1. Introduction

The UNITA Agile Management Guide defines the operational functioning of UNITA. Updated from phase one of the project, it allows each UNITA contributor to work efficiently and in the respect of UNITA criteria. The new guide reflects UNITA's commitment towards agile management in the development and functioning of an open, participative and multilingual European University of border, rural and mountain regions. This guide is alive and can be modified according to the project needs. This document will be updated, if necessary, through the lifecycle of the project extending the information given, including relevant issues and changes in the project or procedures. Each time the document is updated, all partners will be duly informed about the updates and the changes made with respect to the previous version.

Context and objectives

Context and necessity

The updated Management Guide has beed developed considering that:

The first phase of the European Universities Alliance UNITA (Nov. 2020- Oct. 2023) was concerned with initiating and setting up a functional framework for alliance cooperation, integration and governance from a managerial perspective. The alliance comprised 6 partner higher education institutions. As this was the initial phase, adjustments and changes were frequent in terms of role definition and allocation, management flows and interactions among responsible parties.
The second phase of the EUA UNITA (November 2023- 2027, ongoing) is focused on deepening the integration of the alliance, consolidating it, while simultaneously extending it to 10 partner universities, 2 university associated partners and 1 partner in the form of our legal entity UNITA GEIE. The focus of this phase turns to seamless processes and agile approaches to management of teams and activities.
UNITA's management does not refer solely to the projects which are central to our alliance, supported under the umbrella of the Erasmus+ European Universities Initiative, but also to what we have defined as the UNITA constellation of projects. This concept relates to complementary projects tackling specific matters of interest to our alliance in a more extensive manner while also being linked to the EUI projects of our alliance.
The initial six founding partners of UNITA have created a legal entity under the form of a European Economic Interest Grouping, to which the new full partners will adhere in the second phase of the alliance. The UNITA Universitas Montium EEIG is a full partner of the current EUI project of the alliance. The role of the legal entity is to contribute to the alliance's sustainability.
The UNITA Alliance enlargement from 6 to 13 partners requires a disciplined, efficient and transparent working method while avoiding useless formalities or unclear processes. Agile methodology for project management, with some adaptations, can provide an efficient working method and mindset for our challenging objectives in the next 4 years.

Objectives of the UNITA Agile Management Guide

Highlight the relevant managerial aspects of the alliance's EUI project, applicable as well to all UNITA constellation projects.
Set the rules and responsibilities of the partners for the purpose of ensuring a good quality and progress of the work envisioned in the UNITA actions.
Summarize all the required knowledge for an agile management of the project.
Contain all information related to the management structure, processes, documentation, collaboration tools to be used, reporting procedures, etc.
Develop a set of basic principles for the management of UNITA cooperation overall.

Relation to Other Project Documents

In the event of discrepancy between documents, this Management Guide is overruled by the Grant Agreement (s, valid for each project implemented by the alliance) including Annexes and the Consortium Agreement with possible addenda.

Agile project management in UNITA

The UNITA Alliance enlargement from 6 to 12 partners requires a more disciplined working method while avoiding useless formalities. To achieve this, UNITA decided to draw inspiration from an existing method: the PM AGILE method. This method, strongly influenced by the LEAN philosophy, encourages adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery and continuous improvement. It encourages rapid and flexible responses to change. To understand the difference between an agile approach and a traditional one in project management, the iron triangle provides a clear explanation.

The iron triangle in project management

The difference between agile and traditional approach is that with a traditional approach, scope is fixed and won’t change, but the time and cost can change. This means that projects can often deliver late or over budget affecting quality negatively. In agile approaches, the pyramid is inverted. Time and cost are fixed (e.g., time-boxed short cycles called Sprints), but the scope remains variable and can change. This ensures quality remains stable by prioritizing high-value features within constraints. With some adaptations, it can provide an efficient working method and mindset for our challenging objectives in the next 4 years.

Key characteristics of Agile are:

Focus on delivering value early and frequently. Decisions are based on what is known.
Close collaboration between all parties involved. Continuous stakeholder involvement at all levels.
Plans are created with the involvement of team members.
Incremental development with short cycles.
Scope management by continuous (re)prioritization of the Work Items. Embracing change, continuous learning and improvement.
Just enough documentation and control.

This method aims to continuously improve and streamline all project processes.

What is AGILE for UNITA?

This type of project management encourages collaboration and continuous improvement. It is referred to as an agile team. AGILE consists of dividing the project into several phases or cycles, and the various project activities are broken down into several specific, simple and prioritised actions.

1. Definition of an AGILE TEAM

Agile teams work in a highly collaborative way, adopting the most effective communication techniques for their situation and striving to work together as closely as possible. The aim is to ensure that:

Everyone feels part of the team, moving in the same direction.
The team includes all the people needed to complete the task. An autonomous team must have the skills and knowledge needed to get the job done. Specialists may be called in if necessary.
Each team member contributes according to his/her means. The team is made up of multidisciplinary members;
The team is self-organised. The people best placed to plan and organise the work are those who actually do the work. This results in more accurate estimates, more realistic deadlines and greater team commitment to the plan;
The team maintains a steady pace; everyone works closely together, avoiding discouragement.

2. Definition of an ACTION

An action may be defined as the result of a breakdown of a general activity in specific and simple operations, to be executed within one month, with a clear outcome.
An action is defined and detailed by an explicit specification sheet (cf the UNITA’s project management tools)

3. Definition of a CYCLE

Every month (at least), the task co-leaders plan, organise and coordinate a meeting with all the members of the task: the task meeting. A cycle is defined as the period between two task meetings. During this period, the team must work on the action(s) chosen at the meeting at the start of the cycle. At the end of the cycle, the actions are reviewed at the next meeting. Based on the progress made, the team then decides what action to take next: continuation, reorientation, stopping, etc. The team implements the decisions taken on the actions in progress during the next cycle.
A week before the task meeting, the co-leaders meet to prepare for the meeting and draw up the pre-minutes. They make these pre-minutes available to the task team members.
Depending on the actions to be implemented, they may decide to divide the work into sub-groups and schedule interim meetings.

Reference material

Although this Management Guide is self-contained, interested readers may deepen thier knowledge about Agile project management in the Agile PM2 guide, which extends and enhances the PM2 Methodology with Agile principles and practices.

Other bibliographic references: Articles in english to help you understand and go further

*Agile processes: a unifying approach for the future of projects*. Casanova, P. (2013). Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2013—EMEA, Istanbul, Turkey. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
*The iron triangle and agile*. Nagappan, R. (2020). Available at: [1]
*A Catalogue of Agile Smells for Agility Assessment* — Telemaco, Ulisses; Oliveira, Toacy; Alencar, Paulo; Cowan, Don. IEEE Access, 2020, Vol.8, p.79239-79259
*A critical examination of recent industrial surveys on agile method usage* — Stavru, Stavros. The Journal of Systems and Software, 2014-08, Vol.94, p.87-97
*AGILE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT: MODEL, METHODS, ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES* — Džanic, Amel; Toroman, Amel; Džanic, Alma. Acta Technica Corvinensis, 2022-10, Vol.15 (4), p.95-100
*An evaluation of the degree of agility in six agile methods and its applicability for method engineering* — Qumer, A.; Henderson-Sellers, B. Information and Software Technology, 2008-03, Vol.50 (4), p.280-295
*Challenges of adopting agile methods in a public organization* — Jouko Nuottila; Kirsi Aaltonen; Jaakko Kujala. International Journal of Information Systems and Project Management, 2016-01, Vol.4 (3), p.65-85
*Collaborative agile learning in online environments: Strategies for improving team regulation and project management* — Noguera, Ingrid; Guerrero-Roldán, Ana-Elena; Masó, Ricard. Computers and Education, 2018-01, Vol.116, p.110-129
*EVALUATION OF THE MOST USED AGILE METHODS (XP, LEAN, SCRUM): RELATED TO THE CONCEPT OF TOYOTA QUALITY* — Nathan-Regis, Bodje N'Kauh; Balaji, V. International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology, 2012-01, Vol.4 (1), p.23-23
*Systematic Literature and Expert Review of Agile Methodology Usage in Business Intelligence Projects* — Wulandari, Hapsari; Raharjo, Teguh. Journal of Information Systems Engineering and Business Intelligence, 2023-11, Vol.9 (2), p.214-227
*The Role of Psychological Safety in Implementing Agile Methods across Cultures* — Thorgren, Sara; Caiman, Elin. Research Technology Management, 2019-03, Vol.62 (2), p.31

Conference papers in english

*Agile Methods: The Gap between Theory and Practice* — Conboy, Kieran; Eckstein, Jutta; Baumeister, Hubert. *Extreme Programming and Agile Processes in Software Engineering*, 2004, p.316-316
*An Ideal Process Model for Agile Methods* — Visconti, Marcello; Cook, Curtis R.; Bomarius, Frank; Iida, Hajimu. *Lecture Notes in Computer Science*, 2004, p.431-441

Book

*The Scrum Guide* — Jeff Sutherland & Ken Schwaber. Scrum.org; URL: [2]
*Succeeding with Agile* — Mike Cohn. Addison-Wesley; November 2009. ISBN: 0321579364
*Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business* — David J Anderson. April 2010. ISBN: 0984521402
*Essential Scrum: A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process* — Kenneth S. Rubin. Addison-Wesley Professional; 5 August 2012. ISBN: 0988262592
*Lean vs Agile vs Design Thinking* — Jeff Gothelf. Gothelf Group; 2017. ISBN: 13:978-1541140035

Book in french

*La boîte à outils de la conduite du changement et de la transformation* — Autissier, David; Johnson, Kévin J.; Metais-Wiersch, Emily; Moutot, Jean-Michel; 2019
*La boîte à outils du chef de projet* — Maes, Jérôme; Debois, François; 2023

Website

[3]

Youtube material

In english

In french

L' Agile qu'est ce que c'est et pourquoi choisir ce mode pour conduire un projet ?