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hi my name is David and today we're going to talk about project management utilizing agile methodology for fixed cost software projects with a particular focus on the advantages of the agile approach project planning in some pitfalls to look out for when managing such projects so before we actually get into the agile software development let's first clarify how software development methodologies such as agile fit within the broader project management framework if we look at the prince2 project management methodology we can see that the project management exists are three distinct layers project direction which is the responsibility of the project board project management which is the responsibility of the project manager and the actual delivery which the responsibility of the team managers prince2 provides great detail on what to do at the directing and managing levels but because it is a general project management methodology applicable to all disciplines it leaves the actual delivery methods open so at this delivery level is where the agile software development methodology fits I don't see a July's an alternative project management method to print to but rather as a compliment to prints to when it comes to software development projects apart from the obvious goal of delivering the completed software on time on budget with all the required functionality I also like to invite involved estate stakeholder to the system as much as possible during the development process so that one they truly feel they are part of the development of the system to to draw upon their in-depth knowledge to the of the business and three to provide them with the reassurance of the system so development is progressing without going to too much technical detail angel' software development is where the development of a software system is broken down into a number of mini or micro projects each of these mini projects produces tested and functioning features which are a subset of the overall system requirements the process is then subsequently repeated until the system is completed the advantage of this idle rate of approach to software development over a more traditional watermark for method is that it produces a fully functioning system components earlier which in turn allows the stakeholders to review functioning components at an early stage of the project's life and subsequently allows change of quests to be made earlier on we've adapted this agile approach with some traditional project management methods and tools to ensure that the constraints imposed by cost time and functionality are still men although this particular method has been tailored to suit the needs of an external service provider like pick now I think you can still be generally applied to any fixed term software project even if it's developed in-house as the same constraints apply to these projects as well typically when we develop a software application on a fixed cost basis the project follows three main stages the analysis stage the development stage and the acceptance stage here is an example of a technical delivery plan for a software project that I managed previously in this plan you can see the main stages of the project to kick-off the project we have the analysis stage I won't go into too much detail as this will be the subject of another video but let's just say that this is where we set the scope analyze the business logic and to a lesser extent analyze the functional requirements of the system the system requirement specification document is then produced which is then reviewed by the customer and amended and amendments made before the customer can sign-off and for the start of any actual software coding our development stage is divided into a number of phases depending on the size of the project and the business requirements deliverables at the end of each phase is a piece of functioning software that contains a subset of the four system's functions at the end of each phase the customer is given a period of time to review the software and provide feed back in keyed areas such as business logic functionality usability and aesthetics this feedback allows us to refine the application over the course of the development stage to make better use of available time for a project we normally overlap the customer review process with the next development phase so that when a customer is reviewing that they've developed features that develop features of one phase the developers are already starting the development for the next iteration time is allocated at the end of the second and subsequent development phases to implement any changes required as a result of the customer review in this example project we have two autorai shion's of development over a period of six weeks where we increasingly add new features to the developing system and to all of the functional requirements have been developed by doing this our customers can provide feedback to us on what they like and what they don't like about the develop features and early stage and hopefully pick up on any errors in fundamental business logic which can be rectified an early stage also by delivering full function for fully functioning portions of the system to the customer they are provided with a tangible object that can be that they can interact with this has two advantages firstly it provides them with some degree of peace of mind that the project is moving forward in progressing and secondly small requirement details that have been missed during the analysis stage will usually be reviewed revealed when the key stakeholders of the system have had a chance to actually interact with the system now some people might say that the during business analysis or functional in requirements should have been documented but in most cases some of these requirements are not immediately apparent even to the users and do they have had a chance to use the system after the final review and rectification a cycle and after we are happy with the functionality and quality of the product the system is then handed over to the customer to begin the acceptance stage the acceptance stage normally consists of a customer performing the UI team followed by a short period of fixes and tweaking of the system on any issues found during u18 once this is complete the application is then theoretically ready to be accepted by the customer as well as using the agile iterative structure for my software development projects we also utilize the standard tools of project management such as project status reports project team meetings and change request processes now I'd like to move on to what are some of the potential pitfalls when managing a project using this approach the first and probably most important pitfall that a project management must be aware of is making sure that the stakeholders or customers in my case understand the idol rated development and review processes and they have the resources available to do the review and provide feedback when required during the project this is extremely important as the idle rate of improvement approach of the agile method only works if feedback is provided in a timely manner the second pitfall to avoid is scope creep the problem of scope creep is particularly prevalent in software projects and the agile method lend itself as go creep however p.m. must tightly control any expansion of functionality and scope of the project this is not to say that all changes to functionality should be rejected but any expansion in functionality or project scope should be weighed against the time and budget constraints either if the customer insists on scope expansions that will cause the project to fall behind schedule then the stakeholders must be informed of the consequences and there must be a thorough process to document significant changes in scope thirdly try to set realistic milestones for each development a duration I generally consult with the development team to see which function and functions naturally lend to being developed together and I tend to set each iteration period to be between two to three weeks in length lastly but not least is communication with the stakeholder weekly project status update reports and meetings are a good way to the stakeholders informed of the progress of the project also after each development cycle I make it a practice to personally demonstrate the newly developed functions as well as any new fixes from the last iteration to the customer so that's a short rundown of how I would go about managing software development projects and some tips on some potential issues to look out for I hope you have gotten something out of it keep an eye out for more upcoming videos on various topics and I'll see you later