Agile Principles to Project Management

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According to the Project Management Institute, an Agile Project Manager, on a regular basis, should explore, embrace, and apply agile principles and mindset within the context of the project team and organization. This implies some typical tasks included below:

1. Advocate for agile principles by modeling those principles and discussing agile values in order to develop a shared mindset across the team as well as between the customer and the team.
2. Help ensure that everyone has a common understanding of the values and principles of agile and a common knowledge around the agile practices and terminology being used in order to work effectively.
3. Support change at the system or organization level by educating the organization and influencing processes, behaviors, and people in order to make the organization more effective and efficient.
4. Practice visualization by maintaining highly visible information radiators showing real progress and real team performance in order to enhance transparency and trust.
5. Contribute to a safe and trustful team environment by allowing everyone to experiment and make mistakes so that each can learn and continuously improve the way they work.
6. Enhance creativity by experimenting with new techniques and process ideas in order to discover more efficient and effective ways of working.
7. Encourage team members to share knowledge by collaborating and working together in order to lower risks around knowledge silos and reduce bottlenecks.
8. Encourage emergent leadership within the team by establishing a safe and respectful environment in which new approaches can be tried in order to make improvements and foster self-organization and empowerment.
9. Practice servant leadership by supporting and encouraging others in their endeavors so that they can perform at their highest level and continue to improve.

In the center of these common tasks is the real understanding of the values and principles expressed on the Agile Manifesto published in 2001. The 4 values of the Agile Manifesto are stated as:

Behind these 4 values, there are 12 principles, which are transcribed below:

The 12 Principles behind the Agile Manifesto:

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

At this link you can take a short test, in English or Spanish, on agile principles. The style of the questions is similar to the PMI-ACP exam.

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