Agile project management creating innovative products jim highsmith pdf

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Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Second Edition By

Jim Highsmith

............................................... Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional Pub Date: July 10, 2009 Print ISBN-10: 0-321-65839-6 Print ISBN-13: 978-0-32165839-5 Web ISBN-10: 0-321-65920-1 Web ISBN-13: 978-0-32165920-0 Pages: 432 Slots: 1.0

Table of Contents | Index

Copyright Praise for Jim Highsmith's Agile Project Management, Second Edition Praise for Jim Highsmith's Agile Project Management The Agile Software Development Series Acknowledgments About the Author Foreword Preface

Introduction

Conventions The Agile Software Development Series

Chapter 1.

The Agile Revolution

http://www.informit.com/authors/author_bio.aspx?ISBN=9780321658395
Agile Business Objectives Agility Defined Agile Leadership Values Agile Performance Measurement The APM Framework Performance Possibilities Final Thoughts

Chapter 2.

Value over Constraints

Continuous Flow of Customer Value Iterative, Feature-Based Delivery Technical Excellence Simplicity Final Thoughts

Chapter 3.

Teams over Tasks

Leading Teams Building Self-Organizing (Self-Disciplined) Teams Encourage Collaboration No More Self-Organizing Teams? Final Thoughts

Chapter 4.

Adapting over Conforming

The Science of Adaptation Exploring Responding to Change Product, Process, People Barriers or Opportunities Reliable, Not Repeatable Reflection and Retrospective Principles to Practices Final Thoughts

Chapter 5.

An Agile Project Management Model

An Agile Enterprise Framework An Agile Delivery Framework An Expanded Agile Delivery Framework Final Thoughts

Chapter 6.

The Envision Phase

A Releasable Product Envisioning Practices Product Vision Project Objectives and Constraints Project Community Final Thoughts

Chapter 7.

The Speculate Phase

Speculating on Product and Project Product Backlog Release Planning Final Thoughts

Chapter 8.

Advanced Release Planning

Release (Project) Planning Wish-based Planning (Balancing Capacity and Demand) Multi-Level Planning Capabilities Value Point Analysis Release Planning Topics Emerging Practices Final Thoughts

Chapter 9.

The Explore Phase

Agile Project Leadership Iteration Planning and Monitoring Technical Practices Coaching and Team Development Participatory Decision Making Collaboration and Coordination Final Thoughts

Chapter 10.

The Adapt and Close Phases

Adapt Product, Project, and Team Review and Adaptive Action Close Final Thoughts

Chapter 11.

Scaling Agile Projects

The Scaling Challenge An Agile Scaling Model Building Large Agile Teams Scaling Up—Agile Practices Scaling Out—Distributed Projects Final Thoughts

Chapter 12.

Governing Agile Projects

Portfolio Governance Portfolio Management Topics Final Thoughts

Chapter 13.

Beyond Scope, Schedule, and Cost: Measuring Agile Performance

What Is Quality? Planning and Measuring Measurement Concepts

Outcome Performance Metrics Output Performance Metrics

Shortening the Tail Final Thoughts

Chapter 14.

Reliable Innovation

The Changing Face of New Product Development Agile People and Processes Deliver Agile Products Reliable Innovation The Value-Adding Project Leader Final Thoughts

Bibliography

Index

Agile Computing Software Engineering Jim Highsmith Addison-Wesley Professional Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Second Edition

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Highsmith, James A., 1945- Agile project management : creating innovative products / Jim Highsmith. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-321-65839-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-321-65839-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Software engineering. 2. Agile software development--Management. I. Title. QA76.758.H54 2010 005.1--dc22

2009019147

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Indiana.

First printing July 2009

Dedication To Wendie, Debbie, and Nikki

Agile Computing Software Engineering Jim Highsmith Addison-Wesley Professional Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Second Edition

Praise for Jim Highsmith's Agile Project Management, Second Edition "This second edition is a remarkable palimpsest that overlays critical enterprise aspects such as scaling agile, governing agile projects, and measuring agile performance onto its original, award-winning agile project management foundation. If you're an agile manager or executive seeking a holistic understanding as well as the critical details of agile project management—this edition will be a very valuable addition to your bookshelf."

—Sanjiv Augustine, President, LitheSpeed and Author of Managing Agile Projects

"Jim continues to successfully communicate complex project management concepts and interactions in an easily digestible manner. The breadth and depth of practical agile experience, insight, and guidance is immense. In typical fashion, he tempers 'agile religion' with the reality that agile development is not right for every situation or everyone."

—Robert Holler, President and CEO of VersionOne

"This book is one of the very best on the topic of agile methods for project management, offering profound concepts and actionable guidelines. Stressing the need to abandon the old paradigm of "following a plan with minimal changes," in favor of "adapting successfully to inevitable changes," this book is one of those rare books suitable for both novice and seasoned project managers."

—Alexander Laufer, Director, Center for Project Leadership, Columbia University author, Breaking the Code of Project Management

"Jim's second edition is a timely update that extends this decade's progress to the Project and Program Managers making the transition to agile project management. This edition expands on the topics of governance and performance management, helping PMs shape new models of adaptability, serving teams and continuous value delivery. It addresses the critical questions that PMs face in release planning, backlog preparation, capacity planning, and risk reduction. Jim knows how to talk to project managers, detailing agile phases that lead to adaptable learning and creating greater value in spite of high expectations and constraints. This is the one handbook on agile project management I would recommend for any business or technical leader who has a hand in the agile community."

—Ryan Martens, CTO & Founder, Rally Software

"Envisioning a different way of working begins with a shift in thinking. Jim Highsmith shares an exciting vision and the new way of thinking behind the Agile Revolution in his latest book, Agile Project Management. Through storytelling and examples, Jim draws us into appreciating a new way of fostering creativity and innovation. This is required reading for anyone looking for a fresh perspective that can change the

way teams develop new products.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery once said, 'If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.' Agile Project Management helps us chart a course along those lines. There's no doubt that great products and a new way of how teams work together will be the result."

—Michael Mah, Director, Benchmarking Practice, Cutter Consortium and Managing Partner, QSM Associates Inc.

"I have always considered the first edition of Jim Highsmith's Agile Project Management to be the source for information on agile project management and good project management in general. In the second edition, Jim has done a great job of extending coverage to the key aspects of spreading agile thinking to portfolio management and the rest of the organization. Again, a must have for a project, program, or portfolio manager's book shelf."

—Kent J. McDonald, Program Manager

"It's been almost twenty years since Jim and I first started to collaborate. Jim was always fond of saying that more has been written about Software Development than is known. In this second edition of Agile Project Management, Jim's writing has finally caught up with all that needs to be known. The rest is up to you and your experiences."

—Sam Bayer, Ph.D., CEO b2b2dot0

"When Jim's first APM book hit the shelves five years ago it added much needed structure to project and product release planning levels. His APM principles and practices have been widely and successfully adopted worldwide. In this edition Jim adds many new insights, values, principles, and practices based on his extensive experience helping large enterprises scale their agility across projects, programs, products, and divisions. This latest edition is chock full of valuable new ideas and practical applications."

—Ken Collier, Ph.D., Agile Consultant and Author

"In this new mainstream world of agile adoption, Jim walks a wonderful and generous line for new and seasoned project managers alike. Jim still has the beginner agile project manager in mind, offering his very clear ideas backed by immediately applicable practices. He continues his agnostic view of agile by sticking to tools for the project manager, regardless of any particular agile framework or method. In this second edition, Jim has remained vigilant to the agile project manager's success, adding thought-provoking guidance for the bigger agile world."

—Jean Tabaka, Agile Fellow, Rally Software

"No one makes agile project management as clear, compelling, and real as Jim Highsmith—and without coming off as a cheerleader. His models of agile project management just make sense and important—no, essential—agile nuggets can be found on every page. In particular, Chapter 13, "Beyond Scope, Schedule, and Cost: Measuring Agile Performance," is required reading. I'm recommending it to all my clients. So read Agile Project Management if you value performance over politics."

—Christopher Avery, Ph.D., Leadership Mentor, www.ChristopherAvery.com

"Jim challenges conventional wisdom and provides excellent examples of the leadership mindset shifts needed to successfully implement Agile Project Management for products. A must read for all product and project managers."

—Ron Holliday, Vice President, Financial Services, Fidelity Investments

"There is no better source of wisdom on agile project management than Highsmith's second edition. A master of explaining all sides of a story, Highsmith helps you understand exactly why traditional project management fails to deliver in a competitive world and how agile management provides a faster, more adaptive and customer-focused process. I love Jim's real-world stories of companies that are thriving with agile, his in-depth coverage of essential agile management practices, and his innovative ideas on agile governance."

—Joshua Kerievsky, Founder, Industrial Logic, Inc.

http://www.ChristopherAvery.com
Agile Computing Software Engineering Jim Highsmith Addison-Wesley Professional Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Second Edition

Praise for Jim Highsmith's Agile Project Management "Jim Highsmith is one of a few modern writers who are helping us understand the new nature of work in the knowledge economy. A transition—from industrial-age thinking to management more suited to reliable innovation—is well underway. But few people yet understand the implications of this shift. Agile Project Management explains what's going on with startling clarity. Perhaps more importantly, it provides the vital management structure and practical advice that will support ongoing innovation in your company."

—Rob Austin, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School

"There is a lot of attention these days being given to whether organizations are harvesting the maximum benefits from their IT investments. This book is totally in alignment with that theme and should be a must-read for all project participants who are passionate about their projects delivering 'value for money.'

"The one constant in the vast majority of large projects I see in my role as Project Management Practice Manager for Fujitsu Consulting is change. Yet, true to the observations that Jim has made in this book, the majority of these projects have been executed as if change is not the norm and as if the project initiators were 'seers' who could foretell the future with a high degree of certainty. These projects were run on the basis of traditional project management practices, where, simplistically speaking, the project plan was 'king,' and performance was measured and couched in terms of 'delivery to plan.'

"In the past 12–18 months, Fujitu Consulting has seen the potential benefits of adopting more 'Agile' approaches in the way we deliver and manage some of our projects and have encouraged our clients to embrace an 'adaptive' project culture."

—Karen Chivers, Senior Consulting Director and Project Management Practice Manager, Fujitsu Consulting (Asia Pacific)

"There is a common set of values that all the Agile methods share, and, in this book, Jim Highsmith uses those values plus his knowledge of the Agile methods to present a common framework for Agile project management. Jim shows us what an Agile approach to project management is about—the essential insights and experiences—plus he expertly combines tools and techniques with proven project management value, those of his own and those from other methods, into this framework."

—Jeff De Luca, Project Director, Nebulon Pty. Ltd. (Australia)

"Jim's book, Agile Project Management, addresses one of the key questions asked when adopting an Agile software development methodology, 'How do you manage the project?' He spends a lot of time on the values and principles needed to be successful in a less bureaucratic development environment. It requires individual discipline and a substantial mindset shift by all parties. He has done an excellent job

of documenting the behaviors that will create a winning team, no matter what process is being used. I applaud Jim for creating a book that will help take the Agile movement to a new level."

—Christine Davis, Visiting Scientist, Carnegie Melon University/former Executive Vice President and General Manager, Raytheon

"Welcome to the second generation of Agile methodologies! Agile Project Management is an Agile methodology thoughtfully built on the key ideas and experiences of other AMs. The result is a coherent whole, from principles to practices. If your job is to deliver serious software, keep this book at hand on your library, since in the next ten years you will use it too many times!"

—Michele Marchesi, Professor of Software Engineering, University of Cagliari, Italy

"The world of product development is becoming more dynamic and uncertain. Many managers cope by reinforcing processes, adding documentation, or further honing costs. This isn't working. Highsmith brilliantly guides us into an alternative that fits the times."

—Preston G. Smith, Founder and Principal of New Product Dynamics/Coauthor, Developing Products in Half the Time

"Finally a book that reconciles the passion of the Agile software movement with the needed disciplines of project management. Jim's book has provided a service to all of us.

"Agile software development is largely a grass-roots movement that focuses on reliably delivering software products in a dynamic world. To date, much of the Agile literature has focused on the engineering practices that support an Agile philosophy, and thus the coverage of project management has been limited. In this book, Jim Highsmith addresses project management in the Agile environment. He doesn't limit this coverage to simply making a case for a new style of project management. Rather, Jim also offers a practical framework and supporting practices that project managers can use to help software development teams be more productive and reliably deliver products that add business value."

—Neville R(oy) Singham, CEO, ThoughtWorks, Inc.

"Software development is a human activity, although we sometimes try to deny that fact by wrapping high ceremony processes and tools around our teams which, if unleashed, can produce some truly amazing things. Jim knows this all too well from his broad experience in working with a variety of projects, and that experience shines through in this very pragmatic and much needed take on Agile project management."

—Grady Booch, IBM Fellow

"Agile methods, whether for software development, project management, or general product development, are the ideal approach for building things where change is a risk factor. Everywhere? Highsmith clearly shows how iterative development methods can be successfully applied to project management generally. It is truly groundbreaking when methods refined in the software space can actually inform other disciplines."

—Charles Stack, Founder and CEO, Flashline, Inc.

"This is the project management book we've all been waiting for—the book that effectively combines Agile methods and rigorous project management. Not only does this book help us make sense of project management in this current world of iterative, incremental Agile methods, but it's an all-around good read!

"Many IT organizations have made a mess of Agile methods and component development. Organizations that abandoned waterfall methods for undisciplined software hacking have given Agile methods a bad reputation in some businesses. A cure for these woes can be found in Jim Highsmith's new book. You really can combine the benefits of Agile methods with project management disciplines. Jim shows us the way."

—Lynne Ellyn, Senior VP & CIO, DTE Energy

"Jim Highsmith's Agile Project Management is a refreshing change in the flow of project management books being published today. The book combines project management theory and practice cast in common-sense terms in a manner valuable to both the student and user. The author's recasting and renaming of the phases of a project life cycle adds an approach likely to be emulated in the future literature in this discipline.

"His treatment of the general principles to be followed in the Agile Revolution for new product development provides a model of behavior valuable to the enlightened scholar and practitioner of the project management process."

—Dr. David I. Cleland, Professor Emeritus, Industrial Engineering Department, School of Engineering, University of Pittsburgh

"Product development in the 21st century must move from the world of structure and compliance to one of agility and rapid learning. As a result, project management must change from the administration of tasks to the flexible balancing of possibilities against constraints—'managing on the edge of chaos,' as the author puts it. This book explains the process of doing just that and should be the foundation for change—readable, full of logic, and a sound process."

—Michael Kennedy, President, Product Development Solutions/Author, Product Development for the Lean Enterprise

"This is a wonderful and highly practical book. Within hours of putting it down I was

putting some of its advice into practice. It's a highly thought-provoking book that argues, for instance, that agility is more attitude than process and more environment than methodology. Because of the complexity of today's software projects, one new product development project can rarely be viewed as a repeat of a prior project. This makes Highsmith's advice to favor a reliable process over a repeatable one particularly timely and important."

—Mike Cohn, President, Mountain Goat Software/Author, User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development

"Jim's book removes the mystery around Agile project management and its associated techniques while providing a framework of discipline that can be easily applied to any high-tech development and is not limited to software development."

—Ken Delcol, Director, Product Development, MDS SCIEX

"Iterations are clearly the best way to create the innovative products that customers want to buy. Agile Project Management contains a wealth of ideas and insights about how to make a flexible product development process work."

—Michael A. Cusumano, Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management/Author, The Business of Software

"Practical and provocative advice allows the reader to examine Agile project management in unusual depth, which is what sets this book apart. Jim opens the gateway to the clockworks of Agile project management and does it using a great storyline that takes you all the way through the journey. A must-have for any leadership collection."

—Wes Balakian, PMP, Chairman and Executive Advisor, PMI eBusiness SIG/President TSI

"Agile Project Management is the first book to successfully bring together the theory of complex adaptive systems and the practice of project management in a usable, 'how-to' format. The book offers a range of concrete suggestions including, my favorite, how to develop a product vision statement by creating a prototype of the final package. Agile project management also helps the project manager with issues of scalability through offering specific suggestions on tailoring the APM approach and by devoting an entire chapter to managing the large team. If you're looking for practical suggestions on how to deliver the best product you can given the normal constraints of time and budget, then APM is one book you absolutely want to have on your book shelf."

—Donna Fitzgerald, Partner, Knowth Consulting/former Project Director for Project Management Software, Oracle

"In this landmark book, Jim Highsmith catapults project management into the 21st century. The book's a goldmine of the essential principles and practices you need

to succeed in delivering innovation and business value on any new product venture."

—Doug DeCarlo, Principal, The Doug DeCarlo Group

"Jim Highsmith has done a great service in this book by providing an easy-to-read and valuable reference for project managers who want to foster greater agility through a common-sense set of practices."

—Kevin Tate, Chief Product Architect, Alias

Agile Computing Software Engineering Jim Highsmith Addison-Wesley Professional Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Second Edition

The Agile Software Development Series Alistair Cockburn and Jim Highsmith, Series Editors

Agile software development centers on four values identified in the Agile Alliance's Manifesto:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

The development of Agile software requires innovation and responsiveness, based on generating and sharing knowledge within a development team and with the customer. Agile software developers draw on the strengths of customers, users, and developers, finding just enough process to balance quality and agility.

The books in The Agile Software Development Series focus on sharing the experiences of such Agile developers. Individual books address individual techniques (such as Use Cases), group techniques (such as collaborative decision making), and proven solutions to different problems from a variety of organizational cultures. The result is a core of Agile best practices that will enrich your experience and improve your work.

Titles in the Series Steve Adolph, Paul Bramble, Alistair Cockburn, and Andy Pols; Patterns for Effective Use Cases; 0201721848

Alistair Cockburn; Agile Software Development, Second Edition; 0321482751

Alistair Cockburn; Crystal Clear; 0201699478

Alistair Cockburn; Surviving Object-Oriented Projects; 0201498340

Alistair Cockburn; Writing Effective Use Cases; 0201702258

Anne Mette Jonassen Hass; Configuration Management Principles and Practice; 0321117662

Jim Highsmith; Agile Software Development Ecosystems; 0201760436

Jim Highsmith; Agile Project Management; 0321219775

Craig Larman; Agile and Iterative Development; 0131111558

Dean Leffingwell; Scaling Software Agility; 0321458192

Mary Poppendieck and Tom Poppendieck; Lean Software Development; 0321150783

Jean Tabaka; Collaboration Explained; 0321268776

Kevin Tate; Sustainable Software Development; 0321286081

For more information visit informit.com/agileseries

Agile Computing Software Engineering Jim Highsmith Addison-Wesley Professional Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Second Edition

Acknowledgments All books are collaborative efforts, and this one is no exception. Many people have contributed ideas, reviews, comments, and inspiration that have helped me turn my ideas about agile project management into the reality of this book.

Although I take full responsibility for the content of this second edition book, I had a wonderful group of advisors and reviewers who contributed significant time and effort to turning my drafts into a final product. I owe a tremendous thanks to Ken Collier for long conversations over morning coffee, and to Kent McDonald, Israel Gat, Jean Tabaka, and Sanjive Augustine. Israel Gat, in particular, provided a valuable senior executive's perspective.

Many people contributed to the material in this book. They include Mike Cohn, Ken Delcol, Jeff DeLuca, Luke Hohmann, J. R. Jenks, Martyn Jones, Michael Mah, Anne Mullaney, Michele Marchesi, Lynne Nix, Norm Kerth, Scott Ambler, Doug DeCarlo, Ed Yourdon, Josh Kerievsky, Borys Stokalski, Peter George, Bartek Kiepuszewski, Tim Lister, Kent Beck, Donna Fitzgerald, Glen Alleman, Todd Little, Rob Austin, Ken Orr, Don Olson, Tom DeMarco, Sam Bayer, Kevin Tate, Gary Walker, Paul Young, David Spann, Alistair Cockburn, Pollyanna Pixton, Ole Jepsen, Greg Reiser, Roy Singham, Robin Gibson, Lynda Belhoucine, Bob Charette, Christopher Avery, and Preston Smith.

Special thanks goes to Karen Coburn, president of the Cutter Consortium, for her support and permission to include material I wrote for various Cutter publications in this book.

Finally my thanks to executive editor Chris Guzikowski at Addison-Wesley for his support and encouragement.

Agile Computing Software Engineering Jim Highsmith Addison-Wesley Professional Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Second Edition

About the Author Jim Highsmith directs Cutter Consortium's agile consulting practice. He has over 30 years experience as an IT manager, product manager, project manager, consultant, and software developer.

Jim is the author of Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Addison Wesley 2004; Adaptive Software Development: A Collaborative Approach to Managing Complex Systems, Dorset House 2000 and winner of the prestigious Jolt Award, and Agile Software Development Ecosystems, Addison Wesley 2002. Jim is the recipient of the 2005 international Stevens Award for outstanding contributions to systems development. He is also co-editor, with Alistair Cockburn, of the Agile Software Development Series of books from Addison Wesley.

Jim is a coauthor of the Agile Manifesto, a founding member of The Agile Alliance, coauthor of the Declaration Interdependence for project leaders, and cofounder and first president of the Agile Project Leadership Network. A frequent speaker at conferences worldwide, Jim has published dozens of articles in major industry publications.

Jim has consulted with IT and product development organizations and software companies in the U.S., Europe, Canada, South Africa, Australia, Japan, India, and New Zealand to help them adapt to the accelerated pace of development in increasingly complex, uncertain environments. Jim's areas of consulting include the areas of Agile Software Development, Project Management, and Collaboration. He has held technical and management positions with software, computer hardware, banking, and energy companies. Jim holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and an M.S. in management.

Agile Computing Software Engineering Jim Highsmith Addison-Wesley Professional Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Second Edition

Foreword We live in an era characterized by information overload. This statement itself is now a cliché. However, it bears repeating because in virtually every field we are still drowning in information and struggling for meaningful knowledge. Even in the relatively nascent field of agile project management and development we already need to filter "noise," connect the dots, and integrate diverse disciplines. Jim Highsmith's Agile Project Management is a timely book for the drowning agilist in need of insights that make Agile principles actionable.

The first challenge of the struggle with information is to keep up with and not become overwhelmed by the state of the art. The coming of age of agile methods has led to exponential growth of publications on the subject—books, essays, conference proceedings, blogs, wikis, and, yes, tweets. This fast growth is compounded by the accelerating pace of new practices that get introduced by enthusiastic communities of agilists. Putting our hands around the Agile topic nowadays requires a significant investment of time and effort. Agile Project Management fully covers the whole agile landscape, in depth, in a single, easy-to-read volume.

The second level of information explosion is the day-to-day struggle of the agilist to keep the artifacts produced by the software engineering process at the just-enough level. This is not merely a matter of keeping the template zombies in check. As agile methods get mainstream traction, it's hard to resist the temptation to add "just one more artifact" to fit in with established portfolio management and life cycle processes. Blind adherence to additional process and documentation requirements can often be problematic, but is especially troublesome when such processes fail to take into account how elegant and powerful agile principles can be in sticking to the bare minimum. Jim Highsmith's book demonstrates how to maintain the effectiveness of software development without sacrificing efficiency of ideation, design, coding, and testing. It guides the reader to the point at which the code starts speaking for itself louder and clearer than any verbose reports about the code.

Agile project management will appeal to both novice and expert in just about any discipline that touches agile methods. It reaches a rare level of broad applicability by emphasizing principles over practices. The book does not dogmatically tell the reader what to do in a "one size fits all" manner. Rather, it gives the reader the tools to observe, characterize, and analyze his or her particular circumstances and then to determine the appropriate method to practice. It teaches the practitioner how to implement agile as a process platform, how to tailor his or her agile work to business needs, corporate cultures, and project imperatives in a way that prescriptive advice can never accomplish. Moreover, it explains how the process platform could and should be used by both customer and vendor.

If I were to choose a subtitle for the book, I would pick the phrase "The Thinking Man's Guide to Agile Project Management." The book challenges the reader to look at what he or she is practicing through fresh eyes. In the course of so doing, the reader will assimilate the critical role agile plays in fostering innovation and creating value through

affordable experimentation. He or she will develop the ability to facilitate the application of agile at the enterprise level by balancing empowerment, performance management, and governance considerations on a large scale.

How appropriate it is that Agile Project Management is being published at a time when the macro-economic situation poses so many formidable challenges. The book clearly articulates the "secret sauce" for corporate success amidst the crisis: relentless innovation through impassioned employees. Applied in this manner, agile can become a core discipline, revolutionizing the product life cycle all the way from inception through evolution to eventual retirement, and transforming the company all the way from the R&D lab through its value chain partners to the customer.

Israel Gat Senior Consultant, Cutter Consortium July 2009 Austin, Texas

Agile Computing Software Engineering Jim Highsmith Addison-Wesley Professional Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Second Edition

Preface When the Manifesto for Agile Software Development (www.agilealliance.org) was written in spring 2001, it launched a movement—a movement that raced through the software development community; generated controversy and debate; connected with related movements in manufacturing, construction, and aerospace; and been extended into project management.

The impetus for this second edition of Agile Project Management comes from four sources: the continuing pace of business change, the maturing of the agile movement over the last five years, the trend to large and distributed agile projects, and the formation of a project management organization for agile leaders (the Agile Project Leadership Network).

An article titled "There Is No More Normal" introduces a series of Business Week articles on game changing ideas. It quotes John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, "Without exception, all of my biggest mistakes occurred because I moved too slowly."[1] If there is no more normal then adapting to change, quickly becomes a requisite skill for improving organizational performance. Agile project management enhances a team and an organization's ability to deal with change and the abnormal.

[1] McGregor, Jena. "There Is No More Normal," Business Week (March 23 and 30, 2009).

The essence of this agile movement, whether in new product development, new service offerings, software applications, or project management, rests on two foundational goals: delivering valuable products to customers and creating working environments in which people look forward to coming to work each day.

Innovation continues to drive economic success for countries, industries, and individual companies. Although the rates of innovation in information technology in the last decade may have declined from prodigious to merely lofty, innovation in areas such as biotechnology and nanotechnology are picking up any slack.

New technologies such as combinatorial chemistry and sophisticated computer simulation are fundamentally altering the innovation process itself. When these technologies are applied, the cost of iteration can be driven down dramatically, enabling exploratory and experimental processes to be both more effective and less costly than serial, specification-based processes. This dynamic is at work in the automotive, integrated circuit, software, and pharmaceutical industries. It will soon be at work in your industry.

But taking advantage of these new innovation technologies has proven tricky. When exploration processes replace prescriptive processes, people have to change. For the chemist who now manages the experimental compounding process rather than design compounds himself, and the manager who has to deal with hundreds of experiments rather than a detailed, prescriptive plan, new project management processes are required. Even when these technologies and processes offer lower cost and higher

http://www.agilealliance.org
performance than their predecessors, the transformation often proves difficult.

Project management needs to be transformed to move faster, be more flexible, and be aggressively customer responsive. Agile Project Management (APM) answers this transformational need. It brings together a set of principles, practices, and performance measures that enable project managers to catch up with the realities of modern product development.

The target audience for this book is leaders, those hardy individuals who shepherd teams through the exciting but often messy process of turning visions into products—be they software, cell phones, or medical instruments. Leaders arise at many levels— project, team, executive, management—and APM addresses each of these, although the target audience continues to be project leaders. APM rejects the view of project leaders as functionaries who merely comply with the bureaucratic demands of schedules and budgets and replaces it with one in which they are intimately involved in helping teams deliver products.

Four broad topics are covered in Agile Project Management: opportunity, values, frameworks, and practices. The opportunity lies in creating innovative products and services—things that are new, different, and creative. These are products that can't be defined completely in the beginning but evolve over time through experimentation, exploration, and adaptation.

The APM values focus helps create products that deliver customer value today and are responsive to future customer needs. The frameworks, both enterprise and project, assist teams in delivering results reliably, even in the face of constant change, uncertainty, and ambiguity. Finally, the practices—from developing a product vision box to participatory decision making—provide actionable ways in which teams deliver results.

In this second edition of Agile Project Management, the five major new or updated topics are agile values, scaling agile projects, advanced release planning, project governance, and performance measurement. Chapters 2–4 have been rewritten around three summarizing value statements: delivering value over meeting constraints, leading the team over managing tasks, adapting to change over conforming to plans. The "Scaling Agile Projects" chapter has been completely revised to reflect the growth and development of the agile movement over the past five years. A new chapter has been added to encourage teams to place more attention on release planning. Finally, chapters on the organizational topics of project governance and changing performance measurement have been added.

In the long run, probably the most important addition is the new perspective on performance measurement. We ask teams to be agile, and then measure their performance by strict adherence to the Iron Triangle: scope, schedule, budget. This edition of APM proposes a new triangle—an Agile Triangle, that consists of value, quality, and constraints. If we want to grow agile organizations, then our performance measurement system must encourage agility.

Finally, although Agile Project Management can be applied to a wide range of product development efforts—and examples of this range are included, the book's primary product emphasis is software development.

Jim Highsmith July 2009 Flagstaff, Arizona

Agile Computing Software Engineering Jim Highsmith Addison-Wesley Professional Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products, Second Edition

Introduction Agile Project Management (APM) contains four focal points: opportunities created by the agile revolution and its impact on product development, the values and principles that drive agile project management, the specific practices that embody and amplify those principles, and practices to help entire organizations, not just project teams, embrace agility.

Chapter 1, "The Agile Revolution," introduces changes that are occurring in product development—from cell phones to software—and how these changes are driving down the cost of experimentation and fundamentally altering how new product development should be managed. The chapter outlines the business objectives of APM and how organizations need to adapt to operating in a chaotic world.

Chapters 2–4 describe the values and principles that actuate APM. These core agile values are articulated in the Declaration of Interdependence and the Manifesto for Agile Software Development. For clarity and simplicity, three summarizing core values— Delivering Value over Meeting Constraints, Leading the Team over Managing Tasks, Adapting to Change over Conforming to Plans—are introduced, and each is discussed in a chapter.

Chapters 5–10 cover APM frameworks and individual practices. Chapter 5 describes both an agile enterprise framework (Project Governance, Project Management, Iteration Management, Technical Practices) and the phases in the Agile Delivery Framework (Envision, Speculate, Explore, Adapt, Close). Chapters 6–10 identify and describe the practices in each of the phases. Chapter 8 covers advanced release planning and includes a section on value point calculation.

Chapter 11, "Scaling Agile Projects," examines how agile principles are used, together with additional practices, to scale APM to larger projects and larger teams. Scaling covers both organizational and product-related practices.