Agile project planning breaks down projects into small bits, allowing teams to stay true to the iterative and flexible ethos of agile.
Unlike waterfall-style project planning, which is a more traditional method that maps out every step of a project in advance, agile planning evolves throughout the project lifecycle. Using feedback, learnings, and always striving toward delivering value, agile teams have a lot of work cut out for them.
The agile project manager’s role in the midst of an ever-evolving project is akin to a conductor at the symphony; they are not only orchestrating the work, but also ensuring that the delivered output resembles the vision that the team (and stakeholders) defined at the project’s onset. This is no easy feat! But we have tips and information to help you.
In this post, we’ll cover:
What agile project planning is
Why makes agile project management different than traditional methods
Expert tips from Alex “Dr. Jira” Ortiz on how agile teams can consistently deliver value
Advice on how to plan agile projects in a way that drives measurable results
What is Agile Project Planning?
Agile project planning is a flexible, iterative approach to managing work. Agile teams are built for collaboration and emphasize a willingness to change. Above all else though, agile teams commit to continuously deliver value to users.
At its core, agile project planning is less about building a rigid roadmap and more about aligning around a shared goal while remaining adaptable in how you get there.
Key Principles of Agile Project Planning:
Iteration-focused: Work is broken into short cycles (sprints), each delivering a potentially shippable product increment.
Project management tools like Jira are designed to allow agile teams to break down work:
Customer collaboration and input: Agile teams seek out and incorporate ongoing feedback from users and stakeholders throughout the lifecycle of a project. Because agile teams are working toward delivering value, they constantly are validating whether they are providing exactly that.
Responsiveness to change: Plans are expected to evolve. Agile’s ethos embraces changing requirements, even late in development. Work can be sent to a backlog if it doesn’t align with what users or stakeholder value.
Continuous improvement: Retrospectives and feedback loops ensure that each cycle builds on lessons from the last.
Reduces the risk of misalignment between delivered projects and stakeholder expectations
Enables teams to course-correct early — when it’s cheaper and easier to do so
Improves transparency across cross-functional teams
Common Pitfalls in Agile Planning:
No clear vision: Agile doesn’t mean winging it. You still need a North Star to work backwards from. We’ll get into a method for this in a future section.
Overcommitment: Without realistic sprint planning, teams can easily burn out or miss delivery targets.
Lack of stakeholder alignment: If plans change often, teams need excellent systems in place to communicate to stakeholders
Tool or process overload: Agile doesn’t work better just because you added five plugins to Jira or have tons of agile rituals in plaec. Sometimes team miss the forest from the trees. Remember: agile is about delivering value
Agile Project Planning vs. Traditional Planning
Understanding the differences between agile and traditional (often referred to as “waterfall”) planning helps clarify when and how to apply each method.
Aspect of Project Management
Traditional Planning (Waterfall)
Agile Planning
Planning Approach
Upfront, linear, fully scoped
Iterative, adaptive
Tools & methods
Gantt charts, detailed timelines & roadmaps, documentation with granular scope and specs
Before we agile isn’t a silver bullet, but for fast-moving environments — especially in software development — it offers a more responsive and resilient approach to project planning.
While you can certainly make an agile Gantt chart, Kanban boards (see below) are the most popular visualization tool for agile teams. Explore why and the differences between the two in our Kanban Board vs. Gantt chart article.
Agile Project Planning: This Expert’s Method for Consistently Delivering Results
Now that we’ve covered the basics of agile project management, let’s get into some more advanced topics. Namely, let’s explore how agile project managers can do what they’re hired to do: drive results.
Because agile is so iterative, it’s important for PMs to ensure they keep their eyes on the results they need to drive with their project. It’s easy to get lost in the feedback loops, agile rituals, and the processes of agile. However, Alex Ortiz, a renowned Jira project management expert, says his favorite method to ensure his projects move the business forward is to draw a simple diagram during the project planning phase.
In our recent interview with him, Alex explains that at their heart of his agile project management planning is a “snake chart” (or diagram). This chart allows agile teams to plan backwards, starting with the vision for the project’s objective in mind to identify the path toward successful project completion.
With a background as a software engineer and IT project manager, Alex now consults with teams of all different sizes and scopes. His expertise is hard-won and his methods have worked at many different companies.
Visor’s CEO, Michael “Yaro” Yaroshefsky, sat down recently with Alex “Dr. Jira” Ortiz for our podcast, On the Roadmap. We have the full interview below. We also have summaries of Alex’s key points in the next sections of this article.
Using the “Snake Chart” for Agile Project Planning
“Project managers are the conductors of the orchestra,” Alex reminded us during our interview.
To further complicate their job as a conductor, PMs aren’t only holding the vision that their team is working toward; they must also demonstrate to their teams that they are walking the line along with them.
In order to do this, project managers need to have clarity of what the vision is for a project. In addition, they must know the directions that their team is taking to get toward the end vision. To walk between these two worlds, Alex suggests that PMs kick off agile project planning with a “Snake chart.”
This chart helps project managers and their teams work backwards to identify dependencies and other factors that will impact how they approach a project. See this short clip below to hear it explained.
Snake Chart Explanation for Agile Project Planning:
Alex hit home the importance of keeping that end objective in mind when working on projects and holding the vision.
“When you don’t know what the expectation is, you don’t get traction. You get stuck in all these rabbit holes. You need a vision you’re working towards.” – Alex Ortiz
For project managers to gain traction, they need their team to stay focused on work that will drive toward that end objective.
Mike and Alex discussed, at length, how failing to have that vision in mind can turn a project into an exploration that doesn’t actually drive results. When deliverables are expected but the team wastes precious time exploring possible routes they can take, stakeholders’ expectations will likely bit disappointed with how the team prioritized their time.
Holding the vision and working backwards with this Snake chart approach has helped Alex deliver successful projects with many different teams.
Tips for Configuring Jira for Agile Teams
Alex’s nickname, “Dr. Jira” is well earned. He not only has one of the most popular Jira-focused YouTube channels out there, where he teaches Jira best practices, but he also works with many clients.
One theme that he has seen is that companies don’t always have consistency across teams.
One client he spoke about had teams “speaking past each other” due to having different definitions of what things meant, inconsistent ways of estimating work, and divergent workflows.
Because Jira is such a flexible, customizable tool for agile teams, it allows teams to configure it to their liking. However, what Alex brings to the table is a synoptic overview where he can identify where the communication breakdowns are happening.
Similar to the “Snake chart” he uses for agile project planning, Alex likes to create a drawing that details the process teams have when communicating with each other. Only once he has this picture will he create the Jira workflows and processes will he codify this information into Jira by setting up automations and workflows.
Jira Configuration Tips for Agile Teams:
Why Agile Project Planning Can Be an Emotional Rollercoaster
Alex Ortiz, in this interview, offers tools and tactics for a role that can feel like “an emotional rollercoaster.”
Project managers have all the responsibility but none of the authority; they don’t actually manage people. Instead, project managers live in a grey area where they must get deliverables out of a team, while not being individual contributors themselves. Project managers aren’t software engineers who are writing code. However, they must work with engineers, testers, and other team members to get tasks done.
Alex emphasizes the importance of not being in “an ivory tower.” The team must know you are on the ground with them, working alongside them.
Alex points out that project managers are often working with developers who are highly skilled and technical people; this is not a group of people who like to admit defeat.
As a project manager, we often have to “fish” for obstacles. It can be hard for developers to admit they are encountering roadblocks. However, when project managers are “walking the line” and have skin in the game with the team, these kinds of conversations can be more natural.
So, Alex really makes a case that building team camaraderie through processes like the Snake chart also help dissolve walls that would otherwise be there.
Conclusion: A Picture Says 1000 Words (Especially During Agile Project Planning)
Alex Ortiz is one of the project management influencers we love to follow on LinkedIn because of his practical advice, which we hope you also found helpful in this article. His agile tactics and hard-won wisdom have helped agile teams succeed.
Above all, Alex emphasizes to agile project managers that they must drive results.
By focusing on your end goal and keeping that vision in mind, you, as a project manager, can take the steps needed to achieve the results your stakeholders need.
Alex implores agile project managers to not get lost in excuses for not getting the right things done.
“I feel like too many people are like, ‘it’s too late to be in the sprint,” and come up with all these excuses to not get it done. Just learn to get things done quickly and effectively.”
Agile Project Planning Needs to Focus on Results:
By creating pictures of processes and what needs to actually get accomplished during the agile project planning stages, project managers can set them (and their teams) up for success.
Drive results. Don’t get lost in sauce. And create a picture at the beginning of your process using the Snake Chart method that Alex discusses throughout this interview.
If you want tools to help support your agile project planning, we suggest Jira and also Visor. Visor syncs with Jira and offers tons of templates, such as an agile Gantt chart template (great for stakeholder alignment and communication), along with sprint retrospective templates and templates for other agile processes.
Becky Brooks is Visor's Head of Marketing (and resident OG New Yorker). She has worked at tech SaaS startups for 10+ years and is excited to build a world-class marketing team at Visor. While not working, she travels, explores NYC with her husband, and attempts to chill out at hot yoga.
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