Managing Projects in an Agile Environment — A 3-Day Course

 Open Public Course Closed In-House Course

Synopsis

Many companies are now pursuing an agile development strategy - if IT projects are to deliver the expected benefits to business, many new factors have to be considered. Software development projects now typically blend a number of technologies, objects or components, packages, Internet, client/server and legacy systems. The development life cycle has also changed and the use and production of reusable software components raises additional issues.

To date most project management courses have focused either on the pure project management or technical management aspects. This course focuses on the differences that will be experienced when managing agile projects and is designed to give you the skills you need to manage successful agile projects.

Course Objectives

After completing this course the student will be able to:

• Understand the need for agility
• Understand the concepts of agility
• Understand the basics of small-team agile processes
• Create and manage agile teams
• Set up test driven development environments
• Understand common agile methods
• Plan the transition of an agile development to release

Intended Audience

Project managers, lead analyst/programmers and other IT professionals who need to understand the issues involved in managing software development projects in an agile environment. This course is not suitable for technical staff with no previous project management or development experience.

Prerequisites

Delegates must have a good understanding of basic project management planning skills. An appreciation of current methods and architecture options such as object orientation, client/server and the Internet would be an advantage.

Publicly scheduled dates, locations, and prices

Outline Course Contents

Agile Development

• What is Agile Development?
• Iterative Development
• Agile Methods
• Is your project suitable for Agile?
• Factors to consider: size, criticality, personnel and environment

Building the Team

• Multiple roles and effective communication
• Quality Goals
• Sharing of project management

Managing the Kickoff

• Importance of stakeholders
• User stories
• Envisioning
• Team Vision
• Importance of Scheduling
• Deliverables
• Prototyping

Managing Project Construction

• Objectives and deliverables of construction
• Iteration management
• Daily Meetings
• Creating and managing the Backlog / Story List
• Driving the Project with Use Cases
• Estimating work and calculating velocity

Planning for Quality

• What is quality and how is it measured?
• The importance of testing
• Test based development techniques
• Test automation
• Testing practices

Transition

• Preparing for change
• Agile Release Planning
• Support responsibilities during and after transition
• Project closedown