How to achieve effective management of agile projects in your company? Keys to success

To achieve a project implementation is not always easy and not everyone knows how to deal with it. Therefore, if we want to gain agility in its management it is necessary that we frame it within a clear methodology that allows us, on the one hand, to define well the processes that are going to be carried out and on the other hand to test, learn and modify during the implementation of it.

However, these are not the only aspects to take into account to ensure the success of effective management. Before, it is necessary to recognize and to analyse the mistakes that may be being made in order to anticipate and to avoid a possible failure. Here are some of the problems we may encounter during the process.

Aspects that can make effective management of agile projects fail

To see what are the main keys that allow us to achieve effective management in agile projects, we will start by identifying some of the main problems that make this management fail. They are the following:

• Lack of commitment. It is undoubtedly one of the main causes of failure in agile projects, both a lack of commitment on the part of the team members, as well as on the part of the management itself, understanding by management managers that are above the team, and even a lack of commitment from the client.
• Lack of risk assessment. Another of the big problems that can lead us to failure is the lack of a correct risk assessment. If we have an evaluation of them we can count with contingency plans that help us to alleviate them.
• Unrealistic sprints. It is another key point. The different iterations must be clear and realistic. It will do no good to plan work that is impossible to perform in the stipulated time. This will always lead us to breach the objectives and never have a correct vision of the possible evolution of the product.

Agile project management methodologies

Once we have seen some of the main factors that can make us fail, we can see what are the factors that will make us succeed in the management of agile projects:

• Clear product vision and roadmap. Before starting any development it is important to have a clear vision of the product and the roadmap to follow. Although this in principle is the responsibility of the Product Owner, it is important that this has the collaboration of stakeholders in the project and customers in order to realize a clear and realistic vision of both the product and of the roadmap to follow. Although the agile methodologies allow a rapid adaptation of the objectives, everything has a limit, and if we do not have clear objectives we will most likely fail.
• Commitment and availability.  It is essential to have the commitment of all team members, as well as the management itself, no matter how committed a developer is, his performance will not be correct if he has to juggle multiple needs, or if the team members are constantly changing. It is essential to have an active participation of the  Product Owner, which must be available to the development team on a daily basis, since it is he who has a global vision of the product; if he is not accessible it can cause blockages in developments or teams may take inappropriate development decisions for product management.
• A correct team management. At this point, the work of Scrum Master is essential. The team should not be seen as a formal authority, but should be facilitator, helping to solve possible problems that may arise both within the team and with third parties. It must have good social skills to manage and redirect the different personalities of the team and manage everyone to work for the ultimate goal.
• Take advantage of existing knowledge. As in almost any field, the experience is a plus, which is why you have to try to get the most out of it. Whenever possible, it is good to have people with experience in the area of the project to be carried out.
• Communication / Placement. An important point in the success of agile projects is a good communication between team members. There must be frequent and fluid communication, both between developers and with the Product Owner and Scrum Master. It has also been proven how the placement of team members is important, improving productivity if they are together, as it increases communication and team spirit among them.
• Anticipation. In order to avoid blockages, we must try to anticipate any problem to be able to solve it before it prevents progress. Either problems with infrastructure or software needs. For this it is important to perform a good risk assessment.
• Automated testing. The tests are basic so we can guarantee product quality. Although they are usually expensive in terms of time, it is essential to have a good automation of tests that can be run quickly after each iteration.

Conclusion

Anticipate possible problems, have a clear vision of the product, have a team committed to projects, well managed and experienced, are some essential aspects to meet if we want the agile project management to be effective.

If you need to strengthen these points to make your projects offer you important productive improvements, do not hesitate to consult our Smart Software Labs team. In Izertis we will help you to achieve success in your business objectives.