Agile software development methodology. This is something you need to know to manage the development process properly no matter if you’re a business owner or a project manager in development team. If you go deep and even can see the difference between Scrum and Kanban – the better.
This is actually the 1st thing I’m curious about when getting a new project to be developed in our team: “Does the client know that we need to split everything to milestones already”. And I have my fingers crossed to hear “yes” all the time. I can even imagine the perfect project:
- There is a detailed specification/wire frames ready.
- Based on this specification we can divide the whole project to milestones/sprints.
- Client is happy of QA processes integrated in development process.
- We all have a nice budget (client is wealthy, our rate is way too competitive ).
This way using Agile is an easiest way to manage the process, you have time to prepare, to produce a lot of work results before actually starting the development, to analyze everything, to confirm each detail with your clients, to set control points and follow them etc. All the things you guys like to read in your PMI books.
BUT! This is a real life and most probably you get:
- No documentation at all, just an idea or (which is the worst scenario) a list of issues/bugs of current project.
- It all should be done yesterday and you have to catch up the rest of your life.
- No money as the client already spent a lot for that dumbass who ruined everything. And of course you have no time for proper QA as it takes time and money.
And here you go, the life of a common project manager begins. But this is the most of the fun, enjoy. This is the world where you can make the sweet dream out of nightmare. Of course, first of all you need to calm the fire down and get rid of the most critical issues, there’s a methodology called “waterfall” and it’s okay, you can live with it. And then you need to put it all in shape and follow Agile, it will make your life easier. I will not tell how exactly, there’s a ton of books, articles and seminars about it, it’s VERY popular. My article is not about it. It’s about…
Usage of Agile, not pretending. I saw it too many times so I cannot remain silence. It is so popular that many companies uses it in a bad way, the way when you pronounce “milestone”, “stand up meeting”, “scope”, “features” and all the words but it doesn’t work. Each project needs to be analyzed before choosing any of methodology and there are cases when e.g. Scrum is not an option and you will end up putting some of your tasks from one sprint to another pretty often, screwing the deadlines up, etc.
Wrapping it all up: in any case, with any project and timeline please, first of all, find a room for analysis, then decide which Agile methods work for your project (or none of them) better and don’t make your life more complicated just because it’s very good and modern to use this or that method your fellow colleagues talk about all the time. Use any tool in a nice way, when it really helps and try to understand when it’s not – then change it. Don’t brush your teeth with a bestselling hairbrush, it’s the same ridiculous.
Happy managing.