Introduction
With everchanging IT environments, it is getting more and more critical to adopt an agile mindset.
In this blog post, I will cover the best tools and methods for managing agile IT projects.
What is agile project management?
To be agile means to be quick and adaptable to changes.
Why is agile project management the new black?
In IT, agile project management is especially important, since many of the products and services change almost daily.
Tools for agile project management
Kanban boards
There are loads of different kanban boards, including, but not limited to:
My favorite among the kanban boards mentioned above is Kanbanflow, due to its speed, user interface, and features.
Frameworks for agile project management
SCRUM
Most likely, the most popular agile project management framework.
The SCRUM framework leverages SCRUM masters, who facilitate the daily stand-up meetings and keep the sprints on track.
Methods for agile project management
Stand-up meetings
Stand-up meetings are short meetings usually carried out in the morning. As you can hear in the name, the meeting should be so short that you should not need to sit down.
The stand-up meeting is a forum to bring up any problems arising in the project.
A summary of stand-up meetings:
- Maximum of 15 minutes
- Progress updates since last stand-up meeting
- Blockers or challenges stopping
Pomodoro timers
A Pomodoro consists of a period of time, usually 25 minutes, where focus work should be concentrated. After the 25 minutes, allow for a 5-minute rest and then continue working for 25 minutes.
The idea is that all tasks should be broken down into chunks of 25 minutes.
Sprints
Usually used in the SCRUM framework, sprint is a time box where the focus is to finalize a given amount of tasks.
A sprint is usually a 2-4 week period.
Conclusion
Agile project management is getting more and more critical, especially within IT.
As consultants, we see that more and more organizations are adopting the agile mindset, bother for software development and infrastructure development projects.
How are you using the agile frameworks?
