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Agile Project Management Welcome to Agile Project Management.net

Agile project management is an approach to software development that helps teams react to the instability of that process through incremental, iterative work cycles, called sprints. But prior to examining agile project management in specific terms, let’s back up and consider the dominant project management paradigm that preceded it: waterfall, or traditional sequential development.

Agile project management is not an extension of waterfall, but a reaction to it and couldn’t have existed without waterfall. In 1970, Dr. Winston Royce presented “Managing the Development of Large Software Systems,” a paper that introduced waterfall to the project management community. Royce stated that building software could be done with an assembly line approach, much like car manufacturing, in which each piece can be added in sequence without revisiting previous phases.

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Recent News

Writing Great User Stories

There’s an interesting article on the Scrum Alliance about writing good user stories, requirements and use cases. According to the writer, user stories are actually narrative texts that describe an interaction of the user and the system, focusing on the value a user gains from the system. A true user story is a metaphor for the work being done. A good user story uses the “INVEST” model:
• Independent. Reduced dependencies = easier to plan.
• Negotiable. Details added via collaboration
• Valuable. Provides value to the customer.
• Estimable. Too big or too vague – not estimable.
• Small. Can be done in less than a week by the team.
• Testable. Good acceptance criteria.

The writer draws interesting comparisons between “traditional requirements”, “use cases” and “user stories” – and the benefits and pitfalls of each. Are user stories better than other types of requirements specifications? Well it depends. It’s essentially the team that determines whether a particular technique will work or fail. For most scrum teams, the intent of good user stories, however, is to help foster collaboration. If you already have a collaborative team environment and/or are looking to enhance it – read this article for learning more about techniques for writing good user stories.

From the Blog

Newswire

Reviews in Project Management are Required

I’ve noticed a growing trend in a counter-productive behavior — skipping a review and rushing into execution. The usual excuse is “it slows things down”. The price you pay, however, is you may build the wrong thing and really slow things down ...... [read full article]

Successful Project Management is Critical

Project Management is of fast growing importance to organisations whether large or small because it deals effectively with the management of change. As a small business owner you know that your business environment is changing all the time ...... [read full article]

Common Challenges Project Managers Face and Tips for Solving

Regardless of your experience as a project manager, projects will consistently challenge your ability to use a little art, a little science, and a little sleight of hand. This article lists some of the top project management challenges, along with suggested solutions ...... [read full article]

Agile Project Management Software

When agile project management techniques were first developed, they were created with small, collocated teams in mind. But in today's global economy, it's increasingly common for development teams to be spread across multiple locations. Often this means that members of a team work in different time zones or continents, but, even when teams are only spread out over several floors of a single office building, some of manual agile's benefits are compromised. Agile project management software, however, can help overcome geographically dispersed teams and bring them together for high-impact collaboration.

Agile Project Management Training

Agile project management is so different from traditional management practices that it's often helpful for teams to attend agile training. Many vendors offer agile training through regularly scheduled courses, held in cities worldwide, as well as on-site, embedded coaching to help teams address their organization's specific impediments. Agile project management training empowers teams to thrive in an agile development environment. These courses help individuals develop a strong understanding of agile's principles and processes as well as the advantages it poses over traditional project management.

Collabnet is a project success company specializing in the improvement of management and engineering practices for software development organizations.
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Agile Tools

The next generation of agile project management.
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Agile Training

Offering several training options on software process improvement. Our agile project management courses are designed to provide your organization with a foundation in the principles and skills necessary to benefit from Agile methods. Classes are offered both as public and private in-house sessions.
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