Elements of project management

Project management is application and process of knowledge, skill, tools, and techniques that help to meet the specification of the project requirements. The major elements of the project management approach involve the initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and control as well as the closing of activities. For managing the project, it is essential for the project manager and team members to have knowledge about the integration, scope, time, cost and quality of the project to meet the defined objectives (Kerzner, and Kerzner, 2017). There are various types of project management methodologies are used for managing project operations and functions.

Agile project management methods are used for increasing the speed, collaboration and ability to respond according to market trends. The agile project management approach is an iterative approach to managing a software development project that focuses on the needs and feedback of the customers with every iteration. The report will provide information about the agile project management methods and other project management approaches to meet the specification of the selected project. Agile project management categories into two frameworks like scrum and kanban. The report will discuss the contrast methods and applicability of the project methods to achieve the standards of a proposed project.

The agile project management is used for managing the project operations and activities according to the standards defined under the categories of project management. The project management teams are using agile project management methods for the breakdown of big projects into small functions that are easy to handle and control. The breakdown of the project into small operations is helpful for maintaining the design phase, testing of tools and quality assurance. The agile project management enables the project team to release the segments that are completed (Špundak, 2014). Continues release of segments of the project is helpful for successful delivery of the project and maintaining the flow of the operations. For project management through agile project method, the practices are categorized into two methods such as continues deployment (CD) and continuous integration (CI). These techniques are helping in speed up the project functions and quick installation of the project. The project management team uses different agile terms for managing project that includes the velocity, burn down and bump up charts for measuring the work and setting the project milestone (Serrador, and Pinto, 2015). However, there are the various project management method used such as waterfall which is a traditional project management function.

Agile project management

Figure 1: Scrum framework

The agile project management functions involve the scrum, scrum/XP, custom and kanban. These project management actions are used for managing IT related projects and effective utilization of the resources. The most used project management method of agile is the scrum. This methodology involves a product owner who contributes to the development and testing of the products or software (Nicholas, and Steyn, 2017). Scrum is considered as the framework as it provides a process for managing the software development and operation management. The scrum management process involves product blocking, sprint planning meetings, sprint blocking, and 4-week approach.   

Table 1: Scrum elements

Sprint planning	Sprint demo	Daily standup	Retrospective
Planning of the project operations through meetings and managing the outcome	Sharing the data related to meetings and sprints	Daily 15 mins meetings for working on the particular day’s operations	Proper review and analysis of actions and implementation of changes in the next project sprint.

The scrum board is used for managing the information flow and visualization of the operational work that provided according to the sprint. The proper consideration of meeting and team involvement is essential for the success of the agile project management method (Layton and Ostermiller, 2017). In addition to this, the scrum board is helpful for visualizing the steps for workflow and progress.

This is an element of agile project management method that helps to analyze and meet the work according to the capacity of the teams. The major objectives of kanban project management involve fast and possible operations, providing proper time to reacting to the changes compare to the scrum. Apart from that, the kanban framework of agile project management not has the backlog and provides a clear vision of things that going to be executed (Conforto, and Amaral, 2016). The kanban framework involves work that could be managed by the teams as well as provides the details of the predefined limits of the approach.

Table 2: Kanban elements

List of work	Lanes	Work in progress limits	Continues releases
Listing of the tasks and issues that need to get done	Use of work streams, users and projects to distinguish the tasks	Proper limitations of work amount and analysis of team capacity	Stories of working and WIP limits that can be released any time

These are some major elements that used for developing and managing the approach of software development. The agile project management framework is helpful for understanding the capacity, progress of operations, backlog and owner contribution. In spite of that, the estimation of the project is a very important aspect of the kanban and scrum in project management. The proper estimation of tasks and team size is useful for analyzing the capacity and developing the scheduling of the operations. The agile point of view is useful for managing the sprint and team performance to maintain the flow of operations (Rasnacis, and Berzisa, 2017). The estimation practices involve project level planning, release level planning, and sprint level planning. In addition to this, three levels of layers are used for managing the project operations through the agile that involves portfolio, program and team layer.

Scrum

The portfolio is the strategic layer of an agile framework and program layer is used for integration of team in the multiple complex projects. The objectives of using this agile framework are to develop and well-defined process, high level of milestone, integration and proper management of cost and time. These frameworks are also helpful in customer collaboration and development of communication portal that could be beneficial for the implementation of customized design of software and offering flexible support for offering the information. Apart from that, these frameworks are simple, easy to apply and helpful for managing the operations of the projects (Joslin, and Müller, 2015). The advance planning and tracking of operations are helping to improve the effectiveness of a project through the agile project methods.

In order to manage the project, there are various types of project management methodologies are used that involve traditional and waterfall project management functions. The traditional project management methods have a huge emphasis on the planning and control of the operations that have a significant impact on the outcome and effectiveness of the project functions. In the traditional and waterfall project management methods, the decision is based on the cost and scheduling of the activities for managing the operations (Conforto et al., 2014). According to analysis, in the traditional approach of project management, the project manager is highly responsible for planning and success of the project. Apart from that, the team working and project operation management in traditional approach focused on the team working under the direction of the project manager. Following are the major contrasts between agile and traditional project management methods:

Table 3: Differences in agile and traditional project management

Features	Agile project management	Traditional project management
Client involvement	High	Low
User requirement	Only interactive input	Define earlier before coding and implementation
Development model	Evolutionary delivery model	Lifecycle model
Project scale	Small and medium	Large
Organizational structure	Iterative	Liner
Development process	Evolutionary delivery model	Lifecycle
Development model	Flexible	Fixed
Architecture	Based on current requirements	Current and future requirements (Hoda, and Murugesan, 2016)
Requirements	Have rapid changes	Standard
Testing	At every iteration	Once the coding is done

The agile project methodology provides the variety of responses that help the project managers to choose this methodology over the traditional methods. In order to manage the highly complex project, the agile project method is useful as it provides better structure and responsive tools that helps in increasing the adaptability. The proper situational analysis and scope for feedback and changes are managed by the agile project management functions according to risks and scenario of operational functions (Sohi et al., 2016). The flexibility in project management is helpful for managing the delivery time. Apart from that, the manager chooses the agile project management method for managing the quick response for the customers and validation of each function before starting the project.

In addition to this, the agile project methodology is more beneficial for managing the project for developing the self-organized functions, delivering the working software frequently and maintaining the face to face conversation with the stakeholders to meet the specification. However, there are some loopholes in the agile project management such as planning can be less concrete, time commitment and less documentation. The project manager is not much interested in project planning and comprehensive documentation that affect the team building approach and encourage the team members to commit the activities on time. The final outcome of the agile project can be different from the determined plan (Schmitz, Mahapatra, and Nerur, 2018). The reason behind changes in the final outcome of an agile project is flexibility and involvement of customer feedback. Now, it is the responsibility of the project manager to develop the plan and manage the functions according to pre-define plan and actions.

Kanban

Agile project management is used for managing and developing software and other projects according to the needs and requirements of the customer. The agile project development life cycle is as follows:

Figure 2: Lifecycle

The application of agile project management involves the following aspects and validation to meet the objectives:

Requirement analysis: The application of the agile method involves the proper analysis of the requirements of the manager, stakeholders, users and business bodies. The project team conducts meetings for collecting the information that could be beneficial for developing understanding the requirements (Hobbs, and Petit, 2017). The requirements must be quantifiable, relevant and detailed.

Planning: The planning of actions and operations is important for developing the idea and selection of an agile method for satisfying the features. The goals of this phase are to break down the idea into smaller functions and develop the schedule of activities. The proper planning of functions is useful for managing the operation and meeting the requirements of the owner. The proper prioritization of tasks through planning is helpful for increasing the effectiveness (Rasnacis, and Berzisa, 2015).

Design: To apply the agile project management function, the design of system or software is needed to be defining. The project manager and team are responsible for developing the design and offering knowledge about the potential solutions of the issues that the organization is facing in IT. In addition to this, the development team also comes up with the testing strategy for managing the operation according to standards as well as proceeding the task with the final planning. 

Implementation and testing: The application of agile project management methods includes the implementation of scheduled interactions using the defined approach (Dybå, Dingsøyr, and Moe, 2014). The features of the software are also considered along with the contact with vendors and suppliers for the environmental and funding of the operations. In addition to this, the testing of the codes and acceptance of the functions is also focused on the agile project application to meet the objectives.

Monitoring and Deployment: For project application through agile project management functions, the project manager uses different strategies for monitoring. The proper monitoring and utilization of technical tools are helpful for identifying the issues and quick response for managing them (Kerzner, 2018). The effective monitoring and problem fixing can encourage the effectiveness of software development and planning.

Conclusion

From the report, it can be considered that project management is a broad term and involve many approaches that can be beneficial according to needs and requirements. The report has provided a brief detail of the agile project management frameworks like scrum and kanban. These project management methods are popular than the traditional method of project management. Moreover, the report has analyzed the differences and contrasts of the project management approaches between agile and traditional methods. Additionally, the report has offered information about the application of an agile method to achieve the goals and objectives.              

References

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