Project Management Case Studies, 7th Edition

Part 23INDUSTRY SPECIFIC: AGILE/SCRUM PROJECT MANAGEMENT

During the last two decades, executives have seen the benefits of project management and recognized that project management is now a corporate strategic competency. For that reason, they are now putting more trust in the hands of the project managers for both business and project‐related decisions.

This trust has allowed for the development of more streamlined project management approaches, such as with agile and Scrum. These new methodologies function more as frameworks than rigid methodologies and allow project managers more freedom in customizing the project management approach to fit the needs of the customers. But with any new approach, there are always obstacles that must be resolved, especially when people are outside their comfort zones.

Agile (A): Understanding Implementation Risks

In the past decade, many information technology (IT) companies have changed their systems development life‐cycle methodology to a more flexible framework approach, such as agile and Scrum. The basis for these flexible frameworks was the Agile Manifesto, introduced in February 2001, which had four values:

1. Individuals and actions over processes and tools
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change over following a plan

The primary players in the framework included a Scrum Master—a product owner who represented the customer and the development team. The framework ...