Around 50 guests from medium-sized businesses in South Westphalia experience agile project management
The terms Scrum and agile project management are on everyone's lips in companies today. It seems that the world of work is becoming more and more agile and that classical known methods are outdated. But what exactly does the terms agile project management and Scrum mean? HOPPECKE provided interesting insights and answers. Uwe Caspary, Head of Lean and Process Management at HOPPECKE Batterien GmbH & Co. KG, had invited together with Peter Staudt from the Bundesverband mittelständische Wirtschaft (BVMW).
About 50 guests were welcomed in Hoppecke by Peter Staudt and Mr. Oliver Dülme, business and tourism of the city of Brilon. After a short introduction of the company HOPPECKE Batterien by managing director Heinrich Becker, Uwe Caspary gave a short overview about the topic of the evening, "Experience agile project management - what's the point? Where does it make sense?
Prof. Dr. Elmar Holschbach as representative of Mittelstand 4.0, Kompetenzzentrum Siegen, took over the practical part of the evening. During serious gaming with the puzzle game Ubongo, project situations were simulated in order to show the participants the stumbling blocks and possibilities of classic and agile project management. In several rounds, tasks and responsibilities were optimized and adapted to the Scrum working method. The Scrum method is part of agile project management and comes from the sport of rugby. It means as much as orderly crowding and means that tasks are distributed and worked on independently in the team. At regular intervals it is then checked whether the tasks have been completed or whether there have been disruptions. This is then reacted to quickly, so that new tasks are processed or disturbances are tackled. The participants also analyzed and further improved the course of the game rounds, so that better and better results could be achieved with the game Ubongo.
In the aftermath of the simulation, the participants were able to obtain practical information. Katharina Vollmayer, CRM Project Manager, and Niklas Friedrich, Trainee Lean and Process Management (both HOPPECKE Batterien GmbH & Co. KG), spoke in an interview with Uwe Caspary about their experiences as Product Owners and as employees in an agile project. There was a lively exchange with many questions from the plenum, which showed a great interest in this topic.
And is agile project management the blessing for all company projects? No, because not every project and every task is suitable for this kind of project work. "Agile project management is always a good idea when you have a big goal, but you don't yet know how to get there or the end result," explains Uwe Caspary. "Then it is important to involve all participants intensively in the project and to be able to react flexibly to changes. This is not necessary in projects in which framework conditions, processes and results are clear and structured. In addition, working in agile projects requires a lot of effort and resources on the part of the participants. Therefore, agile project management is limited and not always the right way."
For companies, this is certainly one of the most important insights of the evening. Every project has to be considered in order to decide whether agile or classic project management fits. If you then have appropriately trained and motivated employees, projects can be carried out successfully with the Scrum method or agile project management.
The event was carried out with the help of Mittelstand 4.0, Kompetenzzentrum Siegen and supported by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy.
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