There are various misconceptions attached to the term ‘agile project management’, but in reality it is just an efficient and flexible approach to project management – breaking large goals down into smaller, more convenient tasks.
The trouble is that often ‘agility’ requires organizations to shift from their traditional culture to a more iterative approach to getting things done. Frequently used in software development, iterative approaches like agile project management to promote quick solutions and enable teams to adapt to changing circumstances.
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What is agile software development?
Agile is a software development methodology that takes an iterative approach – where software solutions consistently through collaboration between cross-functional teams.
The process encourages developers to inspect and adapt software solutions to best practices while also ensuring accountability and collaboration to rapidly deploy high-quality software solutions.
Therefore, agile project management is a business approach that aligns software development with customers’ needs.
Here is what that entails according to software development best practices:
1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
By depending on processes and tools to guide product development, developers become complacent about how they think, making it hard to change and adapt to new requirements.
The Agile approach prioritizes people over process and places value on individuals, innovation, and problem-solving above all else.
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
The Agile Manifesto prioritizes results (successful software deployments) over paperwork. So instead of how you achieved something, show what you achieved.
Here, the software is considered more useful than merely coming up with extensive deployment plans.
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
In waterfall processes, software companies and customers sit down to pen documents that detail their software requirements to the last word. On the other hand, Agile emphasizes the importance of continually evolving mutual collaborations over rigid contracts.
4. Responding to change over following a plan
Agile methodologies stem from the belief that change is constant and unavoidable – and hence, should be leveraged to add value to your software deployments.
The benefits of agile project management for your teams
With agile project management, vendors can significantly reduce the wastage of resources by prioritizing their efforts on developing high-value features and reducing deployment rates. As such, teams can enhance customer satisfaction and improve customer retention.
Moreover, compared to traditional processes, project managers can plan and track project tasks – and stay aware of the status of projects at all times. This attentiveness is critical to monitoring the project, and to catching and addressing issues quickly.
Consequently, Scrum (a subset of Agile) also offers project stakeholders with high visibility on development project stages. Whether you are a C-Level executive or a programmer – you can use this insight to plan more effective deployments and make data-driven decisions for greater accuracy.
In conclusion
Ultimately, Agile software development enables developers to deliver quality solutions and respond to change in real-time.
Contact us at hello@definityfirst.com if you’re planning to revitalize your software deployments with Agile for your business.
