When managing projects, there is no approach or methodology that can be said to be a perfect fit for all projects.
It is the duty of the project manager and project team to select the best-suited methodology for each project based on the particular nature of the project.
Two common methodologies in project management are traditional or predictive project management and adaptive or agile project management.
Each of these project management methodologies has its individual pros and cons depending on the type of project, industry, or domain.
Since more organizations are shifting to agile methodology, it is important to understand the benefits of agile project management.
Agile project management is rapidly gaining popularity in project and product management based on its highly adaptive nature which is suited to modern workplaces and for solutions to complex problems.
There are a lot of benefits of agile project management for project managers, customers, and vendors.
This article aims to focus on some of the very important benefits of the agile methodology and how the use of agile project management can help organizations, businesses, and individuals in creating value which remains the aim of project management.
Read Also: Top 5 Ways to Avoid Gold Plating in Project Management
What is Agile Project Management?
Agile project management is a value-driven, change-driven, iterative and incremental approach to project management. This methodology is currently one of the most popular methods of managing projects worldwide.
The agile methodology originated in 2001 with the Agile Manifesto, and it was originally designed for the development of software.
However, the agile methodology has evolved and is currently a top choice for managing various projects and product development in diverse industries.
Agile methodologies include Scrum, Kanban, and XP. Each of these methodologies is based on the Agile Manifesto and adheres to its principles which are centered around kaizen (continuous improvement).
Agility methodology has the capability to rapidly detect and adapt to internal and external changes in order to deliver quality results in a cost-effective and productive way.
Agile project management allows organizations to develop a capacity for delivering high-quality and high-priority work through disciplined and proven practices.
This gives the opportunity for rapid adjustments to processes based on regular and constant feedback from the customers and stakeholders.
The agile methodology enables this with its concept rooted in flexibility, transparency, delivery of high-quality results, and continuous improvement by breaking the project into sprints, and increasing the features incrementally over each sprint until every required feature meets the agreed definition of done.
A PWC study in 2018 indicates that projects that are managed with the agile methodology are 21% more successful with about 71% of organizations reporting greater agility in processes and projects over the past 5 years.
In agile project management, the project management is a collaborative effort by the team unlike in traditional project management where the weight of balancing the project scope, product scope, cost, schedule, quality, and risk rests on the project manager.
When using the agile methodology, the team members are like local domain experts and are each responsible for detailed product planning and delivery.
To fully understand why businesses and organizations are keying into this methodology for managing projects and workflow, it is essential to first understand the benefits of agile project management.
Benefits of Agile Project Management
There are many benefits of agile project management, and it is no wonder that lots of top organizations currently adopt this methodology for managing projects.
These are some of the key benefits of agile project management:
1. High-Quality Product Development
One of the top benefits of agile project management is the higher quality of products developed based on its idea of continuous improvement from rapid feedback.
The agile methodology is all about the early integration of testing continuously during the project cycle.
With the integration of testing during the cycle, it is transparent to see if the product that is being developed measures up to the customer’s requirements.
The product owner is then able to immediately make changes as needed in order to meet desired functionality. This way, the project processes, and products are improved with each iteration or cycle.
If a product is developed using the predictive project methodology, testing is done at the end of the project life cycle. At this point, if the product deviates from the stakeholders’ requirements or expectations, correcting it will involve cost and time overruns.
With agile project management, the product is developed incrementally and rapidly, with an increase in functionality each sprint or release.
At the end of each sprint, a sprint review and retrospective are conducted which enables the team to review and optimize processes and requirements.
The product is tested to ensure the expected quality is met using automation testing tools.
2. Increased Customer Satisfaction
Unlike the traditional project management methodology where detailed customer requirements are elicited during project initiation and planning, the agile methodology is change-driven, and requirements are defined minimally just to have a knowledge of the key product features.
One benefit of agile project management is consistent engagement with the customer. The customer is heavily involved in the entire project lifecycle.
The customer is kept in the loop during the project thus enabling the customer to make changes based on the feedback from each sprint. This gives greater flexibility and adaptability to the project or product being developed.
A lot of stakeholders and customers do not have a complete idea of their requirements at the beginning of the project.
With the agile project management methodology, the customer gets clarity on the project and has a clearer picture of what is required.
By the end of the project, the customer gets a product of higher quality and the satisfaction of being an integral part of its development.
Read Also: Scrum Master 101 Ultimate Guide
3. Reduced Project Risk
It is virtually impossible to manage a project without facing risks. Risk is one of the triple constraints of project management and a factor that jeopardizes the chances of a successful project.
Reduced risk is one of the important benefits of agile project management. This methodology makes the likelihood of project failure as low as theoretically possible.
One goal of the agile methodology is to develop a functional product from the first sprint, and increase the functionality over more sprints until the product meets the customer or stakeholders’ requirements.
Having a working product from the very first sprint ensures that it is theoretically impossible for a complete failure of the project thereby drastically reducing the risk of project failure.
Also, agile project management is change-driven unlike the waterfall approach is plan-driven. Changes are expected and welcome in agile methodology in order to rapidly adapt to the stakeholders’ needs through a developmental process.
Increasing functionality through sprints provides ample opportunity to test processes and products, and quickly make relevant changes to ensure the project stays on track. This saves project resources and time.
This reduces the risks of going through the entire project life cycle only to discover the bulk of the variances during the project execution and monitoring phase.
The earlier a variance or defect in a project is discovered, the better it is to correct and adapt.
Read Also: Kill Point in Project Management
4. Faster Return on Investment (ROI)
Due to the iterative and incremental approach of agile project management, from the first project sprint development starts, and there is a working product already available by the end of the sprint.
Whether this working usable product is deployed or not depends on the product manager. However, the product is already usable and can be released.
When using a traditional project management methodology, the product is prime for release at the end of the project life cycle. Long delivery times increase the payback period and delay the ROI.
But with agile methodology, the focus is on prioritized product features and fast product development and release. It becomes easier to quickly realize the benefits of the product even during the development process.
With agile, you can have a usable functional product already out by the end of the first sprint and begin to deploy the product while other features are added incrementally over sprints.
5. Continuous Improvement
The goal of every individual or organization is to keep getting better and better. However, this does not just happen by accident but requires a concerted effort.
In the Agile Manifesto, striving for continuous improvement is one of the 12 core agile principles. Using the agile methodology is thus centered around continuous improvement through learning.
Agile project management is about a culture of collaboration and sharing of ideas and skills. This enables team members to learn quickly from each other while working on the project.
This way, team members improved from these shared experiences.
Agile methodology manages projects using iterations or sprints. With the conclusion of each iteration, the product functionality is increased.
Most importantly, mistakes from one iteration are analyzed at the end of the sprint and the required improvements are quickly incorporated into the next sprints leading to optimized processes and better products.
Conclusion
While agile may seem like a buzzword nowadays in the project management sphere, the methodology is beyond that.
On average, using agile methodology helps the time to market developed products become faster by up to 37%, and can increase the productivity efficiency of teams by up to 16% on average.
So for organizations and project managers, there are so many benefits of agile project management to manage projects and develop products that it is necessary to transition to this methodology to actually reap these benefits.
With these benefits, it is safe to say that you should be using more agile methodology for your software product development if you already are not on the train.
