What is the "Agile Practice Guide"?
Created in partnership with Agile Alliance®, the Agile Practice Guide provides tools, situational guidelines and an understanding of the various agile approaches available to enable better results.
It is especially useful for those project managers accustomed to a more traditional environment to adapt to a more agile approach.
The Agile Practice Guide contains the following sections:
- An Introduction to Agile describes the Agile Manifesto mindset, values and principles. It also covers the concepts of definable and high-uncertainty work, and the correlation between lean, the Kanban Method and agile approaches.
- Life Cycle Selection introduces the various life cycles discussed in the practice guide and covers suitability filters, tailoring guidelines and common combinations of approaches.
- Implementing Agile: Creating an Agile Environment talks about critical factors to consider when creating an agile environment such as servant leadership and team composition.
- Implementing Agile: Delivering in an Agile Environment discusses how to organize a team and common practices the team can use for delivering value on a regular basis. It provides examples of empirical measurements for the team and for reporting status.
- Organizational Considerations for Project Agility explores organizational factors that impact the use of agile practices, such as culture, readiness, business practices and the role of a project management office (PMO).
And there is also a lot of value in the three Annexes and three Appendices:
Annexes
- PMBOK Guide Mapping – this is the strongest link into the 10 Knowledge Areas (PMBoK Guide 6th Edition and Digital+ platform). This annex describes how to apply the principle to an agile way of working.
- Agile Manifesto Mapping – this annex relates each of the 4 values and 12 principles of the Agile Manifesto to numbered sections in the Agile Practice Guide.
- Overview of Agile and Lean Frameworks – the third annex gives a short description and some helpful tables for 12 agile methods.
Appendices
- Contributors and Reviewers – the obligatory credits.
- Attributes that Influence Tailoring – the table at the heart of this appendix sets up 9 scenarios and offers advice for each on how to tailor your agile approach to get the best results.
- Agile Suitability Filter Tools – this section offers a simple radar-plot model and a set of diagnostic questions to help you determine whether and to what extent an Agile approach makes sense.
You may consider watching this video about the creation of the Agile Practice Guide:
Is the Agile Practice Guide mandatory to Pass the PMP® Exam?
Absolutely, YES!
PMI has released an official reference list of 10 Books that they do recommend for PMP Exam Preparation. Two books on that list are the PMBoK Guide and the Agile Practice Guide and those two we do assess as mandatory for your preparations.
The other Books are more optional and cover specific areas of project management like the SCRUM book for instance. For further details about that reference list and the books on it you might consider reading the following article:
About 50% of the Exam Questions are related to agile and hybrid topics and therefore the Agile Practice Guide is - besides the PMBoK Guide - now one of the major resources and references for your PMP Exam preparation!
Do I Have to Memorize the Agile Practice Guide to Pass the PMP® Exam?
Absolutely not.
The exam tests your understanding of agile and hybrid concepts and principles. Your practical experience will help you apply this understanding to real-world situations as they appear in the exam questions.
It is essential to read the agile considerations from the Knowledge Area chapters and relevant appendices in the PMBOK® Guide and the Agile Practice Guide. I would recommend that you study both intensively. However, there is no need to memorize their contents!
Instead, start applying the principles you learn to your daily work. Apply the techniques and skills as you manage your projects each day. This hands-on experience will help you fully understand how the principles work and add value to your tasks. You will become better at agile project management while preparing for the exam in the best possible way!
Is the Agile Practice Guide Enough or do I Need More Certification Study Material?
The Agile Practice Guide is a great reference. However, we often hear from students that it is not enough by itself.
As I’ve said above, there is useful information to be aware of in the PMBOK® Guide which will help you gain a general understanding of project management techniques.
Above and beyond that, I do recommend using other study material to help you adequately prepare for the PMP exam.
A good starting point is forums where people who have passed their exams successfully share what they did to prepare. You’ll only need to dedicate a few minutes a day to reading through lessons learned. That time will give you some valuable insights into how to make the most of your study preparations.
We will talk about additional preparation material - mandatory and optional - later on. For now, you should proceed with the next section ...
What are your thoughts or experiences? Do you have any questions regarding this section?
Or any ideas on how to improve?
Just let us know in the comments below! Highly appreciated! Thanks!
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