Agile Project Management Model for Information Technology Projects: Glintt Case Study

Abstract

Information Technology (IT) has been one of the major catalysts in improving how companies work, whether it is by automating tasks or by allowing communication to be more effective and efficient. Due to the capabilities of IT, companies have increasingly invested in this sector, which then raises its market competitiveness. IT companies that work on multiple software projects need to control time, costs, and quality effectively. To do so, it is important to have suitable and well-structured project management processes. Having processes mapped is also important to guarantee the certification on quality standards, which helps companies to remain competitive within the market they operate. Classical project management approaches, such as Waterfall, have struggled to cope with specific challenges in the IT sector such as fast-paced requirement changes, ambiguous functionality descriptions, and the fact that technology is constantly improving – Agile Project management arose to tackle such challenges. In order to guarantee a successful implementation of Agile, it is important to pick the right methods and practices according to the company’s characteristics and needs. This dissertation reviews some of the most popular Agile methods in the literature and suggests a tailor-made project management process for a Portuguese IT company operating in the health sector, Glintt. In this case study, the company’s current project management process was reviewed and a new Scrum-based process was suggested to fit the company’s requirements accordingly. The suggested process also uses elements of Extreme Programming, Lean, and Kanban.