ProjectManagement.com Articles

Practicing Iterative Failures with Agile – (December 18, 2012)
As a reaction to process-heavy waterfall practices causing excessive delays and major budget overruns, the lightweight practices espoused by agile was a welcome relief. But if agile is such a great solution, why are there failures?

The Next Iteration Agile: Re-contextualizing Agile for the 21st Century (Part 3) – (November 6, 2012)
In this third and final installment, we will look at how agile can be re-contextualized for the business environment at large to transform not only specific projects or processes in an industry, but also entire organizations within that industry to meet the growing demand for faster project turnaround while also achieving higher quality and business value.

The Next Iteration Agile: Re-contextualizing Agile for the 21st Century (Part 2) – (September 25, 2012)
Part 1 of this series discussed the background environment and philosophical divergences that caused agile to establish itself as an alternative to traditional project management. With that background established, it’s now time to start thinking about the where agile is headed and how it will get re-contextualized for the 21st century.

The Next Iteration Agile: Re-contextualizing Agile for the 21st Century (Part 1) – (September 11, 2012)
As a practitioner, thinker and writer of agile project management, one writer often like to assess where we’re at with agile as well as where we’re headed. As a practitioner, he likes to know how to apply an agile practice or method and keep up to date with what’s coming up in the industry. As a thinker and writer, he likes to understand where agile fits in the overall “big picture”–as well as foresee and anticipate future trends. This will be the first of a multi-part series that will attempt to assess agile from such a perspective, and to foresee how agile can be re-contextualized for the 21st century

Agile Sustainability: The Business Case for Lean, Agile and Green – (August 27, 2012)
For those project managers practicing agile practices and methods, you already have all the ingredients in place to optimize your green initiatives. This article will attempt to illustrate how agile principles can enhance and compliment projects that have sustainability as one of its main end goals

When Being Done Is Actually “Done” – (July 10, 2012)
Being clear about what constitutes “done” ensures that the product or service developed at the end of an iteration is completed to the satisfaction of the customer, which is the whole purpose of doing agile in the first place. Got it? Just in case, read on…

Becoming Less Lean With Discontinuous Improvements – (June 12, 2012)
As a project manager working to deliver projects successfully in these harsh economic times, you will most likely be adopting Continuous Improvement methods such as Lean and Six Sigma to squeeze maximum efficiency and cost reductions in your projects, which would be the very rational thing to do. But if you think about it, is that all there is to your projects: to be continually optimizing efficiency, reducing waste and cutting costs?

Partisan Politics in Agile Projects – (May 8, 2012)
If you’ve ever been involved in a highly visible project in which major stakeholders are jockeying to position themselves to impose their own agenda, then you would have experienced project partisan politics. And If you are a ScrumMaster on an agile project, there isn’t a more important impediment to get out of the way.

Demystifying the Myths of Agile…Revisited – (April 24, 2012)
On a mission to debunk more agile myths, this writer arrived at the Eternal Triangle…where issues surrounding people, processes and tools awaited to challenge his thinking. Do you agree or disagree? And what are your assumptions about self-organizing and cross-functional teams?

Social Project Management 2.0 – (March 26, 2012)
The social engagement of the project is what underlies every aspect of the project process more so than normal. In social PM, collaboration, transparency and mutual participation is central–with the assumption that if this socially engaging environment and the necessary collaboration tools are in place with a clearly defined project goal, then success should follow. But in order for social PM to work, some principles and guidelines need to be incorporated.

The Business of Agile: Managing a Startup from Conception to Inception – (February 13, 2012)
Those with solid agile project management experience and knowledge–coupled with an entrepreneurial vision to see the trends and navigate incubating startups to launch–are poised to take great advantage both monetarily and professionally in years to come.

Becoming Lean-er in Lean Times – (January 10, 2012)
Despite this global recession, the competitive landscape keeps becoming more urgent and faster paced. You will be expected to keep managing new projects to keep your organization competitive–but will do so with less (and exhausted) resources, tight budgets and more scrutiny for success. How does one meet such challenges and succeed? One of the agile practices tailor made for such an environment is the Lean method.