In this article, I would like to mention a few more examples of agile tools that can help you manage your projects, even if you are following the traditional project management framework.
Rather than focusing on detailed documentation, that in many cases can be very hard to read (especially when developers are forced to write something formal just to comply with the organizational standards), agile offers comprehensive visualization tools and techniques.
Information radiators – special wall boards that show project information so that each stakeholder can be constantly updated - typically display the data in a very assessable manner.
A risk burndown chart is one great tool that, in my opinion, could be useful for any project.
Traditional project management offers risk qualification and quantification as key tools for risk analysis. In most cases, project managers assign three types of priority to each risk (high, medium, low). They also assign high-level probability to each risk (high, medium, low). As a result, each risk severity is assessed as a “multiplication” of these two factors. A more serious level of risk analysis assigns dollar values to the impact and numeric values to the probability of occurrence.
Risk analysis is an iterative process. The probability of occurrence of each risk as well as its impact may change over time. Moreover, they can change frequently. Stakeholder input is a critical component of successful risk analysis. In other words, if someone has information that could impact a risk (either making it more severe or clearing it off the table), they need to speak up. In order to speak up, they need to know the status and the official team vision.
A risk burndown chart represents cumulative risk severity over time. It is built by plotting the severity scores of risks on top of one another at any particular point in time. This way, each team member can see the status of each risk and provide updates as needed, and the project manager can assess the overall level of risk on their project.
Another perfect example of visualization is a Kanban board. For each particular scope of work, it clearly demonstrates the backlog, the tasks that are currently in progress and the work that was done. It serves as a great communication tool that provides each team member with an update on their own tasks and shows what other team members are working on. Tasks are “pulled” from one column to another as the work progresses and team members report on progress.
An important feature of a Kanban board is that it shows the amount of work in progress and helps the project manager set work in progress limits. It has been proven mathematically (Little’s law) that the amount of work in progress impacts the work duration, so it is very important to visualize the work in progress and to set the thresholds correctly.
Risk burndown charts as well as Kanban boards can be easily incorporated into the traditional project management framework as long as those frameworks are established and maintained in a professional way.