Three Agile Project Management Frameworks You Should Consider
A cluttered project environment creates a cluttered mindset. A cluttered workflow process is like spaghetti, you don’t know where the start is or where it ends.
A cluttered project environment creates a cluttered mindset. A cluttered workflow process is like spaghetti, you don’t know where the start is or where it ends. There is a lot of overwhelming work that has to be done in the data and business intelligence industry to plot the next trends. Without top project management skills, you can’t survive. But, don’t worry there are project management frameworks that make project management smooth through project progress visualisation and progress tracking.
This article covers three agile project management frameworks: Scrum, Extreme programming(XP), and Kanban. We discuss how each project management framework works and how they can be combined to create a suitable project management framework for your specific project.
Why Should You Employ Project Management Frameworks?
You need project management frameworks so that you can:
- Track task progress: With project management framework you can create a list of tasks that have to be accomplished in a given period of time. When the task is overdue you will be alerted or you will be alerted a day before the project is a day before deadline. Also you can view all the tasks that have been accomplished thus helping you to prioritise and maximise efforts on tasks that have not been accomplished.
- Collaborate and assign tasks: Many platforms that deliver project management frameworks such as Trello and Jira allow you to add as many teammates in one workspace. This enables you to assign different people to various tasks. You can also check their progress on the project board or card list.
- Detailed task processes: Each task has a card, with this card you can add details such as links to important resources and the description of the task. These details will go far in helping the individual who has been assigned the task to comprehend it fast. Also, we are humans and we forget, it’s always nice to go back to a task that has detailed descriptions that help you get back on track swiftly.
- Project visualisation: Project management frameworks give you a holistic view of all the tasks available in the workspace. This helps you to know where you are stuck. Are there many tasks in the Review section or Pending section? These are the types of questions that help you to know where you have to spend more of your time. If there are many tasks in the Review section you have to spend more time reviewing the tasks and troubleshooting any problem that causes many tasks to be stuck in the Review section.
Picture description: The above image shows a Trello Dashboard that gives you a holistic view of all cards in different stages.
Extreme Programming Project Management
Many people are familiar with the Kanban and Scrum project management framework even though there is another framework called Extreme programming (XP). This framework focuses on software development projects and adds more details on how a specific customer feedback implementation task is done and when it should be done in an iterative approach. This approach focuses on reinforcing software development practices that’s why it dictates how tasks are done.
The Extreme Programming methodology is different from the other project management framework because it has a say on how tasks are executed.
This framework has to be set up by an experienced developer who knows XP practices in a definitive way. If the framework is fed with the right and customised techniques for the software development project it will yield high results.
Since this framework revolves around implementing customer feedback it is suitable for teams that are consistently in touch with their clients and are adaptable when it comes to making changes. In addition, you need to have good coding skills to ensure that the right changes are made quickly.
The main goal of the XP framework is to ensure that the code is highly readable and organised and most of all to ensure developers are following the right steps when executing a task.
Here are the core values of XP:
- Communication and feedback: For issues to be resolved, one has to speak up about the system problem they see and how it can be solved. You have to open up to communicate better. You also have to be consistently fetching feedback from your clients to create user stories. After gathering the feedback you’ve to make changes and deploy better applications.
- Simplicity comes first: To make any workflow or codebase understandable you have to choose the simple path. When starting a task make sure that you are starting with the least complex item or step.
- Listen carefully: You have to talk less and listen effectively to ensure that you can comprehend project requirements and customer feedback very well.
- Testing: You have to test all components wherever necessary to ensure that there are no flaws in production and the right customer feedback is implemented.
- Coding: Your code has to follow the best practices. You can do this by continuously integrating changes, testing code, practising pair programming.
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Agile Scrum Project Management
The Scrum project management focuses on breaking big project tasks into small and easy to execute tasks that can be incorporated into a small time frame called sprints. Sprints have to be executed within a period of four weeks.
The scrum project management framework has two roles which are:
- The Scrum master who guides the whole team on how to follow Scrum best practices.
- The other role is the product owner who instills product knowledge and vision into the team. The product owner also acts as the liaison between the team and customers. That’s how collaborative Scrum is.
Microservices and DevOps agile projects involve many processes and platforms such as Kubernetes and Jenkins that have to be implemented in a befitting way. To make DevOps easier, esynergy helps companies to break down big DevOps projects into small sprints that can be easily tackled. It’s very hard to understand a large concept but it’s simple to facilitate a large concept broken down into small parts.
Kanban Project Management
The Kanban project management framework focuses on visualising tasks. Each task is added to a Kanban system and card where a team or an individual will be assigned to execute the tasks. The card will move through different stages of the Kanboard board such as Pending or Review for the task to be fully executed.
The Kanban card needs to have the following details:
- Task deadline
- Assignee name
- Description of the task
- What has to be accomplished for the card to progress to the next phase?
- You can also add any links to useful resources
- Labels which indicate the status of the task or the priority level of the task
The Kanban flow and approach are different from other frameworks. Unlike Scrum and Extreme Programming, the Kanban framework does not follow the iterative approach rather it follows an incremental approach. This methodology is good for teams which are in the same workspace.
Kanban is crucial because it provides visibility and observability into how much time tasks take to move from one stage to the next. With Kanban it’s easy to monitor tasks. esynergy maximised the full potential of Kanban by introducing Kanban to Her Majesty’s Passport Office (HMO). Kanban was used to provide visibility and observability into passport provision services and ticketing systems; this enabled the HMO to improve their task execution proficiency thus leading to faster product and passport platform feature releases.
The Final Verdict: Should You Pick One or Combine Two Project Management Frameworks?
If you completely understand each project management framework explained in this article, you will notice that all of the project management frameworks are different from each other. They have different goals.
- Kanban focuses on visualisation through boards and cards.
- Extreme programming focuses on ensuring that developers are following the right steps when incorporating customer feedback.
- Scrum focuses on sprints and short time frames.
The three project management frameworks discussed in this article can be combined since they all follow the agile principle. Scrum and Kanban can be combined to create a new framework called Scrumban. This framework combines Kanban boards and cards with Scrum sprints.
On the other hand, Scrum can also be combined with Extreme Programming to produce a new framework called ScrumXP. This new framework adds feedback implementation tasks taken from XP to a Scrum sprint.
Combining two project management frameworks helps you to get a project management framework that is specific and suitable to your project. Most of all, you will be enjoying the benefits and advantages of two project management frameworks.
What matters the most is how well you know your project’s needs and workflow navigation. Choose a project management framework that is the best for your project. Combine two project frameworks when one framework cannot well-satisfy your project management needs.
Business agility transformation can be intimidating sometimes. It can be hard to choose the best project management framework for your project.
Fortunately, there are agile business consultancy agencies that specialise on offering agile consulting services. Agile strategy consulting will enhance your agile and DevOps transformation by setting up all the necessary tools needed to facilitate frameworks. Most of all, agile consultants will help you learn the best practices of agile frameworks.
esynergy has proven to be good at agile enterprise consulting as it has helped clients such as Her Majesty’s Passport Office set up their agile framework and release features faster. You also can boost your project through agile software development consulting services offered by esynergy.
It’s always crucial to implement project management best practices early, so talk to esynergy now and see the true power of agile project management transformation.