Agile Project Management for Dummies.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Layton, Mark C.

Contributor:

Ostermiller, Steven J.

Kynaston, Dean J.

Series:

--For dummies.

For dummies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Agile software development.

Project management.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (432 pages)

Edition:

4th ed.

Place of Publication:

Newark : John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2025.

Summary:

Put agile techniques into practice to boost your efficiency and effectiveness Agile Project Management For Dummies introduces you to the planning and execution approaches that can help you complete projects more quickly, with higher quality and using fewer resources. For companies in any industry--not just software development--agile project management reduces waste and increases transparency, while addressing customers' ever-changing requirements. This book lays out the principles and practices of agile techniques in jargon-free language that anyone can understand. You'll learn all the important terms, tools, and concepts, so you can infuse agility into your projects right away. Create a product roadmap and prepare for product launches with ease, thanks to this Dummies guide. Discover why agile techniques are so popular with many of the world's most successful businesses Use agile principles to manage the scope, time, cost, team dynamics, quality, and risk of any project Learn how Inclusion makes organizations more agile, and create an agile-friendly culture of flexibility and productivity within your team and organization Explore how the agile world is changing with new developments like artificial intelligence Agile Project Management For Dummies is great for project and product managers, as well as anyone in any industry who wants get up to speed on how to be more agile.

Contents:

Intro

Title Page

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

Icons Used in This Book

Beyond the Book

Where to Go from Here

Part 1 Understanding Agility

Chapter 1 Modernizing Project Management

Project Management Needed a Makeover

The origins of modern project management

The problem with the status quo

Modern impacts of artificial intelligence

Modern impacts of diversity and inclusion

Introducing Agile Project Management

Agile Project Management Is Becoming Agile Product Management

Differences between managing a project versus developing a product

Permanent team over temporary team

Products as long-term assets rather than project deliverables

Pursuing value over specifications

Why agile product development works better

Chapter 2 Applying the Agile Manifesto and Principles

Understanding the Agile Manifesto

Outlining the Four Values of the Agile Manifesto

Value 1: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Value 2: Working software over comprehensive documentation

Value 3: Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Value 4: Responding to change over following a plan

Defining the 12 Agile Principles

Agile principles of customer satisfaction

Agile principles of quality

Agile principles of teamwork

Agile principles of product development

Adding the Platinum Principles

Resisting formality

Thinking and acting as a team

Visualizing rather than writing

Changes as a Result of Agile Values

The Agile Litmus Test

Chapter 3 Discovering Why Being Agile Works Better

Evaluating the Benefits of Applying Agile Values and Principles

How Agile Approaches Beat Historical Approaches

Greater flexibility and stability

Reduced nonproductive tasks

Meetings

Email

Presentations.

Process documentation

Higher quality, delivered faster

Improved team performance

Support for the team

Focus

Continuous improvement

Tighter control

Faster and less costly failure

Why People Like Being Agile

Executives

Efficiency

Increased ROI opportunity

Customers

Improved adaptation to change

Greater value

Management

Higher quality

Less product and process waste

Emphasis on value

Developers

Chapter 4 Agility Is about Being Customer Focused

Knowing Your Customers

Common methods for identifying your customer

Product canvas

Customer map

Job-to-be-done lens

Customer interviews

Product discovery

Getting comfortable with uncertainty

AI, both creator and reducer of uncertainty

Figuring Out the Problem Your Customer Needs to Solve

Using the scientific method

Realizing that failing early is a form of success

Defining customer-focused business goals

Utilizing story mapping

Unleashing a culture of innovation through liberating structures

Understanding Root Cause Analysis

Pareto principle

Five why's

Ishikawa (fishbone)

Part 2 Being Agile

Chapter 5 Approaches to Becoming More Agile

Common Ways of Becoming More Agile

Reviewing the Big Three: Lean, Scrum, and Extreme Programming

An overview of lean

Cutting the fat as lean emerges in manufacturing

Understanding lean and product development

Understanding kanban

An overview of scrum

Going the distance with the sprint

Understanding scrum accountabilities, artifacts, and events

An overview of extreme programming

Discovering extreme programming principles

Getting to know some extreme programming practices

Putting It All Together

Chapter 6 Environments for Success

Creating the Physical Environment

Colocating the team

Setting up a dedicated area.

Removing distractions

Low-Tech Communicating

High-Tech Communicating

Choosing Tools

Determining the tool's purpose

Understanding organizational and compatibility constraints

Chapter 7 Behaviors Enabling Agility

Establishing Accountabilities

Product owner

Product development

Developer

Scrum master

Stakeholders

Mentor

Establishing Vital Values

Commitment

Openness

Respect

Courage

Changing Team Philosophy

Dedicated team

Cross-functionality

Self-organization

Self-management

Size-limited teams

Ownership

Chapter 8 The Permanent Team

Enabling Long-Lived Teams

Leveraging long-term knowledge and capability

Navigating Tuckman's stages to performance

Focusing on fundamentals

Creating a working agreement

Enabling Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose

Autonomy

Mastery

Purpose

Highly aligned and highly autonomous teams

Building Team Knowledge and Capability

Part 3 Agile Planning and Execution

Chapter 9 Defining the Product Goal and Product Roadmap

Adaptive Planning

Progressive elaboration

Inspect and adapt

Defining the Product Goal

Step 1: Understanding the product objective

Step 2: Creating a draft product goal

Step 3: Validating and revising the product goal

Step 4: Making the product goal clear and visible

Creating a Product Roadmap

Step 1: Identifying product stakeholders

Step 2: Establishing product requirements

Step 3: Ordering product requirements based on value and risk

Assessing value and risk

Prioritizing requirements

Step 4: Estimating development efforts at a high level

Step 5: Determining high-level time frames for releasing to the customer

Saving your work

Elaborating the Product Backlog

Chapter 10 Planning Releases and Sprints.

Refining Requirements and Sizing

What is a user story?

Steps to create a user story

Identifying product stakeholders

Identifying users

Determining product requirements and creating user stories

Breaking down requirements

Relative estimation

Accuracy over precision

Estimation poker

Affinity estimating

Release Planning

Preparing for Release

Preparing the product for deployment

Prepare for operational support

Preparing the organization

Preparing the marketplace

Sprint Planning

The sprint backlog

The sprint planning meeting

Topic 1: Why is this sprint valuable?

Topic 2: What can be done in this sprint?

Topic 3: How will the work get done?

Chapter 11 Working throughout the Day

Planning Your Day: The Daily Scrum

Tracking Progress

The task board

Accountabilities in the Sprint

Keys for daily product owner success

Keys for daily developer success

Keys for daily scrum master success

Keys for daily stakeholder success

Keys for daily mentor success

Creating Value

Elaborating

Developing

Verifying

Automated testing

Peer review and team development techniques

Product owner review

Identifying roadblocks

Information Radiators

The End of the Day

Chapter 12 Showcasing Work, Inspecting, and Adapting

The Sprint Review

Preparing to demonstrate

The sprint review

Collecting feedback in the sprint review

The Sprint Retrospective

Planning for retrospectives

The retrospective event

Inspecting and adapting

Part 4 Project Management with Agility

Chapter 13 Managing a Portfolio

Understanding the Differences in Agile Portfolio Management

Should we invest?

Factors for forecasting product investment returns

Value and cost prioritization

Short-term versus long-term decisions.

Balancing the product mix

AI for enhancing portfolio management

Managing Agile Product Portfolios

Should we continue investing?

Inspecting and adapting to the next opportunity

Chapter 14 Managing Scope and Procurement

What's Different about Agile Scope Management?

Managing Agile Scope

Understanding scope throughout product development

Introducing scope changes

Managing scope changes

Using agile artifacts for scope management

What's Different about Agile Procurement?

Managing Agile Procurement

Determining need and selecting a vendor

Understanding cost approaches and contracts for services

Cost structures

Contract creation

Working with a vendor

Closing a contract

Chapter 15 Managing Time and Cost

What's Different about Agile Time Management?

Managing Schedules

Introducing velocity

Monitoring and adjusting velocity

Calculating velocity

Using velocity to estimate the development timeline

Increasing velocity

Consistency for useful velocity

Managing scope changes from a time perspective

Managing time by using multiple teams

Using artifacts for time management

What's Different about Agile Cost Management?

Managing Budgets

Creating an initial budget

Creating a self-funding product

Using velocity to determine long-range costs

Lowering cost by increasing velocity

Lowering cost by reducing time

Determining other costs

Using artifacts for cost management

Chapter 16 Managing Team Dynamics and Communication

What's Different about Agile Team Dynamics?

Managing Team Dynamics

Becoming self-managing and self-organizing

Supporting the team: True leadership

Working with a dedicated team

Working with a cross-functional team

Reinforcing openness

Limiting scrum team size

Managing product development with dislocated teams.

What's Different about Agile Communication?.

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-394-33211-4

OCLC:

1521493830