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The intention of Agile Project Management is to focus tracking and project management around small units of business value, not tasks. Rather than deliver projects in phases of tasks, the agile approach advocates producing increments of business value every 1-4 weeks; in each of these short iterations, we complete all phases of the project (analysis, design, development, test, etc) for a small increment of business value. We keep a prioritized list of these small chunks of business value, and at the start of each iteration, we select the highest-priority chunks to work on. Every few weeks, we deliver some of the benefits promised by the goal of the project. Priorities of the other chunks lower down on the list can be changed at any time to ensure we deliver the most business value we can.
Tracking progress is a lot more effective with this approach, because you can easily measure, every 1-4 weeks, exactly how much value you’ve delivered.
There are a lot of tools out there for doing this; many agile teams just plan their projects with simple spreadsheets or even on index cards on the wall (one chunk of functionality per card). The company I work for produces a web-based tool designed to help software teams keep track of business value. But to use a tool that’s effective at tracking real progress towards a goal, you need to make this fundamental shift in how your project is organized. With phased development you never really know where things stand, because you don’t really deliver any usable piece of the goal until the end. Working in smaller chunks helps you get around this.
-Alex
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Alex Pukinskis - Agile Coach
Rally Software Development
http://rallydev.com/
303.565.2846
On 01 27 2006 6:49 AM, "Meade Rubenstein" <meader_nj@...> wrote:
Often the focus of a project is changed from the goal - such as better
customer service, reduced costs, increased performance, etc - to the
delivery of the tasks. These tasks are those that are 'guessed' at
during the project definition phase and in many cases become etched in
stone. This often results in projects being delivered 'successfully'
but without meeting hope for benefits (which could change over the
course of the project). Has anyone had any experience with a PM tool
that focuses on the goal and set's diviations to it instead of
predefined tasks, value, costs, etc.?? Is such as tool possible?
-meade
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