“Agile is the future,” says Dave Pendorf, VP of Business Operations at Planisware, a company that provides project portfolio–management software solutions.
“I am a pessimistic guy by nature, and Agile has been the future for the past couple of years and I have hesitated to believe it. But I just met with a VP of IT at a Top 25 organization. He told me starting January 1 for IT projects, there will not be a single project that he approves that is not planned in Agile. He probably manages a $5 billion budget in IT. You need to know both PMBOK® and Agile because in five years or less, you may work at a company that does zero waterfall.”
The rise in use of Agile project management isn’t solely entrenched in IT. We’re seeing Agile in play at a wide range of positions—in and out of Silicon Valley:
- Software developers
- R&D engineers
- Product managers
- Business and financial analysts
- UX researchers and designers
Its uptick in use is fast-becoming a key differentiator for people in technical roles, business operations, product management or organizational leadership.
And companies are taking note.
Latest reports from the Project Management Institute focus on the need for an organization to be agile in today’s complex and disruptive global marketplace. As described in "Achieving Greater Agility" and "The Drivers of Agility," organizations with higher agility reported more projects successfully meeting original goals and business intent by using hybrid (72%), predictive (71%) and Agile (68%) approaches.
“There is greater awareness and acceptance of Agile project-management methodology, which was really born in the world of IT,” says instructor Edmond Matevosian, Senior Transportation Engineer of Project Management at Caltrans. “This approach is typically used for projects where their scope cannot be well-defined early on during the project’s lifecycle. When a project is brand-new to us and the scope is new or we haven’t had experience with it before, Agile would be the better approach to developing and delivering the project.”
So the question isn’t why you should study Agile, but where.
I learned to adapt to different situations and understand the best way to interact with teams within and outside a company—to be a leader.
—Raul Acosta
Why Come to Us to Learn Agile Project Management?
We set the gold standard for Agile project management.
We are located in Silicon Valley and have deep connections with Agile leaders at Google, Apple, Salesforce, Visa, Broadcom, Wells Fargo and many other Bay Area organizations.
Jim Highsmith, one of the original signers of the Agile Manifesto, helped design and launch the program.
We know the profession, consult internationally with businesses and governments, and implement Agile every day.
Our complete, integrated and rigorous program provides you with 120 hours of real-world, applied instruction. Not only will you learn the principles and concepts of Agile project management, but we expect you to practice your skills by completing group projects in each course.
Agile is implemented in many different ways. That’s why we teach you a wide range of practices, including Scrum, Kanban, Lean, Extreme Programming, Test-Driven Development and other approaches. You’ll explore and develop a methodology that works for you, your projects and your organization.
Agile is more than a development methodology. It embraces an entire way of thinking and collaborating. To leverage the power of Agile, principles and practices must extend beyond the development team. Business leaders must be able to engage their customers and teams. Scaling Agile beyond the team is challenging and requires business transformation skills. As a result, the Program in Agile Project Management focuses not only on everyday development, but also the leadership and organizational behaviors needed for effective adoption.
I see shifts from the traditional waterfall model to Agile. Showing incremental value on projects is essential. Building upon the frameworks of iterative sprints, you need to aggressively showcase progression with projects, ensuring alignment and momentum are maintained.
—Instructor Anoop Grover, Head of Business Operations at Uber
What You Will Learn
- Master Agile terminology
- Understand Agile management’s origins in the Agile Manifesto
- Acquire working knowledge of multiple Agile methodologies, with an emphasis on Scrum and Kanban
Interested in becoming a product owner?
Product owners help drive profitability to an organization, define improvements in service to your community, or increase public opinion and support of your service. It is a key team role that is responsible for creating and championing a vision that identifies which solutions or products will bring competitive success to an organization.
Start your path to a product owner role by gaining skills in:
- Eliciting requirements that return value to organizations and end-users
- Managing solution design
- Creating a backlog, defining themes and epics, writing user stories and defining acceptance criteria
- Engaging with development teams to ensure deliverables meet user expectations
Interested in PMI-ACP® Certification? Gain skills in:
- Liaising between the product owner and development teams
- Leading and facilitating development processes (planning and estimating, leading team interactions, resolving roadblocks, ensuring product quality and directing acceptance testing)
- Documenting project information
- Conducting retrospectives and lessons-learned activities
- Contributing to planning and development
