Agile Project Management for Professionals

Understanding Agile Fundamentals:

• Demonstrate a clear understanding of the key principles, values, and practices of Agile methodologies, including the Agile Manifesto and its significance in project management.
• Understand how Agile differs from predictive project management approaches, and how it enables efficient project delivery and improves business agility.

Life Cycle Considerations & Selection:

• Identify and differentiate between various adaptive development approaches, such as Hybrid, Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and Lean, and articulate their unique characteristics and appropriate contexts for application.

Delivering in an Agile environment:

• Explain Agile tools and techniques.
• Deconstruct ceremonies and practices for planning, estimating and prioritising work.
• Examine how to measure and control Agile projects to manage and execute a project to deliver value incrementally.

Creating an Agile Team and Environment:

• Foster and facilitate effective communication and collaboration within cross-functional teams, consisting of generalised specialists (T-shaped people). Articulate the role of self-organisation, empowerment, and continuous improvement in Agile environments.

Evaluating Agile Success:

• Critically assess the success of Agile projects by measuring progress, managing risks, and ensuring alignment with customer requirements, business goals and value/benefits realisation.

Adapting Agile to Various Contexts:

• Recognise and address the challenges of implementing Agile methodologies in different organisational and project contexts, and explore strategies for tailoring Agile approaches to specific needs.

Delegates who successfully complete the online short course and comply with the related assessment criteria (where applicable) are awarded a certificate of successful completion by the University of Pretoria.

Our Agile Project Management short course is presented by Dr Taryn Bond-Barnard, an experienced project manager and industrial engineer who is currently pursuing her academic interests.

She holds a BEng in Industrial Engineering (cum laude), an MEng in Project Management (cum laude), and a PhD in Project Management, all from the University of Pretoria. Taryn is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and PRINCE2® Practitioner and is also registered as a professional engineer with ECSA.

Her achievements include being selected for the prestigious Tuks Young Research Leader Programme in 2017 and receiving the International Project Management Association (IPMA) Global Young Researcher Award in 2018. The IPMA, one of two global project management associations, has 40,000 members across 60 countries. She also won the GSTM Teaching and Learning Award in 2018 and was recognized as one of Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans in 2019. Learn more about Dr Taryn Bond-Barnard.

The online course runs on a learning management system, Blackboard Learn.

• Delegates must have a computer with access to the internet, with sufficient data to connect to the portal and to participate in the course.
• The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox web browsers must be used to access course material (other browsers like Internet Explorer are not officially supported).
• The device must have a properly installed, activated and/or plugged-in microphone.
• The course content may include videos and delegates must be able to access external sites (e.g. Youtube). The device should ideally have a properly installed, activated and/or plugged-in webcam.