Agile
Agile is relating to a method of project management that is characterized by the division of tasks into short phases of work and frequent reassessment and adaptation of plans.
An agile objective can be to do great work on a timely basis and has a balance of:
Process / Real work (planned work) - 30 hours / week / person
Overhead of unplanned work (attempting to minimize) - 10 hours / week / person
Keys to an agile change cycle includes:
Changing how the business changes
Increase the business's agility
Increase the flexibility of the organization
Become capable of continuous change
Inhibit the appearance and/or growth of change gaps that can doom the company
Benefits / Strategy
Team knowledge
What individuals are working on
No dropped-balls
Structure with minimal waste
Minimize overtime by planning work in defined weekly sprints (Mondays)
Scrum master role (often perceived as a methodology; but rather than viewing Scrum as methodology, think of it as a framework for managing a process)
Team Lead(s)
Stakeholder (if necessary)
Consider a employee-shared public
Story board / pipeline of
Columns of
To Do
New
In Progress
Waiting for feedback
Done
Organize priorities strategically by grooming your backlog (Tuesday-Friday stand up meetings)
Simple 3 questions to answer:
What did you do yesterday?
What will you do today?
Any roadblocks?
Consolidated list of all team work (common basic spreadsheet or other tool)
Automatically collect all requests
Due date reviews
Prioritization
Time estimates
Assignments
Stateholders know what's on deck
Keep work and deadlines visible with intranet burndown charts
Graph
Days of remaining effort
Ideal effort
Actual effort
Review backlog
Prioritize
Estimate hours
Update assignments and get commitments
Continuous improvement visibility with team
Winnable Sprints vs Projects
Daily progress
Burndown improvement
Articles / Media
Week of life with an Agile creative team (webcast)
Agile vs Waterfall-which project management style is right for you?