Librería Portfolio

Streamline project workflow with expert agile implementation
The Project Management Profession is beginning to go through rapid and profound transformation due to the widespread adoption of agile methodologies. Those changes are likely to dramatically change the role of project managers in many environments as we have known them and raise the bar for the entire project management profession; however, we are in the early stages of that transformation and there is a lot of confusion about the impact it has on project managers:

There are many stereotypes and misconceptions that exist about both Agile and traditional plan-driven project management,
Agile and traditional project management principles and practices are treated as separate and independent domains of knowledge with little or no integration between the two and sometimes seen as in conflict with each other
Agile and ´Waterfall´ are thought of as two binary, mutually-exclusive choices and companies sometimes try to force-fit their business and projects to one of those extremes when the right solution is to fit the approach to the project
It's no wonder that many Project Managers might be confused by all of this! This book will help project managers unravel a lot of the confusion that exists; develop a totally new perspective to see Agile and traditional plan-driven project management principles and practices in a new light as complementary to each other rather than competitive; and learn to develop an adaptive approach to blend those principles and practices together in the right proportions to fit any situation.

There are many books on Agile and many books on traditional project management but what's very unique about this book is that it takes an objective approach to help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of both of those areas to see how they can work synergistically to improve project outcomes in any project. The book includes discussion topics, real world case studies, and sample enterprise-level agile frameworks that facilitate hands-on learning as well as an in-depth discussion of the principles behind both Agile and traditional plan-driven project management practices to provide a more thorough level of understanding.




Table of Contents
PREFACE xiii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xix

1 Introduction to Agile Project Management 1

The Chasm in Project Management Philosophies 2

The Evolution of Agile and Waterfall 3

Definition of waterfall 4

Definition of agile 4

Comparison of plan-driven and adaptive approaches 5

The Evolution of the Project Management Profession 7

The early history of project management 7

Transformation of the project management profession 8

What's driving this change, and why now? 9

Agile Project Management Benefits 11

Summary of Key Points 13

Discussion Topics 14

Part 1 Fundamentals of Agile

2 Agile History and the Agile Manifesto 17

Agile Early History 17

Dr. Winston Royce and the Waterfall model (1970) 18

Early iterative and incremental development methods (early 1970s) 19

Further evolution of iterative and incremental development (mid- to late 1970s) 20

Early agile development methods (1980s and 1990s) 20

Agile Manifesto (2001) 21

Agile Manifesto values 22

Agile Manifesto principles 24

Summary of Key Points 30

Discussion Topics 31

3 Scrum Overview 33

Scrum Roles 34

Product owner role 35

Scrum Master role 36

Team role 38

Scrum framework 39

Sprint planning 41

Daily standup 42

Sprint review 42

Sprint retrospective 43

General Scrum/Agile Principles 44

Variability and uncertainty 44

Prediction and adaptation 45

Validated learning 46

Work in progress 47

Progress 48

Performance 49

Scrum Values 51

Commitment and focus 51

Openness 52

Respect 53

Courage 54

Summary of Key Points 55

Discussion Topics 55

4 Agile Planning, Requirements, and Product Backlog 57

Agile Planning Practices 57

Rolling-wave planning 57

Planning strategies 58

Spikes 59

Progressive elaboration 60

Value-based functional decomposition 61

Agile Requirements Practices 61

The role of a business analyst in an agile project 61

"Just barely good enoughö 63

Differentiating wants from needs and the "five whysö 63

MoSCoW technique 64

User Personas and Stories 64

User personas 64

User stories 65

Epics 67

Product Backlog 68

What is a product backlog? 68

Product backlog grooming 68

Summary of Key Points 70

Discussion Topics 71

5 Agile Development, Quality, and Testing Practices 73

Agile Software Development Practices 73

Code refactoring 74

Continuous integration 75

Pair programming 75

Test-driven development 76

Extreme programming (XP) 77

Agile Quality Management Practices 78

Key differences in agile quality management practices 78

Definition of "doneö 78

The role of QA testing in an agile project 79

Agile Testing Practices 80

Concurrent testing 80

Acceptance test driven development 80

Repeatable tests and automated regression testing 81

Value-driven and risk-based testing 81

Summary of Key Points 81

Discussion Topics 83

Part 2 Agile Project Management

6 Time-Boxing, Kanban, and Theory of Constraints 87

The Importance of Flow 89

Time-Boxing 90

Time-boxing advantages 90

Additional time-boxing productivity advantages 90

Kanban Process 91

Push and pull processes 91

What is a Kanban process? 92

Differences between Scrum and Kanban 93

Work-in-process limits in Kanban 94

Kanban boards 95

Theory of Constraints 96

Summary of Key Points 98

Discussion Topics 99

7 Agile Estimation 101

Agile Estimation Overview 101

What's different about agile estimation? 101

Developing an estimation strategy 103

Management of uncertainty 103

Agile Estimation Practices 104

Levels of estimation 104

What is a story point? 106

How are story points used? 107

What is planning poker? 108

Velocity and Burn-Down/Burn-Up Charts 109

Velocity 109

Burn-down charts 110

Burn-up charts 111

Summary of Key Points 112

Discussion Topics 113

8 Agile Project Management Role 115

Agile Project Management Shifts in Thinking 117

Emphasis on maximizing value versus control 117

Emphasis on empowerment and self-organization 119

Limited emphasis on documentation 120

Managing flow instead of structure 121

Potential Agile Project Management Roles 121

Making agile work at a team level 121

Hybrid agile project role 123

Enterprise-level implementation 124

Using agile concepts in non-agile projects 127

Agile and PMBOK® 127

The difference between explicit and tacit knowledge 127

Relationship to traditional project management functions 129

Summary of Key Points 137

Discussion Topics 138

9 Agile Communications and Tools 139

Agile Communications Practices 139

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