10 Effective Resources to Learn Agile PLM

Many companies are shifting from traditional project management to more agile PLM environments, in order to operate at the speed required by today’s competitive market. Bringing new methodologies and tools into your organization can increase productivity, boost efficiency, and help you make better, faster decisions. But we’ve all been there: getting everyone on board is often a challenge.

Agile is a big change in the way people work.

Understanding how agile really works is the first step. Through researching and benchmarking, we can be better prepared to embrace agile. What have other companies done right and wrong? What can we learn from them? How do experts adapt common agile methodologies to projects with fixed scope? What tools are available to help you streamline agile processes?

Learning and adopting agile principles and mindsets takes time: What organizational challenges and potential pitfalls should you consider when starting a new agile project? Where do agile problem-solving methodologies fit best?

Like PLM, it takes a while to get agile to work.

I’ve gathered a set of great resources that I’ve found helpful to improve and get better and better with agile. What follows is a compendium of useful tools, tips and resources for you to be prepared and continue learning agile!

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BOOKS

Essential Scrum, from Kenneth S. Rubin

This book is a comprehensive guide to Scrum that contains the basics and will help you to build on this course.

The Lean Startup, by Eric Ries

This book started a revolution in product development and provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups. Applying lean testing to your agile PLM projects will help you bridge the gap between business and IT, and save money by not running into slow and expensive initiatives.

User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development by Mike Cohn

Mike Cohn provides you with a front-to-back blueprint for writing these user stories and weaving them into your development lifecycle. He provides practical “how-to” insights that will help you gain confidence in your agile projects!

VIDEOTUTORIALS

If you prefer to learn through video tutorials, check out these courses in Udemy and Pluralsight. They provide guidelines for the successful implementation of the agile methodology, and also cover advanced topics for you to continue learning.

Agile Project Management: Scrum Step-by-Step with Examples, in Udemy

Explained with real-world examples, this course is tailored to help anyone interested in knowing more about Scrum. Learn about key concepts in Scrum and get a basic understanding of how Scrum framework works in delivering successful projects.

Become an Agile Project Manager , in Lynda

This path will help you build a solid foundation in leading and motivating agile project teams, from developing user stories and agile charts to driving productive meetings.

Agile courses, in Pluralsight

Jeremy Jarrell is an agile coach and author who helps you to explore all topics related to agile methodologies. If you’re thinking about making the move to agile in your organization, these courses will help you shape your agile project management skills with in-depth tutorials and guidelines.

RESOURCES

Jira JIRA is probably the most widely used agile project management software in enterprises. The tool is built for the whole team to plan, track, and release great software. You can try it for free and then move to a monthly subscription if you like it! Trello Trello is a very cool tool that enables you to organize and prioritize your projects in a fun and flexible way. It’s a visual tool that’s perfect to organize your agile projects. Have a look at this blogpost published on their website, where Andrew Littlefield gives an introduction on how to use the tool with Scrum projects. Trello has a free plan that lets you do a lot with the tool already. They also offer more advanced features in their premium subscription plans. If you’re leading a remote team, you might want to check out Timedoctor’s blog post. It explains in detail how to use the tool and shares great tips and tricks to organize an agile remote team! Asana Asana is an easy-to-use project management tool. You can manage your agile PLM projects with this tool, and organize and track work efficiently. I’ve even used it for my personal projects: tracking your daily goals and monitoring progress is easy with Asana. Slack Even if Slack is not directly a project management tool, it’s definitely worth mentioning! Since agile is all about collaboration, Slack is worth mentioning because the tool helps you gather project conversations and keep everyone in sync. And if you want to remember all these tips, download the learning cheatsheet in our resource library!