The Guide to Agile Project Management for Your Organization
Understand the Agile framework, shift your culture, and unlock the speed and adaptability needed to deliver value faster.
Understanding Agile:
The Big Picture
What Is Agile Project Management?
The Agile framework focuses on breaking down large projects into smaller, more manageable components.
Agile principles call for delivering value fast through a process of planning, sprints, and iteration—helping teams achieve results quickly and continuously improve.
As many PMOs know, Agile is everywhere (and for good reason). The benefits of Agile have been proven time and again to drive speed, adaptability, and engagement.
Sprint Planning
Daily Standups
Iteration & Review
Continuous Improvement
Moving from Traditional Project Management to Agile: It’s a Culture Shift
Making the Shift to Agile Thinking
Many PMOs are accustomed to using traditional project management practices, such as Waterfall, or have dipped their toe into Agile with a hybrid approach.
Sometimes PMOs resist Agile simply because they do not yet have the training or education to implement an Agile framework effectively.
Too often, they stick to what they know and try to use the Waterfall method for a quick development project—delaying results for months—because the Waterfall method is status quo.
Making the Shift Requires:
- Education and training in Agile principles
- Empowering teams with self-governance
- A cultural shift toward flexibility and accountability
At the end of the day, when you are enterprise Agile, the whole organization is operating within an Agile mindset.
It’s More Than a Method,
it’s a Mindset.
Agile not only changes work styles, project management terminology, and methods; it changes patterns, minds, and culture within the organization by giving each person more accountability and impact on the project.
At the end of the day, when you are enterprise Agile, the whole organization is operating within an Agile mindset. This means the organization is able to quickly adapt to changes in the market.
By not spending a lot of time upfront gathering requirements, organizations can more easily adapt to manage volatile, uncertain, and complex environments.
Case Study: Kettering Health Network (KHN)
PMO Completes 103 Projects with Hybrid Agile Methodology
Adopting Agile/Scrum methodology helped the Kettering Health Network (KHN) increase service delivery. Implementing Agile during the COVID pandemic helped prepare KHN to emerge more resilient and prepared for future challenges.
Understanding the Agile PMO
Integrating Agile and the PMO is essential for businesses to understand the process. As with most questions surrounding the PMO, there are two sides to this:
- How can the PMO support the use of Agile and adaptive methods on projects and programs?
- How can the PMO apply Agile methods to its own management and decision-making?
The key to understanding Agile and the PMO is to define your terms and understand how you will measure success.
Across industries, PMOs are evolving from governance centers to strategic enablers of agility. Our research shows how high-performing organizations are embedding Agile principles to increase speed, improve alignment, and deliver measurable business value.
PMOs Move Toward Agility
Embracing Agility is a top priority for modern PMOs, with 39% now integrating Agile practices. What sets the leaders apart? Explore the strategies high-performing organizations use to harness agile project management for better results, and understand the critical hurdles in training and implementation they navigate along the way.
High-Performing Organizations Adopt Agile
Agile is more than a project management buzzword. While the methodology has its critics, its success has been proven from major organizations to mid-sized businesses.
75% High-Performing Companies Use Adaptive & Hybrid Approaches
The 2018 Adaptive Organization Benchmark Study demonstrated that organizations where PMOs used hybrid or adaptive models experienced higher satisfaction, better project alignment, and an increase in business value.
High-Performing Organizations are more likely to have a PMO that:
- Chooses which project management approach (predictive, adaptive, or hybrid) is most appropriate for delivering the product, service, or result
- Advises management about the business value of projects that use adaptive approaches
- Strives to deliver what’s needed and keeps a pulse on customers