By Bachir Kane

Abstract:

Agile methods are approaches to manage the development of Internet products and services based on principals of early customer involvement, iterative development, self organizing teams and flexibility. These methods are more and more spread as an integrated way of managing IT projects for many companies; moreover it marks a break with traditional Project Management paradigm. Indeed there are several characteristics that make agile project approaches slightly different as they require Project Managers to change their way of estimating cost and tracking project performance.

There is a fundamental problem applying accurate estimation and tracking due to the quality of baseline plan and unclear project scope for Agile project. It doesn’t mean that tools and techniques used in traditional plan driven project management are not applicable by the project manager. Nevertheless, the specificities introduced by Agile concept need to be managed and adaptations on the approaches to estimating and tracking are required. Project managers will be managing projects in a highly unstable environment where project performance still need to be well managed.

This paper is focusing on estimating and tracking issues faced by an Agile Project Manager and it identifies which tools and techniques taken from AACE (American Association for Cost Engineering) and PM Bok can help to overcome those difficulties.

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