Introduction

In this fast-moving business environment, organisations are constantly pressured to generate new ideas quickly, meet new market needs, and produce excellent products. In these cases, methodologies from traditional project management are often unable to respond to those needs.

The agile form of project management appeals to people because it works collaboratively and flexibly in stages. When working with the agile procedure, larger project workloads are divided into smaller sections or sprints.

The agile methodology of sprints allows project teams to make adjustments and feedback; this is a main advantage of sprinting and many projects and organizations are now working to adopt this method, including those who are agile in name only.

This article will explore the operation of Agile, the typical challenges that teams encounter, and the strategies that organisations can employ to optimise the advantages of Agile project management.



Common Obstacles that Agile Teams Experience

  1. Inconsistent and Inaccurate Estimation
    Agile teams often utilize disparate tools and techniques to estimate tasks. This leads to poor estimates, unclear planning, and constant surprises affecting delivery timelines.

  2. Overlooking Task Risk and Complexity
    Viewing tasks can often appear simple initially, but can be quite complex when development starts. There is no structured means of assessing task risk, so when teams miss deadlines and deliverables, they often don't know why.

  3. Lack of Visibility into the Impact of Change
    When teams implement changes without being aware of the full impact of workload/time, this will often lead to scope change, burnout, and delivery problems.

  4. Manual Updates and Tool Fragmentation
    Teams frequently work across disconnected tools, requiring them to update task information manually. This causes delays, errors, and reduces the time available for actual project progress.

  5. Communication Silos Between Roles
    Agile requires collaboration, but when teams are not seeing a shared view of estimates and progress, things can degrade fast. This leads to duplication of workload, ill-understood expectations, and lack of opportunity to learn about estimation mistakes.

  6. Limited Insight for Project Managers
    Without real-time data or a baseline, early identification of performance issues is unreliable for a project manager, leading to poor guidance of teams or inaccurate reporting.

The Method by Which Baseliner.ai Addresses These Issues

  1. Smarter and More Accurate Estimates
    Baseliner.ai applies the Three-Point Estimation Method to generate more precise predictions of task duration. It uses optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely estimates, which makes room for uncertainty and leads to more dependable planning.

    Additionally, it employs Generative AI to analyse historical task data from similar projects. This allows teams to better understand task risk and complexity, helping them avoid common estimation errors and delays.

  2. AI-Powered Risk Awareness
    The use of Generative AI enables Baseliner to assess task characteristics and compare them to previous sprint data. This enhances the team’s ability to forecast risks and complexity before the work begins, supporting better estimation and task planning.

  3. Demonstrates the Immediate Effect of Changes
    Changes in priorities are common in Agile. Baseliner gives teams real-time visibility into how these changes impact the project plan and the team's workload. This allows the team to course-correct sooner, improving outcomes and ensuring that they are in control of their work, rather than taking pants-on-fire guesses.

  4. Integrates Seamlessly with Your Existing Tools
    Baseliner connects to Jira, Excel and other task management tools. It retrieves and updates task data automatically, so the team does not have to manually enter task information, allowing the team to use their time to do real work rather than administrative work.

  5. Dashboards that are Both Transparent and Easily Accessible
    Baseliner's dashboard allows teams to compare what they intended to achieve with what they achieved, helping the team uncover and confront issues quickly. Better overhead visibility means the team and stakeholders are using the same information and coordinating on what requires attention.

  6. Guarantees Consistent Alignment Among All Team Members
    Baseliner helps ensure that all team members, from developers to leaders, are working together. Everyone uses the same visibility of task estimates to improve communication, collaboration, and to reduce confusion across departments.

  7. Enhanced Assistance for Project Managers
    Baseliner helps project managers see real-time performance against estimates, allowing them to identify risks early, lead teams with greater confidence, and report with clarity on progress across the portfolio.

Final Thoughts

When Agile project management is done well, it can be a fantastic tool. If teams have no tools, they cannot plan, they cannot talk to each other, and they cannot change.

Baseliner.ai can help with these issues. It helps teams remain on schedule, plan better, and finish projects with confidence by giving them better estimates, real-time updates, and more visibility.

If your team is having trouble with Agile, Baseliner could be the answer. When planning and executing things are connected, it's easier to finish them, especially when they get challenging.