Created: 30 June 2021

7 Amazing Benefits of Agile Project Management

Agile project management can save you time and money while improving the quality of your products and customer satisfaction. Click here for more information.

Keyword(s): agile project management

Great project managers never stop learning. That's one of the reasons why the best project managers on the market are becoming certified in agile project management.

But when it comes to your skillset, is agile project management suitable for your career? What are the key benefits?

This article will explain some of the fantastic agile principles and explore seven of the most significant benefits for businesses, teams, and project managers.

1. Better Team Spirit

The truth is, the vast majority of project teams love working on an agile project instead of the more traditional Waterfall approach. 

Many projects become beset with tension in the team. The engineers dislike the timeline from the project manager, the testing team has too little time to review the code, and everyone sighs when the customer introduces a change.

An agile approach addresses those problems head-on. This methodology focused on different roles working together as one team and working in parallel.

Groups don't pass on tasks and problems to one another; the entire team solves each problem as one group.

That results in a strong team spirit. Everyone involved in an Agile project is equally motivated to see the project through. Everyone wants to achieve a fantastic end-product and to get problems addressed through collaboration.

2. Speed to Market

It's fair to say that Agile had to happen for the world of product development to keep up with the changing pace of the market.

With global competition fierce than at any time in history, companies are under pressure to get their products and innovations out to the market quickly and successfully. That is needed to achieve that all-important first move advantage.

One of the core principles of Agile is that an early, incomplete product is better than a late, complete one.

Instead of a big bang approach to a product launch, a slimmed-down beta version is created and marketed early on. At the same time, the rest of the development to add the bells-and-whistles is still happening in the background.

That's good news for business owners and an agile project management team. You can continue focusing on developing new product features while your core product is released and making money.

3. Better Quality of Product

When you complete agile project management training, one of the first things you'll learn is about the importance of testing.

Agile puts testing at the heart of a project. Instead of dropping a large product onto a testing team at the end of development, testing runs parallel and happens throughout.

What's more, with the right agile project management tools, testing becomes a seamless part of your team's day-to-day responsibilities.

With testing such a central part of agile, you will end up with a product of far superior quality.

That means your team can focus their time and effort on getting the best features instead of dropping requirements at the eleventh hour because they don't work correctly.

4. It Is Flexible

One of the principles you'll cover in agile project management certification is change management.

Traditional change management is a gated process. Changes happen slowly after a lengthy review process. Teams see change as a natural evolution of a product in an agile project. They embrace it.

Changes happen early and continuously. Change helps the team achieve a better end product.

This flexibility works well for everyone involved in a project. As an agile project manager, it is easier to push for changes. As a developer, it means you can improve your code as you go along.

Of course, change is also something that the customer welcomes too, as they can alter requirements as they start to see a better picture of what the finished product is going to look like and what features it needs.

5. Earlier Sight of Risks

Every project comes with risks. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, the more risks a project has, the greater the potential returns, providing the project team knows how to handle those risks appropriately. 

With agile project management, early delivery of the product helps you reduce several risks:

• First, you are avoiding the catastrophic threat of not delivering the project at all
• Second, you are reducing the chances of launching a project late
• Third, you are reducing the risks associated with product quality by testing early and continuous

Good risk management means you reduce the project costs, as you aren't eating into all your contingency budget. So agile, when done correctly, offers a considerable potential cost saving to a business. 

6. Stronger Customer Relationships

It's not just teams who love agile. When customers understand the principles of agile project management and how this approach can help them, they love it too.

From your perspective, that means more satisfied, happy customers and a better working relationship.

One of the reasons customers love agile is that they get to see their product far earlier. Even agile project management software will allow your customers to see how the product roadmap is progressing.

That is useful to support the internal deadlines that a senior management team might have placed on the team. It also helps a customer to visualize what the product looks like to tweak their requirements if necessary.

7. High-Value Features Are Delivered Early

Agile delivers the most valuable features early. That means you'll get a product that end users can begin to use instead of something complicated, expensive, and potentially full of bugs or errors.

Delivering early means a quicker return on investment for your customer. That principle will help get your customer onside if you need to persuade them of the merits of agile project management.

If you have a competitor due to release a similar product, using agile will help you beat them to the market. Those early adopters will help your product gain traction, even if it lacks all the final features.

Agile Project Management Is The Future For Project Managers

If you haven't run an agile project before, now is the time to get trained and certified so that you are ready to run your first project. Once you experience the benefits of agile project management, you'll never look back.

Take your career to the next level today by getting full certification in agile project management with our accredited course.