Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products

Best practices for managing projects in agile environments―now updated with new techniques for larger projects

Today, the pace of project management moves faster. Project management needs to become more flexible and far more responsive to customers. Using Agile Project Management (APM), project managers can achieve all these goals without compromising value, quality, or business discipline. In Agile Project Management, Second Edition, renowned agile pioneer Jim Highsmith thoroughly updates his classic guide to APM, extending and refining it to support even the largest projects and organizations.

Writing for project leaders, managers, and executives at all levels, Highsmith integrates the best project management, product management, and software development practices into an overall framework designed to support unprecedented speed and mobility. The many topics added in this new edition include incorporating agile values, scaling agile projects, release planning, portfolio governance, and enhancing organizational agility. Project and business leaders will especially appreciate Highsmith’s new coverage of promoting agility through performance measurements based on value, quality, and constraints.

This edition’s coverage includes:

• Understanding the agile revolution’s impact on product development
• Recognizing when agile methods will work in project management, and when they won’t
• Setting realistic business objectives for Agile Project Management
•  Promoting agile values and principles across the organization
• Utilizing a proven Agile Enterprise Framework that encompasses governance, project and iteration management, and technical practices
• Optimizing all five stages of the agile project: Envision, Speculate, Explore, Adapt, and Close
• Organizational and product-related processes for scaling agile to the largest projects and teams
• Agile project governance solutions for executives and management
•  The “Agile Triangle”: measuring performance in ways that encourage agility instead of discouraging it
• The changing role of the agile project leader

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.