Project management and agile work concepts in the financial industry

The module teaches the basics of project management including the most important alternative approaches, such as agile methods, which are becoming increasingly important. Furthermore, the “operational reality” is not neglected either: Why do so many IT projects fail?

Typical functional, technical and organizational challenges and pitfalls of programs and projects as well as modern approaches to solutions are presented using practical examples.

As regards agile methods, both the Scrum approach and the SAFe framework are covered.

Module content

Project management – managing IT & organizational change processes

• Critical success factors of IT project work

• PM toolbox – project leadership and management using field-tested methods, reference models and formats

• Project planning, management and control; resource management; project organization and processes; project documentation and reporting; project cost, result and financial transparency; project goal, dependency and risk management

• “One size fits all?” – agility vs. waterfall

• Introduction to multi-project management and project portfolio management

• Quality assurance in multi-project management

• From project portfolio management to transformation management
• “The neglected three”: team building, communication management, change management

Agile working in the financial services industry

• Motivation for the use of agile project management approaches

• Differentiation and transformation from classic project management to agile project management

• Kanban as a methodology of transparent process management

• Introduction to the use of agile methods at team level based on the Scrum approach

• Motivation, illustration and presentation of agile methods in a scaled environment (multi-team) based on zeb project experiences

• Investigation of critical success factors in agile working

• zeb approaches to problem solving in agile working, possibilities of a hybrid approach

• Discussion of common opinions on agile working and derivation of recommendations for action