Traditional Project Management

As product life cycle shortens in the advent of rapid technology advancements and increased global competition, organisations are managing their business more and more through projects.  Project management has become a core capability and skill needed by all level of staff in the organisation.

Traditional project management takes a plan-based approach. Based on the desired project goals and the work breakdown structure, a baseline project plan is produced for the triple constraints – scope, schedule and budget. Tasks are executed to deliver the scope while the progress is monitored and controlled based on the project plan. Project managers also need to effectively anticipate and manage risks as well as handle project changes.  Effective project management becomes a competitive advantage for forward looking organisations.           

Agile Project Management

The pressure to increase speed to market and reduce time to deliver project outcomes is ever present in the connected world.  This need to deliver quicker results has given rise to the Agile project management approach which is in high demand particularly for software development. 

The Agile approach adopts a more nimbler project framework that embraces change and allow quicker delivery of high priority capabilities in iterative cycles call Sprints. Terminologies such as user stories, product backlog, planning poker, daily scrum, Kanban, burndown charts, and sprint retrospective are evidences that Agile project management approach is clearly distinct from traditional project management method.