If “there is a way to do it better — find it!”; coined by Thomas A. Edison, practiced by project managers, through Agile methodology.
Agile is a comprehensive approach that is used in project management revolving around conducting incremental and iterative strategies to complete projects. The Agile methodology ensures effective project execution and delivery. In short, the concept of Agile project management thrives on working through improvement, one sprint at a time, promising optimal execution.
That being said, it is important to minimize the time needed to synthesize Agile into executing strategies. For this, Agile templates can be used for efficient planning and task allocation.
Here is a guide that helps you understand various Agile project management templates, and how to implement them for an efficient project management strategy.
What are Agile Templates?
Agile templates are repeatable frameworks that can mitigate the time needed to distribute findings and instead move on straight to executing strategies.
Agile documentation templates help to speed up project planning and execution by providing a basic but customizable roadmap. Whether it's an Agile roadmap or a Kanban framework, they help in optimizing the execution for all types of projects.
Agile project management templates are all about:
1. Expedited Planning
When you have a well-devised framework or prototype for each Agile process, that you use for project management, it reduces time consumption, ensures proper resource utilization, and saves the team from engaging in repetitive tasks.
2. Efficient Execution
When implementing Agile frameworks, project managers must identify and allocate tasks for successfully completing the different stages of project execution. Thus, Agile templates can be introduced to streamline the management, coordination, and collaboration of each task.
3. Simplifying the Processes
Agile Templates are best used for mitigating the workload and increasing efficiency. These templates serve as a tool and offer structure, adaptability, and consistency to the intricacies of project management. Thus, they provide a roadmap to the successful implementation of the Agile framework in your project management.
Importance of Agile Templates in an Organization
Agile frameworks like the SAFe Agile templates and Agile project charter template are important for project management, especially for large organizations. For instance, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) acts as a knowledge base used by development or Scrum teams to implement Agile principles into large organizations.
While Agile project templates play a quintessential role in ensuring that project management strategies are executed smoothly, it is recommended that you get Certified Agile training to get familiar with the concepts and knowledge to work on Agile templates efficiently.
Here’s how Agile templates can add significant value to your project execution strategy:
1. A Comprehensive Approach
Agile templates are not only helpful for project managers but can be used across your internal and external teams. It is one of the key digital project management tools that are useful in every department, every segment, and every job role that concern a specific project. Agile templates are helpful for project managers for planning and executing a project, aligning their external and internal teams, and assigning tasks to various departments across the organization.
2. Ensures 100% Collaboration and Ownership
Agile teams use facilitators to improve their collective intelligence consistently. An Agile Team Facilitator (ATF) does much more than organize meetings. Besides promoting collaboration, engagement, communication, integration, and participation, these facilitators covey enthusiasm, while incorporating bias management and self-management. Thus, templates help connect the right people from various groups to process tasks cooperatively. This boosts cross-team collaboration and productivity. Agile documentation templates also help break complex projects down into sprints so that teams across the project management arena better understand their tasks, schedules, information, and project timelines.
3. Visualization of Your Project
By implementing Agile templates, it is easy for all team members contributing to the project to review the expected outcome of a project and take the next steps accordingly, based on such templates. Professionals working on tasks can view minute details regarding the project using the Kanban Agile template. In contrast, project owners can gauge the deliverable dependencies of the project using the Gantt Chart template. You can also use Agile retrospective templates that help structure positive and negative feedback and plan improvements after a completed project or a working sprint.
4. Automation of Data Reporting
Agile templates help automate data reporting, saving time, cost, effort, and inconvenience while completing tasks. You can create automated charts and graphs and identify the quantity of work that the project management team needs to complete before a sprint is over. You can use Agile reporting templates that are available and can be used in various forms like project status reports, sprint reports, aligning project names with task names, project status with story details, etc.
Important Elements of an Agile Template
Agile project templates can either be used for Kanban or Gantt frameworks. Such templates help you perform tasks in specific stages and identify project progress more linearly. Before you implement your Agile template, you must:
- Consider your current Agile planning process,
- Identify the specific stages your tasks go through,
- Collate the information that the product owners need to know at a glance,
- Share specific details your team needs to complete a task,
- Categorize the information that should be reflected by Kanban cards, such as initial and ending dates, the person who has the core responsibility of culminating the tasks, etc.
Key Elements of an Agile Template
An Agile template is a crucial tool for teams embracing Agile methodologies to manage their projects efficiently. It encompasses key elements like board views, reporting, milestones, and dependencies, providing a structured approach to project management. In this digital age, these templates are indispensable for streamlining workflows and fostering collaboration among team members. Let’s talk in details:
1. Board View: This is a Kanban board-style view that reflects the “To Do,” “Doing,” and “Done” tasks in columns depending on your project needs. You can also include the timelines, due dates, and custom fields and make it easier to track work progress.
2. Reporting: Use Agile reporting templates to generate reports to reduce the repetition of work and pull real-time data from any project to get an accurate picture of the current status of each task. Using these reports you can track the issues and make changes and new implementations.
3. Milestones: This is a key element that depicts how you are progressing towards your goal and projects relevant checkpoints. You can identify the completion of small tasks that are necessary to reach the big project goal.
4. Dependencies: These help you prioritize tasks, including marking tasks that await the completion of other tasks. After completing the first stage, the assignee will be notified so that he can move towards completion of the dependent task. The template will notify you if the task has been rescheduled so you can adjust your dependent task accordingly.
An Agile template serves as the cornerstone of effective project management, promoting transparency, adaptability, and productivity within teams. With features like board views, reporting, milestones, and dependencies, it empowers organizations to navigate complex projects with ease and agility, ultimately leading to successful outcomes and continuous improvement in project delivery.
Top Agile Templates
Here are some of the most important Agile project management templates that streamline processes optimally and help you understand key features to transition into the Agile approach as quickly as possible.
1. Agile Project Plan Template or Agile Product Roadmap Template
A sprint is a dedicated period of time in which a set amount of work will be completed on a project. Agile product roadmap templates help you break down the project into manageable tasks and allocate them across various sprints. You can also use this template in the Gantt chart view to add tasks, assign responsibilities, and get an accurate idea of due dates and other deadlines.
You can also use the Agile project charter template that serves as a roadmap through the Agile process and outlines a project's scope, objectives, and deliverables, ensuring that everyone is working toward a common purpose. You can either use it in the Excel sheet format or within a Smartsheet format. Smartsheet is better than Excel or other Sheets as it helps complete work management, has workflow automation, and several other team collaboration features.
2. Agile Sprint Planning Template
Agile backlog templates help you manage and complete tasks across various sprints, set realistic expectations for your team, and track progress consistently. You can administrate resources throughout each sprint and review the difference in deadlines during Sprint Retrospective to ensure the project evolves and grows as projected. This template helps you to include tasks for planning sprints, managing resources, track progress, and it easily fits well with the requirements of any project.
3. Agile Standup Meeting Template or Agile Reporting Template
Standup meetings are integral to Agile project management, which are conducted daily for 15-20 minutes. These meetings are essential as updates and daily work status is shared across teams and are usually held at the beginning of each working day. However, considering the obstacles of remote employees working from different parts of the world, standup meetings can sometimes be challenging to manage. Hence, the standup meeting board template conducts a virtual meeting for everyone on the board, where teams can share updates, ask for assistance from the project manager, and even share documents and attachments. The Agile reporting template can further be used to create reports and help team members assess the updates.
4. Agile Gantt Chart Template
Gantt charts are one of the most widely used templates in Agile project management. For teams already using the Microsoft ecosystem, like Microsoft 365, for day-to-day work, it becomes even easier to use the Gantt chart template. With this, you can add new tasks, modify the start and end dates, and assign responsibilities using this template. The Gantt chart template helps to:
- Reflects how much time was planned for the work,
- Check whether projects are being completed on schedule,
- Check if the timeline needs to be adjusted,
- Create dependencies between tasks, which means if one is taking long, it notifies the dependent tasks about the delay and expected delivery time, which otherwise is quite difficult to calculate manually.
- Helps project managers to allocate resources effectively.
5. Agile Transformation Roadmap Template
The Agile product roadmap template is among the most popular templates in large-scale projects. This template breaks down extensive processes and visualizes short-term tasks that eventually help meet the end objective of the project. For projects with multiple teams, this template enables coordination, partnership, and collaboration among teams to that every task is well-organized. You simply need to define the objectives so team collaboration can be easily tracked and managed.
6. Agile Scrum Projects Reporting Template
The Scrum framework is one of the key features of Agile project management. It prioritizes the development of projects, team collaboration and integrates frequent testing by breaking down big projects into short sprints. Several features on this template help you identify the complete story, customize fields, tag capabilities, and automate workflow.
One of the widely used reporting templates is the agile backlog template. With this template, you can get more tasks done during each sprint, as it helps to automate repeated tasks and renders pre-built lists for sprints.
7. Agile User Story Template
This template which again uses a smart sheet focuses on the user-experience aspect rather than the project completion objective. Smartsheets help you streamline tasks, collaborate cross-departments, and keep all stakeholders on the same page.
It consists of user stories, which could be from the perspective of an employee, manager, or event attendee so that everything remains organized in the list. Once the story is ascertained, the template allows items to be passed over to the teams so that the requirements of the end users are met appropriately.
When the end objective is indicated, it becomes easier for the entire project management workflow to work towards it and attain it.
8. Agile Kanban Board Template
A Kanban board is an agile project management template that helps teams to visualize work, limit work-in-progress, and maximize workflow. This template identifies tasks as “To,” “Doing,” and “Done” and works mainly on Excel or Google Sheets. It helps each team member to use the Agile methodology as simply as possible. Moreover, it also helps software developers maximize their efficiency, visualize entire projects, and set achievable targets.
Conclusion
Agile templates assist teams, managers, and leaders, collaborate and deliver projects efficiently. These templates help project managers, especially beginners, to learn and run the methodology of making your tasks more manageable. You can, thus, work productively on the outcomes of your projects.
To learn more about agile templates, you must get your Knowledgehut certified agile training to understand all agile-based templates and learn how to employ them. You must choose the best template for all your agile-based tasks that is collaborative, customizable, and rich in features to process each sprint efficiently and quickly.
