predisposition towards more frequent delivery.

The product owner is not always the product manager . Product owners focus on ensuring the development team delivers the most value to the business. Also, it's important that the product owner be an individual. No development team wants mixed guidance from multiple product owners.

The scrum master

Scrum masters are the champions of scrum within their teams. They coach teams, product owners, and the business on the scrum process, and look for ways to fine-tune their practice of it.

An effective scrum master deeply understands the work being done by the team and can help the team optimize their transparency and delivery flow. As the facilitator-in-chief, he/she schedules the needed resources (both human and logistical) for sprint planning, stand-up, sprint review, and the sprint retrospective.

The scrum development team

Scrum teams get s*%& done. They are the champions for sustainable development practices. The most effective scrum teams are tight-knit, co-located, and usually five to seven members. One way to work out the team size is to use the famous ‘two pizza rule’ coined by Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon (the team should be small enough to share two pizzas).

Team members have differing skill sets, and cross-train each other so no one person becomes a bottleneck in the delivery of work. Strong scrum teams are self-organizing and approach their projects with a clear ‘we’ attitude. All members of the team help one another to ensure a successful sprint completion.

The scrum team drives the plan for each sprint. They forecast how much work they believe they can complete over the iteration using their historical velocity as a guide. Keeping the iteration length fixed gives the development team important feedback on their estimation and delivery process, which in turn makes their forecasts increasingly accurate over time.

Scrum artifacts

Scrum artifacts are important information used by the scrum team that helps define the product and what work to be done to create the product. There are three artifacts in scrum: product backlog, a sprint backlog, and an increment with your definition of “done”. They are the three constants a scrum team should reflect on during sprints and over time.

Product Backlog is the primary list of work that needs to get done and maintained by the product owner or product manager. This is a dynamic list of features, requirements, enhancements, and fixes that acts as the input for the sprint backlog. It is, essentially, the team’s “To Do” list. The product backlog is constantly revisited, re-prioritized and maintained by the Product Owner because, as we learn more or as the market changes, items may no longer be relevant or problems may get solved in other ways.

Sprint Backlog is the list of items, user stories , or bug fixes, selected by the development team for implementation in the current sprint cycle. Before each sprint, in the sprint planning meeting (which we’ll discuss later in the article) the team chooses which items it will work on for the sprint from the product backlog. A sprint backlog may be flexible and can evolve during a sprint. However, the fundamental sprint goal – what the team wants to achieve from the current sprint – cannot be compromised.

Increment (or Sprint Goal) is the usable end-product from a sprint. At Atlassian, we usually demonstrate the “increment” during the end-of-sprint demo, where the team shows what was completed in the sprint. You may not hear the word “increment” out in the world, as it’s often referred to as the team’s definition of “Done”, a milestone, the sprint goal, or even a full version or a shipped epic . It just depends on how your teams defines “Done” and how you define your sprint goals. For example, some teams choose to release something to their customers at the end of every sprint. So their definition of ‘done’ would be ‘shipped’. However, this may not be realistic of other types of teams. Say you work on a server-based product that can only ship to your customers every quarter. You may still choose to work in 2-week sprints, but your definition of ‘done’ may be finishing part of a larger version that you plan to ship together. But of course, the longer it takes to release software, the higher the risk that software will miss the mark.

As you can tell, there are lots of variations, even within artifacts, that your team can choose to define. That’s why it’s important to be remain open to evolving how you maintain even your artifacts. Perhaps your definition of ‘done’ provides undo stress on your team, and you need to go back and pick a new definition.

You should be just as agile with your framework as you are with your product. Take the necessary time to check in on how things are going, make adjustments if needed, and don’t force something just for the sake of consistency.

Scrum ceremonies or events

The scrum framework includes scrum practices, ceremonies, and meetings that scrum teams perform on a regular basis. The agile ceremonies are where we see the most variations for teams. For example, some teams find doing all of these ceremonies cumbersome and repetitive, while others use them as a necessary check-in. Our advice is to start out using all of the ceremonies for two sprints and see how it feels. You can then perform a quick retro and see where you might need to adjust.

Below is a list of all the key ceremonies a scrum team might partake in:

Organize the backlog : Sometimes known as backlog grooming, this event is the responsibility of the product owner. The product owner’s main jobs are to drive the product towards its product vision and have a constant pulse on the market and the customer. Therefore, he/she maintains this list using feedback from users and the development team to help prioritize and keep the list clean and ready to be worked on at any given time. You can read more about maintaining a healthy backlog here .

Sprint planning : The work to be performed (scope) during the current sprint is planned during this meeting by the entire development team. This meeting is led by the scrum master and is where the team decides on the sprint goal. Specific user stories are then added to the sprint from the product backlog.  These stories always align with the goal and are also agreed upon by the scrum team to be feasible to implement during the sprint.

At the end of the planning meeting, every scrum member needs to be clear on what can be delivered in the sprint and how the increment can be delivered.

Sprint : A sprint is the actual time period when the scrum team works together to finish an increment. Two weeks is a pretty typical length for a sprint, though some teams find a week to be easier to scope or a month to be easier to deliver a valuable increment. Dave West, from Scrum.org advises that the more complex the work and the more unknowns, the shorter the sprint should be. But it’s really up to your team, and you shouldn’t be afraid to change it if it’s not working! During this period, the scope can be re-negotiated between the product owner and the development team if necessary. This forms the crux of the empirical nature of scrum.

All the events — from planning to retrospective — happen during the sprint. Once a certain time interval for a sprint is established, it has to remain consistent throughout the development period. This helps the team learn from past experiences and apply that insight to future sprints.

Daily scrum or stand up: This is a daily super-short meeting that happens at the same time (usually mornings) and a place to keep it simple. Many teams try to complete the meeting in 15 minutes, but that’s just a guideline. This meeting is also called a ‘daily stand-up’ emphasizing that it needs to be a quick one. The goal of the daily scrum is for everyone on the team to be on the same page, aligned with the sprint goal, and to get a plan out for the next 24 hours.

The stand up is the time to voice any concerns you have with meeting the sprint goal or any blockers.

A common way to conduct a stand up is for every team member to answer three questions in the context of achieving the sprint goal: • What did I do yesterday? • What do I plan to do today? • Are there any obstacles? However, we’ve seen the meeting quickly turn into people reading from their calendars from yesterday and for the next day. The theory behind the stand up is that it keeps distracting chatter to a daily meeting, so the team can focus on the work for the rest of the day.  So if it turns into a daily calendar read-out, don’t be afraid to change it up and get creative.

Sprint review : At the end of the sprint, the team gets together for an informal session to view a demo of, or inspect, the increment. The development team showcases the backlog items that are now ‘Done’ to stakeholders and teammates for feedback. The product owner can decide whether or not to release the increment, although in most cases the increment is released.

This review meeting is also when the product owner reworks the product backlog based on the current sprint, which can feed into the next sprint planning session. For a one-month sprint, consider time-boxing your sprint review to a maximum of four hours.

Sprint retrospective : The retrospective is where the team comes together to document and discuss what worked and what didn’t work in a sprint, a project, people or relationships, tools, or even for certain ceremonies. The idea is to create a place where the team can focus on what went well and what needs to be improved for the next time, and less about what went wrong.

Scrum values

In 2016, five scrum values were added to the Scrum Guide. These values provide direction toward work, actions, and the behavior of the scrum team. They are considered essential to a scrum team’s success.

Because scrum teams are small and agile, each team member plays a significant role in the team’s success. Therefore, each team member should agree to commit to performing tasks they can complete and not overcommit. There should be frequent communication regarding work progress, often in stand-ups.

Courage for a scrum team is simply the bravery to question the status quo or anything that hampers its ability to succeed. Scrum team members should have the courage, and feel safe enough, to try new things. A scrum team should have the courage and feel safe to be transparent about roadblocks, project progress, delays, and so on.

At the heart of the workflow for scrum teams is the sprint, a focused and specified period of time where the team completes a set amount of work. The sprint provides structure but also focus to complete the planned amount of work.

The daily stand-up fosters an openness that allows teams to talk openly about work in progress and blockers. At Atlassian we often have our scrum teams address these questions:

What did I work on yesterday?

What am I working on today?

What issues are blocking me?

This helps to highlight progress and identify blockers. It also helps to strengthen the team when everyone shares progress.

The strength of an agile team lies in its collaboration and recognizing that each team member contributes to work in a sprint. They celebrate each other’s accomplishments and are respectful to one another, the product owner, stakeholders, and the scrum master.

Scrum, kanban, and agile

Scrum is such a popular agile framework that scrum and agile are often misunderstood to be the same thing. But there are other frameworks, like kanban , which is a popular alternative. Some companies even choose to follow a hybrid model of scrum and kanban, which has acquired the name of "Scrumban" or " Kanplan ," which is Kanban with a backlog.  

Both scrum and kanban use visual methods such as the scrum board or kanban board to track the progress of work. Both emphasize efficiency and splitting complex tasks into smaller chunks of manageable work, but their approaches towards that goal are different.

Scrum focuses on smaller, fixed-length iterations. Once the time period for a sprint is finalized, the stories or product backlog entries that can be implemented during this sprint cycle are then determined. In kanban, however, the number of tasks or the work in progress (WIP limit) to be implemented in the current cycle is fixed at first. The time taken to implement these features is then calculated backward.

Kanban is not as structured as scrum. Other than the WIP limit, it is fairly open to interpretation. Scrum, however, has several categorical concepts enforced as part of its implementation such as sprint review, retrospective, daily scrum, etc. It also insists on cross-functionality, which is the ability of a scrum team to not depend on external members to achieve their goals. Putting together a cross-functional team is not straightforward. In that sense, kanban is easier to adapt whereas scrum can be considered as a fundamental shift in the thought process and functioning of a development team.

Getting started with scrum

The scrum framework itself is simple. The rules, artifacts, events, and roles are easy to understand. Its semi-prescriptive approach actually helps remove the ambiguities in the development process, while giving sufficient space for companies to introduce their individual flavor to it.

The organization of complex tasks into manageable user stories makes it ideal for difficult projects. Also, the clear demarcation of roles and planned events ensure that there is transparency and collective ownership throughout the development cycle. Quick releases keep the team motivated and the users happy as they can see progress in a short amount of time.

However, scrum could take time to fully understand, especially if the development team is acclimatized to a typical waterfall model. The concepts of smaller iterations, daily scrum meetings, sprint reviews, and identifying a scrum master could be a challenging cultural shift for a new team.

But, the long-term benefits far outweigh the initial learning curve. Scrum’s success in developing complex hardware and software products across diverse industries and verticals makes it a compelling framework to adopt for your organization .

To learn scrum with Jira, check out this tutorial .

Claire Drumond is a marketing strategist, speaker, and writer for Atlassian. She is the author of numerous articles published on the Trello and Atlassian blogs and is a regular contributor to various publications on Medium including HackerNoon, Art+Marketing, and PoetsUnlimited. She speaks at tech conferences around the world about agile, breaking down silos, and building empathy.

An introduction to kanban methodology for agile software development and its benefits for your agile team.

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Agile Project Management in IT: Best Practices and Solutions

In the fast-paced world of IT, project management methodologies that prioritize flexibility, collaboration, and customer-centric development have become crucial. Agile project management, with its adaptive approach and emphasis on iterative progress, has revolutionized how IT teams deliver value. This blog explores the essentials of Agile project management, its benefits, challenges, and how to effectively implement Agile practices within IT teams.

What is Agile Project Management?

Agile project management is a methodology centered around iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between cross-functional teams. Unlike traditional project management methods, Agile breaks down projects into smaller, manageable increments, allowing teams to adapt to changes quickly and deliver parts of the project sooner. This approach fosters continuous improvement, enabling teams to respond to new requirements, issues, and feedback in real-time.

Key Principles of Agile Methodologies

The foundation of Agile project management is built on several key principles that guide teams towards more effective project delivery:

• Customer Collaboration Over Contract Negotiation: Agile emphasizes working closely with customers to ensure the final product meets their needs.
• Responding to Change Over Following a Plan: Agile teams are encouraged to adapt to changes rather than rigidly following a pre-set plan.
• Working Software Over Comprehensive Documentation: The focus is on delivering functional software that provides value, rather than getting bogged down by extensive documentation.
• Individuals and Interactions Over Processes and Tools: Agile values the importance of human interactions and collaboration, placing them above strict adherence to processes.

Benefits of Agile in IT Project Management

Agile methodologies offer numerous benefits, particularly in the context of IT project management:

• Improved Flexibility and Adaptability: Agile allows teams to quickly adapt to changes in project scope, technology, or customer requirements.
• Enhanced Collaboration and Communication: Regular team meetings, such as daily stand-ups and sprint reviews, foster better communication and collaboration among team members.
• Faster Time-to-Market: By delivering work in small increments, Agile teams can bring parts of the project to market more quickly, providing early value to customers.
• Increased Customer Satisfaction: Regular feedback loops ensure that the final product aligns with customer expectations, leading to higher satisfaction.

Implementing Agile Practices in Your Team

Successfully implementing Agile practices requires a shift in mindset and workflow. Here are some steps to help your team transition to Agile:

• Start with Agile Training: Educate your team about Agile principles, methodologies, and the benefits they bring.
• Adopt Agile Frameworks: Choose a specific Agile framework, such as Scrum or Kanban, that best fits your project needs.
• Promote a Collaborative Environment: Encourage open communication and collaboration within the team, ensuring everyone is aligned with the project’s goals.
• Embrace Iterative Development: Break down the project into small, manageable tasks that can be completed within a sprint cycle, allowing for regular assessment and adaptation.

Tools for Agile Project Management

Several tools can facilitate Agile project management, helping teams track progress, manage tasks, and collaborate effectively:

• JIRA: A popular tool for tracking tasks, managing sprints, and reporting progress.
• Trello: Offers a visual approach to task management with boards, lists, and cards.
• Asana: Helps teams organize and manage their work, ensuring all members are aligned with the project goals.
• Slack: Enhances team communication with channels, direct messaging, and integration with other tools.

Case Studies: Agile Success Stories

Many IT organizations have successfully implemented Agile methodologies, leading to significant improvements in project delivery and customer satisfaction:

• Spotify: The music streaming giant adopted Agile practices to enhance its product development process, allowing teams to work autonomously and deliver new features faster.
• ING Bank: By embracing Agile, ING transformed its IT department, leading to faster project delivery and increased employee engagement.

Common Challenges in Agile Project Management

Despite its benefits, Agile project management is not without its challenges:

• Resistance to Change: Teams accustomed to traditional project management methods may resist the shift to Agile.
• Scope Creep: The flexibility of Agile can sometimes lead to scope creep, where additional features are continuously added, impacting the project timeline.
• Coordination Across Teams: In large organizations, coordinating Agile practices across multiple teams can be challenging.

Integrating Agile with Traditional Methodologies

Some projects may benefit from a hybrid approach, combining Agile with traditional project management methodologies like Waterfall. This integration allows teams to take advantage of Agile’s flexibility while maintaining the structure and predictability of traditional methods. For instance, while Agile can be used for the development phase, traditional methods might be better suited for the planning and deployment stages.

Agile Project Management for Remote Teams

With the rise of remote work, Agile project management has proven to be particularly effective in managing distributed teams. Tools like JIRA, Slack, and Zoom enable seamless communication and collaboration, ensuring that remote teams stay aligned and productive. Daily stand-ups and sprint reviews can be conducted virtually, maintaining the cadence of Agile practices even in a remote environment.

Transworld Associates Agile Solutions: Enhancing IT Project Success

At TW1, we understand the complexities of managing IT projects in today’s dynamic environment. Our Agile solutions are designed to help teams implement and scale Agile practices, ensuring successful project delivery and increased customer satisfaction. By leveraging our expertise in Agile methodologies, we empower teams to overcome challenges, improve collaboration, and deliver high-quality software faster.

In conclusion, Agile project management offers a flexible and efficient approach to managing IT projects, helping teams respond to changes, collaborate effectively, and deliver value to customers. By adopting best practices and utilizing the right tools, IT teams can optimize their workflows, overcome common challenges, and achieve project success.

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• Project management methodologies: 12 po ...

Project management methodologies: 12 popular frameworks

Project management is an ever-evolving field that requires a number of approaches to be successful. Learning the most popular project management methodologies can help you become an industry expert. 

In order to be the best possible project manager , learn about each of these 12 frameworks to find the one that best fits your team’s needs. 

12 project management frameworks

What it is: The Agile project management methodology is one of the most common project management processes. But the reality is that Agile isn’t technically a methodology. Instead, it’s best defined as a project management principle. 

The basis of an Agile approach is:

Collaborative

Fast and effective

Iterative and data-backed

Values individuals over processes

When it comes to putting the Agile manifesto in place, teams often choose specific methodologies to use alongside Agile. These could include Scrum, Kanban, extreme programming, crystal, or even Scrumban . That's because connecting Agile methodology with a more detailed approach produces a well-rounded project management philosophy and a tangible plan for delivering great work. 

Who should use it: The Agile framework can be used for just about any team. This is because the principle behind it is rather universal. The real trick is deciding which methodology to use with it.

2. Waterfall

What it is: The waterfall model is also a very popular framework. But unlike Agile, waterfall is an actual methodology that is rather straightforward. The waterfall methodology , also known as software development life cycle (SDLC), is a linear process in which work cascades down (similar to a waterfall) and is organized in sequential order. 

To achieve this approach, each work task is connected by a dependency. This means each task must be completed before the next task can be started. Not only does this ensure that work stays on track, but it also fosters clear communication throughout the process. 

While viewed as a traditional approach by some modern organizations, this method is good for creating a predictable and thoroughly planned-out project plan . 

Who should use it: Since the waterfall project management methodology is so detailed, it’s great for working on large projects with multiple different stakeholders. This is because there are clear steps throughout the project and dependencies that help track the work needed to reach goals. 

What it is: The Scrum methodology involves short “sprints” that are used to create a project cycle. These cycles span one to two weeks at a time and are organized with teams of 10 or less. This is different from the waterfall approach where individual tasks are broken down into dependencies.

Scum is unique for a variety of reasons, one being the use of a Scrum master. Or, in other words, a project manager that leads daily Scrum meetings, demos, sprints, and sprint retrospectives after each sprint is completed. These meetings aim to connect project stakeholders and ensure tasks are completed on time. 

While Scrum is technically a project management methodology in its own right, it’s most commonly associated with an Agile framework. This is because they share similar principles, such as collaboration and valuing individuals over processes. 

Who should use it: Teams that use an Agile approach should use, or at least try, the Scrum methodology as well. Since sprints are divided into small teams, this approach can work for both small and large teams. 

What it is: The Kanban methodology represents project backlogs using visual elements, specifically boards. This approach is used by Agile teams to better visualize workflows and project progress while decreasing the likelihood of bottlenecks. It’s also usually in the form of a software tool that allows you to change and drag boards seamlessly within projects, though it’s not a requirement. 

Since this method doesn’t have a defined process like others, many teams use it differently. The main concept to keep in mind is that Kanban aims to focus on the most important project tasks, keeping the overall framework simple.

Who should use it: Kanban boards are great for teams of all sizes and specifically remote-first teams. This is because the visual capabilities of Kanban boards help team members stay on track no matter where they are. 

5. Scrumban

What it is: As you may have guessed, Scrumban is a methodology that draws inspiration from both Scrum and Kanban frameworks. Some think of this as a hybrid approach that incorporates the best of each. 

Scrumban uses a similar sprint cycle as Scrum but allows individual tasks to be pulled into the plan like Kanban. This allows the most important work to be completed and keeps project plans simple. Scrumban also uses Scrum meetings to enhance collaboration and keep goals top of mind. 

Who should use it: If you like the idea of breaking down a project into smaller tasks, but likewise want to keep it visually simple, Scrumban might be for you. It’s the perfect intersection of simplicity and clarity.  

What it is: PRINCE2 , otherwise known as PR ojects IN C ontrolled E nvironments, uses the overarching waterfall methodology to define stages within a project. It was initially created by the UK government for IT projects and still primarily suits large IT initiatives over the traditional product or market-focused projects. 

There are seven main principles of PRINCE2, which include:

Starting a project

Directing a project

Initiating a project

Controlling a project

Managing product delivery

Managing a stage boundary

Closing a project

These seven principles create a thorough project process and make for an effective enterprise project methodology altogether. It aims to define roles and back management. Not only that, but PRINCE2 can be used to streamline a ton of individual project management tasks, like controlling a stage, managing product delivery, and initiating and closing a project. 

Who should use it: Due to the particular nature of the PRINCE2 project management methodology, it’s best suited for large enterprise projects with a number of project stakeholders . Using it for small projects may create a longer and more complicated process than necessary. 

7. Six Sigma

What it is: Unlike the other PM methodologies, Six Sigma is used for quality management and is frequently described as a philosophy rather than a traditional methodology. It is often paired with either a lean methodology or Agile framework, otherwise known as lean Six Sigma and Agile Six Sigma. 

The main purpose of Six Sigma is to continuously improve processes and eliminate defects. This is achieved through continuous improvements by field experts to sustain, define, and control processes. 

To take this method one step further, you can use a Six Sigma DMAIC process, which creates a phased approach. These phases include:

Define: Create a project scope , business case , and initial stand-up meeting.

Measure: Collect data that helps inform improvement needs.

Analyze: Identify the root causes of problems. 

Improve: Solve the root causes found.

Control: Work to sustain the solutions for future projects. 

Who should use it: Six Sigma is best for large organizations, usually those with a few hundred employees or more. This is when the need to eliminate project waste starts to have a larger impact on your organization. 

8. Critical path method (CPM)

What it is: The critical path method works to identify and schedule critical tasks within a project. This includes creating task dependencies, tracking project goals and progress, prioritizing deliverables , and managing due dates—all of which are similar to a work breakdown structure .

The objective of this methodology is to properly manage successful projects at scale so that milestones and deliverables are mapped correctly. 

Who should use it: The critical path method is best for small and mid-size projects and teams. This is because large projects require many deliverables with multiple stakeholders and the CPM isn’t built to manage complex projects. 

9. Critical chain project management (CCPM)

What it is: The critical chain project management framework is closely related to the critical path methodology but is even more detailed, making it one of the most comprehensive options. 

Along with implementing a work breakdown structure like CPM, CCPM includes specific time requirements for each task. This helps take task tracking one step further, making it clear when tasks are going over their allotted time. It also uses resource leveling which aims to resolve large workloads by distributing work across available resources. 

Not only do these help both productivity and efficiency, but they also help connect the work needed to be completed with project goals. Many project management tools even have visual elements to better visualize these goals, creating an organized road map for team members. 

Who should use it: CCPM is a great method for both small and large teams, but it mostly helps solve project efficiency problems . It can also be a great way to report work in progress to leadership. 

What it is: The lean project management methodology aims to cut waste and create a simple framework for project needs. This ultimately means doing more with less in order to maximize efficiency and teamwork. 

While reducing waste originally referred to a physical product (which dates back to the method used by Henry Ford and later by Toyota and Motorola), it now refers to wasteful practices. There are three Ms that represent this:

Muda (wastefulness): Practices that consume resources but don’t add value  

Mura (unevenness): Occurs through overproduction and leaves behind waste 

Muri (overburden): Occurs when there is too much strain on resources  

As a project manager, your job is to prevent the three Ms in order to better execute projects and streamline processes. This is similar to the approach of rational unified process (RUP), which also aims to reduce waste. The difference is that RUP aims to reduce development costs instead of wasteful practices. 

Who should use it: Since lean is all about reducing waste, it’s best suited for teams struggling with efficiency issues. While this will have a greater impact on large organizations, it can be helpful for project teams of all sizes. 

11. Project management institute’s PMBOK® Guide

What it is: While the PMI’s Project Management Body of Knowledge is associated as a project management methodology, it’s more closely related to a set of best practices that take into account various development processes. 

This framework focuses on implementing the five project management phases , all of which help easily manage a project from start to finish in a structured phase approach. The five phases include:

Project initiation

Project planning

Project executing

Project performance

Project closure

While this is a good foundation to keep in mind, the PMBOK® Guide isn’t necessarily as specific as other approaches. This means you’ll need to decide which tasks to complete in each phase. 

Who should use it: The PMBOK® Guide can be used on its own for small teams on standard projects, though it’s a good idea to pair it with a more detailed methodology (like CPM) for large teams handling complex projects. 

12. Extreme programming (XP)

What it is: As the name suggests, extreme programming is used for fast-paced projects with tight deadlines. The approach works by creating short development cycles with many releases. This makes for quick turnaround times and increased productivity . 

Extreme programming has a few core values, which include simplicity, communication, feedback, respect, and courage. It also includes a specific set of XP rules which includes all phases from planning to testing. 

Who should use it: Extreme programming can be used for individual projects with tight deadlines, most commonly with small to midsize teams. Since XP is a fast-paced method, it should be used lightly in order to prevent burnout . 

Choosing the right project management methodology for your team

There is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to project management methodologies. Each one offers unique principles to take a development project from an initial plan to final execution. 

The main aspects to keep in mind are the size of your team and how your team prefers to work. Here are some additional tips to consider:

Your industry : Consider if you’re in an industry that changes frequently. For example, a technology company would be an industry that is ever-evolving. This will affect project consistency and should be paired with either a flexible or stagnant methodology. 

Your project focus : Consider the objectives of your projects . Do you value people over efficiency? This will help pair you with a methodology that matches a similar objective. 

The complexity of projects : Are your projects on the more complex side, or are they usually straightforward? Some methods aren’t as good as others at organizing complex tasks, such a CCPM.

The specialization of roles : Consider how niche the roles within your team are. Can multiple team members alternate the same type of work, or do you need a method that focuses on specialization?

Your organization’s size : The size of your organization and team should be weighed heavily when deciding on a methodology. Methods like Kanban are universal for team size, while options like CPM are better suited for small teams. 

Whether your team members prefer a visual process like Kanban or a more traditional project management approach like the waterfall method, there’s an option for every type of team. To take a project management methodology one step further, consider a work management tool to better track and execute development projects. 

Methods to manage your projects mindfully

With the right project management methodology in place, you’ll be able to take your projects to new levels of efficiency and implement processes that are right for your team, your organization, and yourself.

Related resources

Waterfall, Agile, Kanban, and Scrum: What’s the difference?

New site openings: How to reduce costs and delays

8 steps to write an effective project status report

Provider onboarding software: Simplify your hiring process

• August 29, 2024
• Hajime Estanislao

10 Ways of Planning in Agile Projects

By: Hajime Estanislao, PMP, CSM ; Editor: Geram Lompon ; Reviewed by: Dr. Michael J. Shick, MSPM, PMP, CSM

Do you struggle to keep your Agile projects on track due to shifting requirements and tight deadlines? Traditional planning methods may be insufficient and can leave your team scrambling to adapt, resulting in missed deadlines, budget overruns, and frustrated stakeholders.

Imagine a flexible approach that enables your team to thrive in dynamic project environments, delivering results and outcomes. Agile planning offers that. It’s more than just ticking off tasks from the checklist; it’s about collaboration, innovation, and fulfilling project milestones to deliver value.

How about having a clear plan for Agile planning, a guide that helps you understand the agile planning process and enables your team to succeed consistently, sprint after sprint? With the right approach, you can transform your plan, ensuring you meet your project goals. Whether you are managing software development projects or leading a cross-functional team, Agile planning can be the game-changer to tip the balance.

Do not let poor planning ruin your project. Discover ten ways to Agile project planning . Whether new to Agile or looking to refine your skills, these strategies will equip you with the information you need to lead your team .

Basic Description of Planning in Agile for Project Managers

Planning in Agile is a dynamic approach to project management where the planning process is continuous and flexible so your teams can adapt to changes as they arise.

Agile planning is different from traditional project management because it starts with general plans for the whole project and then fills in the details bit by bit in shorter periods of time.

This approach enables agile project managers to respond to shifting priorities, evolving requirements, and unexpected challenges, so your team remains focused on delivering value with each iteration.

In Agile, planning is a collaborative and ongoing activity that involves the whole team. This helps everyone stay on the same page and work together towards a shared goal.

Reasons You Need to Know Planning in Agile Contexts

Agile planning includes scheduling tasks and promotes flexibility, team collaboration , and adaptation to new challenges and opportunities. Mastering Agile planning helps you to deliver projects that meet stakeholder expectations .

Adapt to Change

Agile planning helps you manage evolving requirements and shifting priorities without derailing the project . In traditional project management , risk management involves preventing known risks from happening. Change can also pose a positive risk that project managers can take advantage of .

Deliver Value Continuously

By focusing on iterative planning and implementing agile software development techniques, you ensure that every phase delivers measurable value to stakeholders. You start with a minimum viable product (MVP). The MVP promotes accepting and providing feedback, further refining the value delivered to customers.

Enhance Team Collaboration

Agile planning creates a collaborative environment in which the entire team is involved in the planning process, leading to better alignment and ownership.

Improve Stakeholder Engagement

Regular planning and feedback loops keep stakeholders informed and involved, reducing the risk of misunderstandings or misaligned expectations. Facilitating stakeholder engagement also removes roadblocks or bottlenecks the project may encounter.

Increase Project Flexibility

Agile planning allows you to adjust plans in response to new information, ensuring your project remains on track. Changes are costly, which is why Agile advocates flexibility.

Mitigate Risks Early

By planning in short cycles, potential risks are identified and addressed sooner, reducing the likelihood of issues later in the project. In contrast, beneficial risks can also be considered and shared.

Support Continuous Improvement

Agile planning focuses on looking back at what has been done and making improvements to the process. This helps team members make their approach better and achieve improved results.

Examples of Planning in Agile

Planning in Agile is versatile and can be adapted to suit different project needs and environments. Here are ten practical examples of Agile planning:

1. Creating a Product Vision

A software development team starts by defining a clear product vision that outlines the project goal. This vision guides future planning activities, ensuring the agile software, techniques, and team remain aligned on delivering a product that meets user needs and business objectives.

2. Developing a Product Roadmap

A project manager in an Agile environment creates a product roadmap outlining milestones and features to be delivered over the next six months. This roadmap is shared with stakeholders to align expectations and provide a high-level view of the project’s direction.

3. Prioritizing the Backlog Using MoSCoW

An Agile team uses the MoSCoW method to prioritize their product backlog. They categorize tasks into “Must have,” “Should have,” “Could have,” and “Won’t have” to ensure that the most critical features are developed first, aligning with business priorities.

4. Conducting Release Planning

A team working on a mobile app release plans out the features and fixes included in the next update. They estimate the time needed for each item and set a release date that aligns with market demands, ensuring timely delivery.

5. Executing Sprint Planning with Story Points

During sprint planning , a team uses story points to estimate the complexity of each deliverable. They commit to completing a set of stories within the sprint, balancing workload and team capacity to ensure realistic and achievable goals.

6. Daily Standups for Continuous Alignment

Every morning, a development team holds a 15-minute standup meeting where each member shares their progress, plans for the day, and roadblocks they are facing. It keeps the team aligned and allows for quick adjustments if needed.

7. Using Kanban for Visual Planning

A team managing a continuous delivery project uses a Kanban board to visualize their work-in-progress (WIP). They move tasks through columns such as “To Do,” “In Progress,” and “Done,” allowing the team to manage their workflow and limit work in progress .

8. Conducting a Sprint Review with Stakeholders

At the end of each sprint, a team hosts a sprint review meeting to demonstrate the new features they have developed to stakeholders. This meeting provides an opportunity for feedback and ensures that the product is evolving in line with stakeholder expectations.

9. Holding a Sprint Retrospective for Continuous Improvement

After completing a sprint, the team holds a retrospective to discuss what went well, what did not, and how they can improve in the next sprint. They identify actionable steps to enhance their processes, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

10. Backlog Refinement Sessions

An Agile team regularly conducts backlog refinement sessions to prepare for iteration planning of the upcoming sprints. They review and clarify user stories, adjust priorities, and update estimates, ensuring the backlog is ready for the next iteration.

These examples illustrate how Agile planning can be tailored to various scenarios, helping agile teams stay focused, adaptable, and aligned with their project goals.

Key Considerations for Successfully Planning in Agile Projects

When planning in Agile projects, it is paramount to embrace flexibility and continuous learning as core principles. Unlike traditional project management practices , Agile requires teams to be comfortable with uncertainty and change, as plans will likely evolve.

Successful Agile planning involves creating a plan and continuously refining and adapting it based on real-time feedback and new information.

Another consideration is team collaboration and stakeholder involvement. Agile planning should be a collaborative effort where the entire team, including stakeholders, has a voice. It ensures that the plan reflects the collective insights and priorities of everyone involved in the agile project, leading to more effective execution and better alignment with business goals .

Maintain a balance between long-term vision and short-term goals. While Agile planning emphasizes iterative cycles and adaptability, keeping an eye on the overall project vision and roadmap is essential to ensure that each iteration contributes meaningfully to the project’s success.

Alternative to Planning in Agile: Rolling Wave Planning

While Agile planning offers flexibility and adaptability, there are alternative approaches that can be effective depending on the project requirements . One alternative is Rolling Wave Planning , which, like most Agile methodologies, embraces a progressive approach to project management .

In Rolling Wave Planning, detailed planning is done for the immediate phase or iteration, while future phases remain flexible. As the project progresses and more information becomes available, those future phases are elaborated. It allows teams to plan with the most up-to-date information.

Another approach is the Phase-Gate Iteration, which combines elements of Agile and traditional project management methods . This approach divides the project into larger phases, each separated by a “gate” or review point.

Before proceeding to the next phase, the project team must meet specific criteria or deliverables, which are then reviewed by stakeholders to check alignment with the definition of done (DoD) . This method allows flexibility within the phase while maintaining structured checkpoints that ensure the project is on track before proceeding.

Most project managers know traditional waterfall planning . It involves planning all project phases in detail before work begins. Each phase must be completed before proceeding to the next, making it less flexible than Agile or Rolling Wave Planning.

However, it is highly effective for projects with well-defined requirements and low levels of uncertainty, such as construction or manufacturing projects.

Final Thoughts: Agility in Planning and Planning to Achieve Business Agility

In conclusion, Agile planning is a powerful approach that allows teams to remain flexible, responsive, and aligned with business goals. Agile planning helps teams deliver value and adapt to changing requirements by using iterative planning, continuous feedback loops, and close collaboration.

Whether managing a software development project , leading a cross-functional team, or striving to enhance your organization’s overall agility, mastering Agile planning can help you achieve long-term success.

By integrating your agile project management tool kit , you can ensure your team is prepared for the challenges ahead and positioned to thrive in dynamic business environments.

Di Fiore, A. (2018, September). Planning doesn’t have to be the enemy of agile. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2018/09/planning-doesnt-have-to-be-the-enemy-of-agile

Comella-Dorda, S., Kaur, K., & Zaidi, A. (2018, February). Planning in an agile organization. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/planning-in-an-agile-organization

Landau, P. (2021, August). What is agile project planning ? An introduction for beginners . ProjectManager. https://www.projectmanager.com/blog/agile-project-planning

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What Is Scrum? Methodology Overview for Project Management

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Scrum is a method that can help increase efficiency and manage resource tracking for complex projects. Instead of tackling a massive project all at once, the team breaks it down into smaller, more manageable sprints, focusing their efforts on delivering high-quality results incrementally.

A simple analogy for understanding scrum is to think of how you would train to run a mile. Rather than build long-distance stamina, it’s more effective to run short, intense sprints with the goal of completing a single lap of a track as quickly as possible. Each sprint sharpens your speed, increases endurance, and allows you to refine technique.

This is exactly how scrum works in project management, and when used effectively, it can result in faster project delivery with minimal wasted time or budget.

What is scrum?

Scrum helps teams organize and complete complex projects more efficiently. By breaking these complicated projects into smaller, more manageable pieces, the team is able to constantly improve their work through iterative feedback.

Scrum simplifies complex projects while fostering collaboration. While scrums are frequently used in software development, this methodology can be used to carry any team through any complex project.

The term scrum originated in the game of rugby to describe when the team moves up the field as one unit, passing the ball to the correct person as dictated by the rapidly changing gameplay. After first being used in the 1980s by writers Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka as a way to visualize evolving modern business practices in the context of sport, scrum became permanently associated with this project style.

What is the scrum methodology?

The scrum methodology enables teams to work collaboratively to take on complex problems in small, manageable tasks called “sprints.” Sprints will typically last a few weeks with a review process at the end to discuss how things went and what can be improved.

This iterative process makes it easier to continuously improve the product and the workflow through the constant feedback. It’s like having regular tests throughout a semester to gauge your learning and making adjustments before taking the final exam vs going into the final exam without studying.

Instead of waiting until the end to see if the project is successful, scrum allows teams to continuously assess progress and adapt.

Scrum vs agile

Agile is a more general mindset for managing projects where the focus is being flexible, working in small steps, and always improving. Scrum is one specific way of putting the agile mindset into practice. In other words, agile is the idea, while scrum is the facilitating action.

SEE: Find recommendations for the best agile project management software .

How to get started with scrum

In order to get your team started with scrum, the first step is to assemble your scrum team. The main requirement for the members of this team is that they will be there for the full lifecycle of the scrum. This helps maintain consistency and ease of collaboration.

Scrum team roles

Scrum encourages team members to take ownership of their work, communicate thoroughly with the rest of the group, and self-organize. The structure of the team executing this methodology does matter.

Key roles include:

• Product owner: The product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the work the development team does and acts as a liaison between the stakeholders and the scrum team.
• Scrum master: The scrum master facilitates and guides the scrum through each event to the ultimate goal. It’s important to note that this role is not necessarily a manager but a project facilitator and leadership role who works to anticipate roadblocks for the development team, ensuring smooth and continuous progress.
• Development team: The development team is responsible for executing the deliverable product at the end of each sprint. They are self-organizing for the duration of the sprint and serve different roles within the development team depending on their skillset.

Collectively, this group is referred to as the scrum team. Each role is an essential part of the methodology and feedback cycle, with the end goal being improving the product through each sprint.

The next step is to determine who is responsible for the scrum artifacts.

Scrum artifacts

Maintaining visibility of progress to the entire team is a key component of each sprint in the scrum. This is highly useful for the team to stay on track and self-organize as they move through project stages. To streamline the management of these artifacts, the team may consider using project management software .

Product backlog

Who oversees it: Product owner.

What is it: This document should hold all the ideas, items, and proposals for the entirety of the project and serves as the single source of truth for the scrum team. Most importantly, it contains the Definition of Done (DoD), which defines the scrum team’s agreed-upon definition of completion for the project or product. It should be continuously updated to reflect the current adaptations and improvements the scrum team has made.

Sprint backlog

Who oversees it: Development team.

What is it: This document holds the overall vision for a specific sprint. It defines the sprint goal, which is the scope of work the development team is responsible for delivering at the end of the sprint. It keeps them on track with the overall project via the sprint goal, which defines the sprint’s role in the overall project, and houses the task breakdown, where each task is broken down into actionable steps.

Burndown charts

Who oversees it: Scrum master.

What is it: Burndown charts are visual representations of the team’s progress. These charts pull data from the product backlog and the sprint backlog in order to show the amount of work remaining for the product vs the time remaining until completion. This tool provides the entire team visibility into the current progress made and allows the team to make course corrections if their timeline isn’t attainable.

Who oversees it: The entire team, but primarily the development team.

What is it: The increment is the actual product that is being worked on by the development team. It is the current status of the product, which is essentially an amalgamation of the current sprint along with all the previous sprints. The scrum team monitors the increment closely in order to be sure that the product meets the DoD at completion.

Scrum events

After the product backlog is created by the product owner and the scrum team is assembled, the final step for you is to attend the sprints—also known as scrum events.

The scrum events are:

• Sprint planning: This meeting kicks off the sprint. This is where the entire scrum team meets to determine the timeline of the sprint (often 2–4 weeks) and the DoD is agreed upon.
• Daily scrum: This occurs every day the sprint is being worked on, typically at the same time and duration for consistency. This short meeting attended by the development team is where the group discusses what they did yesterday, what they are going to do today, and any obstacles they may be facing.
• Sprint review: This review is held with the entire scrum team and stakeholders at the end of the sprint to review the increment. This is where the team presents the product to the stakeholders to get feedback on what needs to be updated.
• Sprint retrospective: The sprint retrospective is the final event of the sprint and includes the entire scrum team. This is where the team reflects on what went well and what can be improved for the next sprint. The focus is continuous improvement for subsequent iterations.

Your team may want to consider using a scrum project management tool in order to facilitate current sprints and maintain a history of past sprints for comparison. Project management software is also useful when coordinating between company employees and outside stakeholders.

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Agile Project Management — 4 Key Strategies for Navigating Complexity and Driving Results There is no way around it, efficiency is crucial for project success. Agile principles allow teams to easily navigate complexity, breaking down projects into manageable tasks.

By Adam Povlitz Edited by Carl Stoffers Sep 4, 2024

Key Takeaways

• Agile methodologies revolutionize project management by emphasizing adaptability and iterative development.
• Effective communication is the cornerstone of agile success.
• Setting clear, SMART goals and leveraging visual project management tools are crucial for measuring success in agile environments.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Agile methodologies are revolutionary, transforming project delivery through their adaptability and iterative nature. Agile principles allow teams to easily navigate complexity, breaking down projects into manageable tasks. This fosters control, transparency , and the ability to pivot seamlessly in response to evolving requirements. At the heart of agile methodologies is the concept of iterative development.

Unlike traditional linear approaches, agile teams operate in focused sprint cycles , each with well-defined goals and deliverables.

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Communication is critical

The lifeblood of agile methodologies is effective communication . Agile teams prioritize open and transparent dialogue among team members, stakeholders, and customers. This includes daily standup meetings, visual project management tools, and collaborative platforms to facilitate real-time communication to visualize progress, track tasks, and identify dependencies.

Visual project management tools are a game-changer for agile teams, providing a shared digital space to visualize project progress, track tasks, and identify dependencies. These tools offer immediate updates, empowering team members to monitor the project's status, identify potential bottlenecks, and make informed decisions. By leveraging visual project management tools, teams streamline workflows , optimize resource allocation, and gain enhanced visibility into the project's progress.

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Setting clear goals and metrics

Goals should align seamlessly with the organization's objectives, ensuring that project outcomes contribute directly to the company's strategic direction. To ensure practical goal setting, the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound) framework serves as a valuable tool. SMART goals provide a well-defined roadmap, enabling teams to track progress efficiently and focus on achieving tangible results.

Here are some additional tips to help you integrate Agile into your operations:

• Start with a Clear Vision: Define your business goals and how Agile will support them. Ensure everyone understands the purpose behind adopting Agile, so the team is aligned with the vision.
• Educate and Train Your Team : Provide Agile training to your team members. Understanding core concepts like Scrum, Kanban, or Lean is essential. If needed, hire a certified Agile coach to guide the process.
• Create Cross-Functional Teams: Build teams with diverse skill sets to handle various tasks. Agile thrives on collaboration, so each team should be capable of completing entire projects without relying too heavily on external help.
• Adopt Incremental and Iterative Workflows: Break down projects into smaller, manageable tasks. Focus on delivering small, functional pieces (iterations) and continuously improving them (increments) based on feedback.
• Foster a Culture of Adaptability: Encourage your team to embrace change and be open to new ideas. Agile requires adaptability, so flexibility should be a core value in your company culture.
• Measure and Improve: Regularly assess your processes and outcomes through retrospectives. Identify areas of improvement and make necessary adjustments to enhance efficiency.
• Start Small and Scale: Begin by applying agile to a specific department or project. Once you see positive results, gradually expand it across the organization.

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Implementing agile tools

Like many organizations, we faced the challenge of managing complex projects while ensuring our executive team and corporate office remained aligned. Realizing that our traditional project management methods were inefficient, I explored solutions that could streamline our processes and help us focus on what truly matters: delivering outstanding service to our clients. After thorough research and discussions with my executive team, I introduced Trello as our project tool company-wide. The impact was immediate and profound.

Beginning with our executive management team, we mapped out our most critical projects, broke them down into actionable tasks, and assigned responsibilities. Each major project was tracked on a board with specific task cards, including deadlines, reminders, checklists, and priority labels.

This shift brought clarity to our projects and eliminated the need for endless status meetings and follow-up emails — or what I like to call 'wasted mental horsepower'. Our executives could see real-time progress, adjust priorities as needed, and collaborate more effectively. This newfound efficiency freed up mental bandwidth, allowing us to focus on strategic decisions rather than getting bogged down in the minutiae.

Since implementing Trello, we've seen a marked improvement in our project management proficiency. The ability to visualize tasks, track progress, and collaborate seamlessly has transformed how we work. It's not just about saving time; it's about using our mental energy more effectively.

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Overcoming common challenges

In addition to project management systems, proactive teams must successfully navigate hurdles and ensure project success by adopting effective strategies.

• Encouraging team members to voice concerns, evaluate, and collaborate fosters a positive work environment and enables prompt problem-solving.
• Implementing robust risk management strategies can help teams identify potential hazards and develop contingency plans to stay ahead of challenges and minimize their impact.
• Continual learning is essential for overcoming project management challenges. Encourage professional development so staff can acquire new skills and stay updated with industry trends. Empower them to adapt to changing project demands and leverage emerging technologies – give them the necessary tools!

Project management challenges can be successfully overcome with innovative tools, open communication , implementing risk management strategies, and prioritizing ongoing learning. With the right approach and innovative technologies, teams can confidently navigate project complexities, ensuring successful outcomes and driving organizational success.

Entrepreneur Leadership Network® Contributor

Chief Executive Officer & President of Anago Cleaning Systems

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