TRADITIONAL VS. AGILE: THE CHALLENGE MINDSET SHIFT IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Abstract

In nowadays the traditional project management methodologies are continuously challenged to address the fast-changing business industry context with an appropriate response. For a dynamic industry like Software, Agile methods seems to be the perfect answer. If the new Software companies can easily adopt the Agile methods, there are a numerous other company, different sizes and or maturity, that are striving to improve the way they develop their projects. For those, the migration to the new Agile methods needs to be plan and execute carefully, since this change come with a significative impact in organizational culture. Starting from the study conducted by Boehm in 2003 we look to understand if there are specific differences among these methodologies that make the migration impossible. Changing the tools or processes are the first and easy steps already done. But these are not the only ones that different in both methodologies. Based on lately studies issued on the current topic and bringing into the analysis the new SAFe© (Scaled of Agile Framework) we conclude that the biggest differentiator of Agile methods is the new Lean-Agile mindset of project teams and stakeholders, focused on customer’s needs and continuously delivering value to them.