Agile Project Management: Managing Complexity And Volatility In Projects, Essay.

What is Agile Project Management?

According to Bennett, & Lemoine, (2014), volatility is one of the major dimensions that can be addressed by the agility that helps to manage the information which is available for the situations and change as per the requirements. In this manner, an agile project management technique can be followed that provides proper resources directed towards building slack and developing potential for the projects.

The presence of complexity in the project developments can lead to reduced performance and efficiency easily (Al-Saqqa, Sawalha, & AbdelNabi, 2020). In order to address complexity, the companies should implement agile project management as it is capable to provide restructuring with the operations that can control and reduce complexity from the business operations.

Complexity is a major dimension of VUCA that increase project failure related concerns in the companies that can also affect design thinking negatively. Complexity in terms of accessibility in the projects can leads to affect performance and increase barriers to performing project development processes within the time period and also increase errors or bugs that can reduce efficiency. In order to manage such problems, the writers recommended that Agile based project development lifecycle should be followed that provides a platform to deliver remote accessibility and management of complexity from the projects.

In order to manage and address disasters from the project developments, the authors suggested that companies should develop proper development plans and communicate with the team members to receive real-time updates regarding project development (Curcio, et al., 2020). Major four strategies are suggested by the authors including

• Agility model should be developed to manage complexity and difficulties from the projects
• Proper information should be shared with the team members and developers to address further modification related problems
• Restructuring insider company operations through proper plans and strategies and management should interact with the customers and project managers
• Experimentation to reduce ambiguity and increase quality and effectiveness of the project development processes(Saqqa, Sawalha, & AbdelNabi, 2020).

Scrum is one of the common agile methodologies used by companies for developing software applications based on incremental and interactive procedures. It is capable to provide a faster, flexible and reliable agile framework to design an effective software model.

Mike Beedle is the founder of Scrum agile methodology included in the Agile Manifesto that focused on the performance and effectiveness of the project developments (Pereira, & de FSM, 2018). The author stated that project development requires proper lifecycle and programs and scrum is capable to deliver effective programs and models that can be used to receive better outcomes and software applications.

Scrum refers to the agile development framework which is mainly added in the developments of software projects based on incremental processes. In terms of flexibility, scrum is more flexible and reliable that providing a platform to create effective plans and strategies and propose significant software applications and projects.

Below figure shows the working operation of scrum methodology that helps the companies to develop effective software applications and projects:

(Hoda, Salleh, & Grundy, 2018)

The preparation is the initial phase of the project development that helps to release and create a product backlog as per the requirements. Scrum methodology contains various stages including updating product backlog, sprint planning, daily scrum work, product increment, sprint review and sprint retrospective. All these are effective and reliable stages that can be used for releasing effective software applications or projects.

It is believed that the scrum framework is best suited for project development that has the ability to develop larger projects in a significant manner (Thummadi, & Lyytinen, 2020). Moreover, the development team and the clients can be communicated together in order to receive proper information or feedback. Using the Scrum framework, it is easy for the project management and companies to increase the flexibility and efficiency of the project developments.

Scrum Methodology: An Agile Approach

Agile and Waterfall both are common project management methodologies used by companies to develop and implement effective software applications. The major similarity between agile and waterfall is to develop quality projects and software applications and also capable to propose similar plans and strategies for the project developments. Both agile and waterfall focus on the customer satisfaction and implementation cost of agile is same as the waterfall methodology (Andrei, et al., 2018). Moreover, both agile and waterfall methodologies are capable to perform similar activities containing designing, developing, testing, gathering information and deploying projects. Dima, & Maassen, (2018) identified that with the help of agile and waterfall methodologies, it is easy for companies to develop and implement effective projects and software applications that can help to maintain complexity easily. Both methodologies contain planning, bringing the projects and also monitoring the progress of the project developments.

From the above selected case, it is observed that the organization has implemented agile project methodology and capable to develop effective software applications and projects. There are three factors included in the triple constraints including cost, quality and time. Time is one of the key factors from triple constraints that show better benefits to move towards agile project development (Kassab, DeFranco, & Neto, 2018). In this manner, the company has implemented agile XP methodology as it is capable to provide effective in regards to the engineering practices used for the software developments. Moreover, using Agile XP, the organization has reduced complexity and time require to develop projects and performed testing and project evaluation related activities effectively.

from the above table, it is identified that the scheduled time for the project development is 12.6 while implementing agile methodology, the organization is capable to reduce the schedule time by 7.8 that shows that agile is capable to manage time and efforts requires to develop projects and software.

Quality plays a major contribution in the project developments and agile is a more effective and reliable technique that is capable to provide a better quality of the projects. from the selected case, it is identified that the quality of project can be improved by 50% through agile methodology that helps to reduce errors and bugs from the project development processes. In terms of quality, agile XP methodology implemented by the company is more effective and capable to provide higher quality of the software developments and reduce internal problems and risks. The quality outcome was achieved as agile XP enabled the project management to implement effective project cycle models and also addressed risks and bugs associated with the projects. As compared to other methodologies, agile enabled the organization to deal with the problems and focus on the quality to ensure that initial requirements are fulfilled and better outcomes are obtained from the projects.

Scrum and Kanban both are common agile techniques used in the project development processes where Kanban methodology is continuous and more flexible as compared to the scrum methodology. As opposed, scrum methodology is completely based on the structured and short work sprints that require proper planning and lifecycle framework to develop projects (Lawal, & Ogbu, 2021). Kanban teams are capable to focus on decreasing the time requires to perform project-related activities and tasks while the scrum team is committed to completing an increment of work and set intervals for the project phases. Scrum methodology is regular and provides fixed-length sprints while Kanban methodology is capable to deliver the continuous flow in regards to completing the project developments effectively.

Comparison between Agile and Waterfall Methodologies

Kanban methodology can produce major three challenges in the project development process including demand changes that may cause challenges, not capable to eliminate variability and quality miscues. It is found that fluctuations in the demands and products may influence the functionality of the Kanban system by which management can face challenges to receive effective outcomes from the projects (Bhavsar, Shah, & Gopalan, 2020). Kanban methodology is not capable to eliminate variability where any unpredictability can affect the functioning and progress of the projects. Moreover, the Kanban system brings quality levels but higher uncertainty in the transportation and inventory can increase quality miscues in the projects that can delay the production procedure. It is recommended that project management should develop proper plans and strategies to identify and manage such challenges from the project developments (Bhavsar, Shah, & Gopalan, 2020). Moreover, the requirements of customers should be followed properly and gather feedback from customers in order to manage further problems. In terms of quality, a quality testing process should be implemented that can help to manage the risk factors affecting project quality and improve the performance of the projects.

The term Kaizen refers to the agile philosophy which is the continuous improvement and delivers an effective approach to engage the team members to identify and manage the problems related to the project development (Zayat, & Senvar, 2020). It is also capable to create an effective atmosphere and increasing the performance of the project management by creating effective strategies and plans. Using such a philosophy, it is easy for the management to propose continuous improvement in the project developments.

There are the following 12 principles based on the agile manifesto:

• To satisfy the consumers through better distribution of the effective software applications
• Changing requirements based on the feedback collected from the customers and changing project applications
• Provide working software frequently
• The development team and business individuals should world together on the projects
• Develop projects around motivated individuals
• Propose effective methods of conveying information to the team members
• Working projects or software applications are delivered to the consumers
• Agile procedures are capable to promote sustainable development
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and better design increase agility
• Simplifying the project development related activities
• The best architecture, requirements and designs from the project teams
• At regular intervals, the project team reflects on how to develop effective projects and software applications

Following are the major four principles of the agile manifesto that demonstrate a close alignment to the principles of Kaizen:

• Provide working software frequently
• Develop projects around motivated individuals
• Agile procedures are capable to promote sustainable development
• Simplifying the project development related activities

All these principles were selected due to their potential to connect with the kaizen principles that help to develop effective philosophies and processes to complete the project development phases effectively.

References

Al-Saqqa, S., Sawalha, S., & AbdelNabi, H. (2020). Agile Software Development: Methodologies and Trends. International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies, 14(11).

Andrei, B. A., Casu-Pop, A. C., Gheorghe, S. C., & Boiangiu, C. A. (2019). A study on using a waterfall and agile methods in software project management. Journal Of Information Systems & Operations Management, 125-135.

Beerbaum, D. (2021). Applying Agile Methodology to regulatory compliance projects in the financial industry: A case study research. Applying Agile Methodology to Regulatory Compliance Projects in the Financial Industry: A Case Study Research (April 26, 2021).

Bennett, N., & Lemoine, G. J. (2014). What a difference a word makes: understanding threats to performance in a VUCA world. Business Horizons, 57(3), 311–311.

Bhavsar, K., Shah, V., & Gopalan, S. (2020). Scrumbanfall: an agile integration of scrum and kanban with waterfall in software engineering. International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering (IJITEE), 9(4), 2075-2084.

Bhavsar, K., Shah, V., & Gopalan, S. (2020). Scrumbanfall: an agile integration of scrum and kanban with waterfall in software engineering. International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering (IJITEE), 9(4), 2075-2084.

Curcio, K., Navarro, T., Malucelli, A., & Reinehr, S. (2018). Requirements engineering: A systematic mapping study in agile software development. Journal of Systems and Software, 139, 32-50.

Dima, A. M., & Maassen, M. A. (2018). From Waterfall to Agile software: Development models in the IT sector, 2006 to 2018. Impacts on company management. Journal of International Studies, 11(2), 315-326.

Hoda, R., Salleh, N., & Grundy, J. (2018). The rise and evolution of agile software development. IEEE software, 35(5), 58-63.

Kassab, M., DeFranco, J., & Neto, V. G. (2018, July). An empirical investigation on the satisfaction levels with the requirements engineering practices: Agile vs. waterfall. In 2018 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (ProComm) (pp. 118-124). IEEE.

Lawal, A., & Ogbu, R. C. (2021). A Comparative Analysis of Agile And Waterfall Software Development Methodologies. BAKOLORI JOURNAL OF GENERAL STUDIES, 11(2), 1-2.

Pereira, J. C., & de FSM Russo, R. (2018). Design thinking integrated in agile software development: A systematic literature review. Procedia computer science, 138, 775-782.

Thesing, T., Feldmann, C., & Burchardt, M. (2021). Agile versus waterfall project management: decision model for selecting the appropriate approach to a project. Procedia Computer Science, 181, 746-756.

Thummadi, B. V., & Lyytinen, K. (2020). How much method-in-use matters? A case study of agile and waterfall software projects and their design routine variation. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 21(4), 7.

Zayat, W., & Senvar, O. (2020). Framework study for agile software development via scrum and Kanban. International journal of innovation and technology management, 17(04), 2030002.