The Software Project Manager's Bridge to Agility


Book Description

When software development teams move to agile methods, experienced project managers often struggle—doubtful about the new approach and uncertain about their new roles and responsibilities. In this book, two long-time certified Project Management Professionals (PMPRs) and Scrum trainers have built a bridge to this dynamic new paradigm. They show experienced project managers how to successfully transition to agile by refocusing on facilitation and collaboration, not “command and control.” The authors begin by explaining how agile works: how it differs from traditional “plan-driven” methodologies, the benefits it promises, and the real-world results it delivers. Next, they systematically map the Project Management Institute’s classic, methodology-independent techniques and terminology to agile practices. They cover both process and project lifecycles and carefully address vital issues ranging from scope and time to cost management and stakeholder communication. Finally, drawing on their own extensive personal experience, they put a human face on your personal transition to agile--covering the emotional challenges, personal values, and key leadership traits you’ll need to succeed. Coverage includes Relating the PMBOKR Guide ideals to agile practices: similarities, overlaps, and differences Understanding the role and value of agile techniques such as iteration/release planning and retrospectives Using agile techniques to systematically and continually reduce risk Implementing quality assurance (QA) where it belongs: in analysis, design, defect prevention, and continuous improvement Learning to trust your teams and listen for their discoveries Procuring, purchasing, and contracting for software in agile, collaborative environments Avoiding the common mistakes software teams make in transitioning to agile Coordinating with project management offices and non-agile teams “Selling” agile within your teams and throughout your organization For every project manager who wants to become more agile. Part I An Agile Overview 7 Chapter 1 What is "Agile"? 9 Chapter 2 Mapping from the PMBOKR Guide to Agile 25 Chapter 3 The Agile Project Lifecycle in Detail 37 Part II The Bridge: Relating PMBOKR Guide Practices to Agile Practices 49 Chapter 4 Integration Management 51 Chapter 5 Scope Management 67 Chapter 6 Time Management 83 Chapter 7 Cost Management 111 Chapter 8 Quality Management 129 Chapter 9 Human Resources Management 143 Chapter 10 Communications Management 159 Chapter 11 Risk Management 177 Chapter 12 Procurement Management 197 Part III Crossing the Bridge to Agile 215 Chapter 13 How Will My Responsibilities Change? 217 Chapter 14 How Will I Work with Other Teams Who Aren't Agile? 233 Chapter 15 How Can a Project Management Office Support Agile? 249 Chapter 16 Selling the Benefits of Agile 265 Chapter 17 Common Mistakes 285 Appendix A Agile Methodologies 295 Appendix B Agile Artifacts 301 Glossary 321 Bibliography 327 Index 333




Elements of Software Project Management


Book Description

Project management requires immense skills to achieve the end-result. But sometimes lack of project management skills results in failures. It is therefore, essential to study the basic features of project management. This book is a contribution towards that goal. Divided into three sections--introduction, people-related aspects or human resources and advanced topics--the book brings forth the inside-story of the software project management in an IT company. The simple descriptive style of presentation will enable any beginner to get a clear picture of the procedures that are followed in the IT companies. Intended for undergraduate and postgraduate students of computer science and engineering, this textbook will also be useful for many software engineers and professionals dominating the hierarchy of the IT industry. Key Features: Review Questions to grasp the topics easily Quiz Questions to reinforce the understanding of the subject Relevant Case Studies depicting various situations and the necessary actions and decisions to be taken.




Agile Project Management


Book Description

Best practices for managing projects in agile environments—now updated with new techniques for larger projects Today, the pace of project management moves faster. Project management needs to become more flexible and far more responsive to customers. Using Agile Project Management (APM), project managers can achieve all these goals without compromising value, quality, or business discipline. In Agile Project Management, Second Edition, renowned agile pioneer Jim Highsmith thoroughly updates his classic guide to APM, extending and refining it to support even the largest projects and organizations. Writing for project leaders, managers, and executives at all levels, Highsmith integrates the best project management, product management, and software development practices into an overall framework designed to support unprecedented speed and mobility. The many topics added in this new edition include incorporating agile values, scaling agile projects, release planning, portfolio governance, and enhancing organizational agility. Project and business leaders will especially appreciate Highsmith’s new coverage of promoting agility through performance measurements based on value, quality, and constraints. This edition’s coverage includes: Understanding the agile revolution’s impact on product development Recognizing when agile methods will work in project management, and when they won’t Setting realistic business objectives for Agile Project Management Promoting agile values and principles across the organization Utilizing a proven Agile Enterprise Framework that encompasses governance, project and iteration management, and technical practices Optimizing all five stages of the agile project: Envision, Speculate, Explore, Adapt, and Close Organizational and product-related processes for scaling agile to the largest projects and teams Agile project governance solutions for executives and management The “Agile Triangle”: measuring performance in ways that encourage agility instead of discouraging it The changing role of the agile project leader




Evolving Software Processes


Book Description

EVOLVING SOFTWARE PROCESSES The book provides basic building blocks of evolution in software processes, such as DevOps, scaling agile process in GSD, in order to lay a solid foundation for successful and sustainable future processes. One might argue that there are already many books that include descriptions of software processes. The answer is “yes, but.” Becoming acquainted with existing software processes is not enough. It is tremendously important to understand the evolution and advancement in software processes so that developers appropriately address the problems, applications, and environments to which they are applied. Providing basic knowledge for these important tasks is the main goal of this book. Industry is in search of software process management capabilities. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic emphasizes the industry’s need for software-specific process management capabilities. Most of today’s products and services are based to a significant degree on software and are the results of largescale development programs. The success of such programs heavily depends on process management capabilities, because they typically require the coordination of hundreds or thousands of developers across different disciplines. Additionally, software and system development are usually distributed across geographical, cultural and temporal boundaries, which make the process management activities more challenging in the current pandemic situation. This book presents an extremely comprehensive overview of the evolution in software processes and provides a platform for practitioners, researchers and students to discuss the studies used for managing aspects of the software process, including managerial, organizational, economic and technical. It provides an opportunity to present empirical evidence, as well as proposes new techniques, tools, frameworks and approaches to maximize the significance of software process management. Audience The book will be used by practitioners, researchers, software engineers, and those in software process management, DevOps, agile and global software development.




Lean Enterprise Software and Systems


Book Description

This book contains the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Lean Enterprise Software and Systems, LESS 2013, held in Galway, Ireland, in December 2013. LESS fosters interactions between practitioners and researchers by joining the lean product development and the agile software development communities in a highly collaborative environment. Each year, the program combines novelties and recent research results that make new ideas thrive during and after the conference. This year, the conference agenda was expanded to incorporate topics such as portfolio management, open innovation and enterprise transformation. The 14 papers selected for this book represent a diverse range of experiences, studies and theoretical achievements. They are organized in four sections on lean software development, quality and performance, case studies and emerging developments.




Software Project Management


Book Description

To build reliable, industry-applicable software products, large-scale software project groups must continuously improve software engineering processes to increase product quality, facilitate cost reductions, and adhere to tight schedules. Emphasizing the critical components of successful large-scale software projects, Software Project Management: A




The Performance of Projects and Project Management


Book Description

In the increasing number of heavily projectized organizations, sustainable, commercial performance depends on their ability to measure and develop the performance of project management. This involves developing new skills and capabilities, such as a learning approach across projects. It also involves transforming established approaches such as corporate governance to match the new project-oriented context and, finally, it involves learning to use projects to enable key organizational objectives, such as sustainability, as well as the project-specific outcomes. The Performance of Projects and Project Management offers perspectives on all of these fundamental aspects of project performance. As such, it is an important book for those concerned with project strategy, project delivery and business sustainability.




Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement


Book Description

This volume constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 27th European Conference on Systems, Software and Services Process Improvement, EuroSPI conference, held in Düsseldorf, Germany, in September 2020*. The 50 full papers and 13 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 100 submissions. They are organized in topical sections on ​visionary papers, SPI manifesto and improvement strategies, SPI and emerging software and systems engineering paradigms, SPI and standards and safety and security norms, SPI and team performance & agile & innovation, SPI and agile, emerging software engineering paradigms, digitalisation of industry, infrastructure and e-mobility, good and bad practices in improvement, functional safety and cybersecurity, experiences with agile and lean, standards and assessment models, recent innovations, virtual reality. *The conference was partially held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.




The Project Manager's Guide to Mastering Agile


Book Description

THE PROJECT MANAGER’S GUIDE TO MASTERING AGILE Updated guide to Agile methodologies, with real-world case studies and valuable frameworks for project managers moving to Agile The Project Manager’s Guide to Mastering Agile helps project managers who are faced with the challenge of adapting their project management approach to an Agile environment, showing how these approaches can work jointly to improve project outcomes in any project, with discussion topics and real-world case studies that facilitate hands-on learning. It also provides project managers with the fundamental knowledge to take a leadership role in working with companies to develop a well-integrated, enterprise-level Agile Project Management approach to fit their business. The original edition of this book has been very successful and is used as a graduate-level textbook in several universities. This new edition builds on the success of the original edition and includes updated content from the latest PMBOK Guide, updated sections on stakeholder management, value-driven delivery, adaptive planning, and distributed project management, with an all-new chapter on Hybrid project management. It also includes new case studies on applying an Agile Hardware Development at Tesla and Project Management in a non-software environment. Sample topics covered in The Project Manager’s Guide to Mastering Agile include: Bridging the chasm in project management philosophies, impact on the project management profession, evolution of Agile and Waterfall, and learning to see Agile and traditional plan-driven project management as complementary to each other rather than competitive The roots of Agile and understanding Agile at a deeper level including the Agile manifesto from 2001, adapting an Agile approach to fit a business, and Scrum overview, roles, framework, principles, and values Time-boxing, Kanban, and theory of constraints, Agile estimation overview and estimation practices, and velocity and burn-down/burn-up charts Scaling Agile to an enterprise level, including challenges, obstacles to overcome, implementation considerations, management practices, and enterprise-level Agile transformations With comprehensive, accessible, and highly practical coverage of Agile, a leading project management platform, The Project Manager’s Guide to Mastering Agile is a highly valuable resource for professional project managers, students studying project management, and those studying for PMI’s Agile Certified Practitioner Certification (PMI-ACP).




The Business Value of Agile Software Methods


Book Description

Whether to continue using traditional cost and benefit analysis methods such as systems and software engineering standards or to use a relatively new family of software development processes known as Agile methods is one of most prevalent questions within the information technology field today. Since each family of methods has its strengths and weaknesses, the question being raised by a growing number of executives and practitioners is: Which family of methods provides the greater business value and return on investment (ROI)? Whereas traditional methods have been in use for many decades, Agile methods are still a new phenomenon and, until now, very little literature has existed on how to quantify the business value of Agile methods in economic terms, such as ROI and net present value (NPV). Using cost of quality, total cost of ownership, and total life cycle cost parameters, The Business Value of Agile Software Methods offers a comprehensive methodology and introduces the industry's initial top-down parametric models for quantifying the costs and benefits of using Agile methods to create innovative software products. Based on real-world data, it illustrates the first simple-to-use parametric models of Real Options for estimating the business value of Agile methods since the inception of the Nobel prize winning Black-Scholes formulas. Numerous examples on how to estimate the costs, benefits, ROI, NPV, and real options of the major types of Agile methods such as Scrum, Extreme Programming and Crystal Methods are also included. In addition, this reference provides the first comprehensive compilation of cost and benefit data on Agile methods from an analysis of hundreds of research studies.The Business Value of Agile Software Methods shatters key myths and misconceptions surrounding the modern-day phenomenon of Agile methods for creating innovative software products. It provides a complete business value comparison between traditional and Agile methods. The keys to maximizing the business value of any method are low costs and high benefits and the business value of Agile methods, when compared to traditional methods, proves to be very impressive. Agile methods are a new model of project management that can be used to improve the success, business value, and ROI of high-risk and highly complex IT projects in today's dynamic, turbulent, and highly uncertain marketplace. If you are an executive, manager, scholar, student, consultant or practitioner currently on the fence, you need to read this book!