What is agile project management?

Agile project management is an approach to individual initiatives, most often in product or software development, that relies on the agile principles of collaboration, iterative development, flexibility, adaptability and continuous improvement. The management of the objectives of the project—timelines, resources, goals, teams—is focused through the lens of agile, and can include any of several different frameworks, including scrum, Kanban and lean.

Agile project management, when grouped, can form a program which can also be managed with the principles of agile; programs grouped together can form a portfolio, like a nesting doll.

Agile, as an approach, arose in 2001 with the publication of the Agile Manifesto by a group of software engineers. The Agile Manifesto includes four key values and 12 principles. The key values are:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

The preferred values do not require the abandonment of the nonpreferred. For example, agile philosophy does not forbid the use of a plan but instead places greater emphasis on responding to and preparing for inevitable change.

As its name suggests, agile project management is designed to operate in a world packed with frequently changing requirements. Instead of meticulously planning each step of a project before it begins, tasks are created quickly and regularly reviewed, discussed and changed in response to team or customer feedback.

It is assumed right at the start that plans and approaches will have to change, and that there will be no slavish adherence to initial planning. Individual team members are empowered to speak up, without as firm a hierarchy as in other approaches.

Agile and waterfall are two of the most popular project management philosophies, and represent totally different approaches.

Waterfall, which was first described in depth in 1970 (PDF) , is a sequential, highly structured methodology. In waterfall, a project’s steps are enumerated before the project begins, with each step needing to be completed before the next is undertaken. Interestingly, that 1970 paper, by computer scientist Winston Royce, actually involved criticism of the waterfall method. (Even more interestingly: Royce’s son, Walker Royce, is the Chief Software Economist at IBM, and has written several books about project management)

Agile takes a different tack: it prizes iterative, changeable and adaptive progression. It understands and embraces that the full lifecycle of a project cannot and will not be known at the beginning, and implements tools such as reviews and sprints to adjust to that reality.

Agile project management is more a philosophy with broad principles than a specific methodology. But there are a few key features which can be found in most agile projects.

One of the most important elements of agile is its reliance on iteration. This ties back into one of the original four key values in the Agile Manifesto, that of creating working software. In agile, work is broken down into smaller, more manageable pieces, which are finished quickly and reviewed frequently. It is understood that individual pieces will change, sometimes dramatically, to respond to review sessions with stakeholders.

Reviews are a vital part of agile, providing regular feedback for continuous improvement through iteration. There are variations depending on the particular framework used, but regular, frequent review sessions are present in all versions of agile. In review sessions, all participants are encouraged and empowered to speak up, in contrast to more hierarchical models like waterfall, where decisions “flow” from the top down.

Agile favors cross-discipline collaboration, prizing team members with multiple skills collaborating extensively with stakeholders throughout the organization. In agile, developers don’t lock themselves away during product development, oblivious to all other members of a team. Instead, regular reviews include all kinds of stakeholders.

For example, let’s apply agile principles to a new exercise app. The developers creating the app also need to frequently collaborate with designers, fitness experts, marketers, salespeople and program managers. By welcoming all necessary stakeholders, those developers can incorporate vital feedback as they work to achieve high-quality results.

In older or more traditional project management systems, like waterfall, strict hierarchies are followed to keep everyone on task. Project managers assign tasks, specialized workers complete their individual tasks and everyone stays in their lane.

This method can create silos, reduce empowerment and silence potentially productive feedback from team members who feel it’s not their place to speak up.

In an agile model, teams are typically smaller, self-organizing and rely on cross-functionality. Each team member can feel more ownership of the project, and pitch in wherever needed.

Agile project management frameworks provide structures in accordance with agile principles. Not every framework is right for every project, so it’s important to choose the most appropriate one.

Perhaps the most popular of all agile concepts, scrum comes from the sport of rugby, wherein all team members simultaneously push together for one short but intense play. In the context of agile, scrum relies on fixed-length iterative sprints, typically between one and four weeks in length, but the concept of teamwork remains.

These sprints begin with collaborative planning to decide on which product backlog tasks and deliverables to tackle in the upcoming sprint. This sprint planning might be led by a scrum master or product owner, more a teacher than a leader, whose responsibility is to keep the scrum team adhering to agile practices. The team then meets briefly each day for a daily scrum, lasting no more than 15 minutes, to identify any obstacles or blockers. These daily stand-ups are vital to catch any potential issues but must be kept as concise as possible.

At the end of each sprint, in what’s called a sprint retrospective, the team review their completed work with stakeholders from outside the development team to identify any potential issues or elements for change.

Kanban is a visual representation of a workflow, traditionally in the form of categorized Post-It notes on a board. (Though there are plenty of digital versions for those who want to avoid physical paper)

A Kanban board most often includes three columns:

To do: Tasks not yet started.

In progress: What the individual or sub-team is currently working on.

Completed: Finished individual tasks.

But this is not set in stone. Depending on the project, other columns, such as “testing,” “compliance” or “ideation,” may be required.

Within each column are individual tasks on paper or digital sticky notes. In our exercise app example, those notes might include “create ‘favorite exercises’ list,” “add illustrative videos,” and “implement stopwatch feature.” As each task is completed, its sticky note will be physically (or digitally) moved from one column to the next until all tasks are completed.

While not precisely an agile framework, lean is a related methodology that can be applied to agile projects. Originating in the manufacturing world, lean is focused on reducing waste, documentation, overproduction and fragmentation. When combined, this combination is sometimes referred to as lean agile. Lean agile prioritizes identifying value, sometimes through a visual representation called value stream mapping, which can help identify bottlenecks or inefficiencies.

SAFe, or Scaled Agile Framework, is a knowledge base of organizational and workflow principles, practices and competencies designed to help organizations implement an agile model at enterprise scale. In SAFe, agile teams conduct their regular work using scrum or other methods. Multiple teams together make up an agile release train, or ART, which collaborate in a cross-functional manner to deliver incremental solutions on a regular basis. Every two weeks, the ART meets for a demo, which produces comments and suggestions to be implemented in the following sprint. SAFe incorporates many agile methodologies and practices and adds a few extras aimed at keeping large organizations on track.

Agile project management has seen increasing popularity, especially in the software and technology space. Many today see value in choosing wisely: a 2025 study (PDF) found that waterfall is still ideal for straightforward, uncomplicated and predictable projects. That study also found that agile project management can be superior for convoluted or frequently changing projects. Others analysts find prefer a hybrid approach. “With [a] blended approach, organizations can achieve an optimal balance, allowing them to nimbly adapt to unforeseen challenges without losing sight of their ultimate objectives,” writes Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez in Harvard Business Review.

Agile project management includes a focus on minimum viable products, or MVPs. Whether using lean, SAFe or other methodologies, there is a heavy emphasis within agile processes on delivering functional demos at the end of sprints. In software, this enables faster releases to consumers, followed by incremental updates as the project progresses.

It is assumed right from the beginning, in an agile mindset, that a project not only might change: it will change. Adaptability is built into agile methods, with discrete tasks and projects and regular review sessions. At each review, teams and stakeholders are encouraged to report any feedback, either internal or from customers or clients, which the team can then incorporate in their next sprint. Customer satisfaction is the goal, not adherence to planning.

Case studies have indicated that agile practices can increase efficiency and productivity. At Arizona State University, the IT department instituted agile practices to standardize project planning through templates and collaboration. ASU specifically used tools to incorporate lean principles of waste and duplication reduction. Their approach has been successful in creating a scalable and repeatable new system, and other teams throughout the university have begun adopting the new techniques.

Agile prizes open, efficient and empowered communication among many more stakeholders than would normally be included. This cross-functional nature finds representatives from various parts of an organization included in post-scrum discussions. In this way, agile helps break down the silos that can become problematic in larger organizations.

The decentralized nature of agile groups, emphasizing variable skills and flexibility, empowers team members to use their skills in the most suitable ways. The teams, too, are self-organizing and have autonomy to conduct their sprints according to their own expertise, rather than a plan handed down from on high.

While agile project management brings with it many advantages, there are potential drawbacks and situations for which agile might not be ideal, or might need to be tweaked to best fit an organization’s needs.

The reliance on an iterative approach, continuous improvement and frequent releases during a project lifecycle can make it difficult to predict when a project will be “completed,” or how much it might cost. Strict roadmaps in a system like waterfall come with a simple pass or fail metric; either the product is finished by the deadline or it is not. In agile, a project is in the process of a continuous state of work and improvement.

While unpredictability can be a challenge, an agile approach can sometimes be a way to deal with a reality rather than a way to try to shape an inherently chaotic project cycle. In a sense, agile methods may simply be associated with chaos because they are the most effective way to cope with it.

With more input from around an organization, and the adaptable nature of agile sprints, it can be easy to slip into a state of scope creep. Teams might continually add features, working on secondary and tertiary problems, as a project grows slowly but surely into something different and larger than intended.

To address this issue, scope creep must be addressed at regular intervals. Any new features must be assessed as essential or excessive.

Agile project management methodologies are ideal for cross-functional, autonomous and self-motivated team members. Individual teams are self-organizing, and team members might be called on to perform a variety of duties. This agility requires a specific, flexible mindset, and not all team members may work best under these conditions. An effective team leader can help teach a team ways to adjust and move forward within an agile environment.