What Is Agile Project Management?

Project managers are a critical puzzle piece to any established business. They take on the responsibility of planning and executing specific projects and ensuring a smooth journey from ideation to task development and completion. Just like many professionals, project managers have faced difficulties along the COVID-19 pandemic journey and must navigate such challenges and search for opportunities to learn and grow into this new normal, as stated by the Australian Institute of Project Management.

This also means focusing on agility; making an effort to meet client wants and needs by whatever means possible and helping your team members react in a responsive way. Let’s take a closer look at the meaning of Agile project management and how to help your team incorporate Agile concepts in their project management:

What is Agile project management?

An iterative approach, Agile project management is all about helping your team navigate tasks through a circular stage that could potentially be ever-changing. This way of thinking and managing is generally used by software developers, but it’s a concept that can be utilised among the team members of any industry.

Agile project management is a process that focuses on increasing speed, encouraging collaboration and inspiring team members to shift their focus, respond and react based on what the market, or clients, internal and external, are asking of them.

How can you innovate your team as a project manager?

To be an agile project manager, it’s important to find ways to keep your team members encouraged, motivated and organised to function through an ever-changing workflow. Here are a few ways to keep your team innovated:

1. Have collaborative meetings
Project management is all about bringing team members together to create a successful end product. With more opportunities for collaboration and discussion, you can streamline a more successful project workflow. According to the Project Management Institute, collaborative project management ensures specific projects align with the foundational program and that everyone involved remains on the same page.

2. Create delivery calendars
Organisational methods can be considered the glue that keeps a project management strategy together. During your collaborative meetings, talk to all of your team members about their availability when assigning and creating tasks and from there, build delivery calendars that can be shared throughout the team. This is another simple gesture that can keep everyone on the same page and ensure a smooth delivery.

3. Take communication seriously
At the end of the day, the top priority of any project manager should be communication. This is not only valuable between you and your team members who are creating and sending deliverables, but it’s also important for your clients. The more you communicate with them on a regular basis and share progress, the more confident you can feel in completing their projects.

Opening the lines of communications between yourself and clients also ensures a steady workflow and can reduce the chances of critical information falling through the cracks. Without adequate communication, you jeopardise your client relationships in the long run.

4. Organise an Agile project management training program to increase your team’s skill set
If you are looking at incorporating Agile project management concepts into your project management approach or if you are considering moving your project management to Agile project management, we can help.

ICML’s Agile Project Management course or our Agile project management consultancy will assist you in developing a fit-for-purpose approach, enabling you to be more agile for clients in the future.

Learn more about Agile project management and ask us about delivering a tailored Agile project management training program from ICML by contacting us directly today.