Implementing Agile Project Management Methodologies for Improved Focus

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2016

Faced with fewer staff and greater demands for service, the New Hanover County Information Technology (IT) Department needed a way to insure that its resources were focused on the highest priorities for the county and that it was able to deliver on its commitments in a consistent way. Building upon the county’s project management academy, IT management instituted “Scrum,” a subset of processes for agile project management. Scrum breaks down projects into small pieces called “sprints.” Focusing on smaller, more iterative deliverables allows IT to keep focused on the activities that will ultimately move a project to completion in a timely manner. Maintaining an active backlog of work and only “sprinting” work that is approved by the management team also insures that the entire department is working on the projects that will bring the highest return to the county. Since implementing Scrum, IT has gone from an on-time completion rate of 50% on its priority projects for fiscal year 2015 to a projected completion rate of over 80% for fiscal year 2016, while not seeing any decline in meeting our service-level agreements on existing applications and services. This no-cast project has delivered tremendous benefits to the operations of the IT Department and ultimately the county as a whole.