What is Agile Project Management?

Agile Project management is a relatively new project management paradigm that is based in agile principles and values.

An iterative and incremental model that focuses on value, quality, adaptability, feedback, continuous innovation and time to market. In oposition to more traditional and rigid models its adaptability makes it ideal for projects that need to react quickly to what the market demands and those where it's not fully defined in advance what needs to be produced, where the final product depends in one way or another of the demand in the current market.

Agile models strive for quality, continuous development and continuous integration, with a product vision that exists from the inception of the products but without too much constraints on how to get to that vision. The paths selected - sometimes more than one - will help shaping the final product through (a) continuous interaction with the final users, this is why continuous integration is needed,  and (b) the feedback received from them being used to re-shape the product until a final product is reached.

This flow produces an iterative cycle that adapts to feedback and grows the product incrementally, with each of the iterations producing a usable product that can received feedback to be considered against and towards the final vision.

In comparison with traditional methods that lack a continuous input from final users agile methodologies differentiate themselves by far, doing this they achieve productivity  increases, produce better products with shorter costs and launch final products in shorter periods of time.

[250 words]

Note: This reflection and words are my own but it was written after reading Highsmith, J., (2009). Agile project management: creating innovative products. Pearson Education. pp. 5-26.