Agile Project and Change Management

Globally, organisations are adopting agile principles to optimise project delivery and efficiency in the face of rapidly changing conditions.

In this unit, students learn the fundamentals of agile project management (APM) as well as the scrum methodology for managing change projects in dynamic settings, and how they differ from other theories of change management. Students will contrast agile and waterfall, learn where APM is most applicable and useful, and assess how agile is leveraged to successfully implement projects on time with and explicit focus on stakeholder requirements.

Students will also consider alternative ways of framing change initiatives either as incremental or transformational events within an organisation to foster new ways of thinking. These effective project management skills prepare them to successfully lead agile project teams, enable their teams to deliver what their customers want faster and with better quality than traditional project management methods.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:

1. Synthesise and apply major theories and models to problems involving people and change management;
2. Deliberate why change often fails, the psychology of change resistance and derive actions to successfully manage and reduce change resistance;
3. Exemplify the core concepts underlying predictive, iterative and agile project life cycles;
4. Critically review scrum roles and their applicability to real world situations characterised by rapidly changing conditions; and,
5. Exhibit skills in using agile project and change management techniques in dynamic settings.
6. Participate in an academic community through reflective and critical engagement in academic texts and understanding of principles of academic integrity.