Project management and the Agile world

Surely, most of us have at some time wondered if Agile world can have a place and make sense in engineering and broadcast services world. Because, of course, the first time we all come closer to this “word”, we begin to hear terms totally unknown to us, together with areas or sectors in which it has been developed: that if Canvas, Backlog, Scrum, Daily, or that if Agile methodology began in software development environments, that Scrum began to be used by Toyota in its production chains, etc. And naturally, here is an obligatory question: if I do not have knowledge of all those terms, I am not a software developer nor do I work at Toyota or another car manufacturer, can I use it? Will it be useful to me? Can I make my way of working more efficient with Agile?

Well, in my experience, Agile methodologies, tools, frameworks or ideas can be applied to almost any area. Why? Well, because it is not a rigid and closed philosophy in which you have to follow narrowed and previously defined processes and work flows. It is an approach that allows you to carry out tasks in a more agile way and focusing on objectives to achieve results in a short period of time. In fact, there are so many “things” associated with Agile word, whether they are frameworks, approaches, methodologies, tools, applications (Scrum, Kanban, Lean, Taiga, Extreme Programming (XP), Adaptive Project Framework (APF), etc. that sometimes you think if you don’t strictly follow them all you’re not doing it right. And, in my perception, that is where the failure is. It is true that we have to evaluate the different solutions that this methodology offers us, because not all of them may be designed for our field, type of work or sector, but once we have selected the part we are interested in, we can use it to achieve a substantial improvement in the quality of our work.

What does it mean then to follow an Agile methodology in project management? Well, it is about including agile tools and methodologies in project management that provide greater speed and flexibility, through iterations with faster deliveries, agility in processes and constant collaboration of all parties to respond optimally to client’s needs. Of course, all this without losing the final objective of a good project management, which is to develop what client requested in time, form and costs.

Main phases in Agile project management are quite logical and do not differ so much from those of any other type of management:

1. Conception or visualisation: this is the initial phase in which the project is conceptualised, the exact needs of our client are identified and the different parties that are going to participate in the project are defined. This phase is normally carried out by company’s pre-sales teams.
2. Speculation: this phase occurs right after the previous one, and in it the engineering team creates initial project requirements and project schedule milestones are identified. Normally this occurs once the project has been awarded, in its initial phase, together with the client, where you go into a greater level of detail.
3. Exploration: work is carried out on the project with different individual milestones established, focusing on flows and deliverables of each phase, which will allow feedback from the client.
4. Adaptation: delivered results are reviewed and necessary adaptations, changes or modifications are carried out so that the project meets the requirements and expectations of the end client.
5. Closing: entire project and problems encountered during its development are analyzed to prevent them from being repeated in future in extensions or other projects.

Finally, it is worth pointing out some of main advantages of project management in Agile, which mainly include:

• improvement in project final result, thanks to project breakdown into subtasks and iterations that offer continuous improvement of projects;
• greatest flexibility that can be provided to projects, since the Agile methodology it is based on constant change, so changes that may arise in projects are easy to handle (unlike what happens with other ways to proceed in projects). This flexibility, without a doubt, offers great differential value to the client.
• greater control and monitoring of project, which allows anticipating and minimizing problems that may arise during its development;
• greater motivation and teamwork, this methodology considers the multidisciplinary work team a key piece when it comes to focusing on each task, so they are given all tools they need, they are motivated by being involved in the project and they are empowered to manage themselves. All of this encourages participation within the team and allows for a better organization of work by teams and roles.
• and last but not least, greater customer satisfaction. The highest priority is the client, they are counted on, they are reported to throughout the whole project life cycle and deliveries are made that allow them to visualize the result and modify “on the fly” anything that does not fit their needs.

“Agile is a leadership mentality, to encourage teamwork, self-organization and responsibility”, who wouldn’t want that for their projects? Companies like Amazon, Apple or Spotify already use it, why not us?