Agile project management is currently a very popular method of change management in the field of information technology. One of the most frequently heard selling criteria as why Agile project management is the best methodology is that with this practice, the product is brought to the market faster.
Briefly, what is Agile project management
Agile project management is that the entire scope of the project is broken down into small parts, when installed, the end user can immediately use the provided functionality and feel its value. It is not uncommon for these cycles to be called iterations, sprints. It is important to mention that Agile project management is most often applied in software development projects.
Agile project management consists of the following steps in the process: preparation and analysis of requirements, continuous improvement phase improvement, as well as: development, testing, installation and maintenance after the installation of the solution.
All the phases of this process also exist in traditional project management, but the biggest benefit of applying the Agile project management methodology is that we implement the solution with small individual functionalities:
it is much faster to notice errors in the requirements or in the whole process of development, testing and installation
it is possible to get feedback from the end user faster due to the functionality provided, thereby changing priorities for the planned future functionalities
Given the higher-named benefits, this approach certainly seems more beneficial to organizations while implementing change, but can Agile project management be applied to all cases?
What are the main criteria's while applying Agile project management ?
one of the main criteria, but very often forgotten, is that people working on the management of Agile projects must be self-organized, understand their function in the context of the Agile project team and be very disciplined, i.e. In the case of the Agile project team , each team member is dependent on the other, so if a team member chooses not to complete a task for one reason or another, the whole team suffers from this
another important criteria is that when working in Agile project management, dedicated teams must be established according to the defined areas - their composition must be able to cover and perform all the steps taking place in the Agile project management cycle
finally, Agile project management can only be applied in cases where the final product can be divided into logical iterations, at the end of which functionality is implemented that can be used by the end user. If this is not the case, then this method of implementing the change will not bring added value to the organization. In this case, traditional project management can also be applied, since the final result of the entire decision would be achieved at the same time as Agile, but this would be a complete solution at once that the end user could take.