Being Agile

Agile Manifesto         Individuals and interactions O ver processes and tools Working software Over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration Over contract negotiation Responding to change Over following a plan   "That is, while there is value in the items on  the right, we value the items on the left more" - agilemanifesto.org   In February 2001, the Agile Manifesto was signed by 17 leading software developers.  

Agile Principles The following 12 principles are based on the Agile Manifesto: 1.      Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.   2.        Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.   3.      Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter time scale.   4.      Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project. Agile Principles   5.      Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need and trust them to get the job done.   6.      The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development tea...

What is Agile methodology in simple words? What is the Agile methodology? The Agile methodology is  a project management approach that involves breaking the project into phases and emphasizes continuous collaboration and improvement . Teams follow a cycle of planning, executing, and evaluating.   What is Agile in Scrum? Agile means “ incremental, allowing teams to develop projects in small increments . Scrum is one of the many types of agile methodology Frameworks, known for breaking projects down into sizable chunks called “sprints.” Agile scrum methodology is good for businesses that need to finish specific projects quickly.  

SCRUM Scrum is the most popular agile method. The three pillars of scrum are: Transparency Transparency means that the teams share information openly and are totally transparent. Inspection Inspection means that the product and the process are subjected to frequent inspections. Adaptation Adaptation means that based on the findings of the inspection, the teams will make the necessary adjustments

 Sprint Goals - Are you Setting Right?   Do you think your team does a lot of context switching?  Do you still find the dearth of collaboration among team members? In your scrum ceremonies, do you still hear more “I” s than “We” s? Is your team failing to meet their Team objectives frequently? Are your Team members still worried about their respective tasks only, based on their personal preference or assigned to them? Is your daily scrum just a status update meeting rather than an opportunity to discuss a common vision? These are some of the common problems that a Scrum team encounters.  Mostly we interpret the reasons behind the above problems to be lack of coordination among the team members.  But have you ever tried thinking for the reasons beyond the coordination issues in the team? Have you ever retrospected to understand if there would have been something in common for the team to work that would have solved the above problems.  Yes, you were right. T...

 

 Who is the decision maker SM or PO? PO Product Owner is the decision Maker who accept the Sprint deliveries. Scrum/Dev team estimated and decides the User Story Points against the user stories. PM facilitate the platform and address the impediments/ blockers/ show stoppers, bridge between PO and Dev Team.

 Handling Retrospective Effectively

 Sprint Planning Story Point estimation and Planning Poker

 Product backlog grooming

 DOR & DOD

 Scrum Artifacts

 Self-Organized and Cross Skill Scrum Team

 Reference Story Point Estimation

 Scope Creep is double-edged sword ? coming soon

 Estimation in Story Points Why not in Hours coming soon...

  What happens to a Project Manager when an organization undergoes the Agile Transformation?   What made me write this Blog? The motive to write this blog is my personal experience where i was asked to perform the role of a Project Manager with the hat of a Scrum Master. Hence thought of throwing some light on the misconception in the industry that, Project manager and Scrum Master roles are assumed to be the same with different artifacts or different language being used while they aren’t. There is an unfortunate trend to hire people who are “Project Managers/Scrum Masters” or to expect one person to play both roles. Trying to do these two jobs at the same time will be difficult and confusing or upsetting to your team members. Later in this article, we’d look at how a Project manager can transition into a Scrum Master whilst the company undergoes the agile transformation. What happens to a Project Manager when an organization undergoes the Agile Transformation? ""Pam, the Pro...

Problem   Dan who is the manager of a team is concerned about his Team's performance. He thinks that his team isn’t performing well and there was no coordination among the team members. Mostly team meetings ended abruptly due to arguments.   He researched on the factors that generally make a self-organized team. They were mutually accountable with the sense of ownership, their skills were complementary, they had all the infrastructure they needed to work independently.   Dan decided to invest in training, hoping it would help them learn to work together. Team was trained on conflict management skills, listening skills, and how to have crucial conversations. His hope was that with the right skills he’d begin to see healthy self-organizing behavior.   But they still argued on the petty things and blamed each other for the failures and didn’t produce much of anything.   Though the training was valuable that wasn’t what was needed. They needed clarity about their cu...

Story Point Estimation: Story points are an estimation technique used in Agile project management methodologies to help your team scope the effort required to complete a task. Story points account for factors like task complexity and uncertainty, which makes them more accurate than other estimation techniques such as time-based estimation. Estimating story points may sound complicated, but we’ve got you covered—we’ve broken down the process into six simple steps.  Story Point Slicing Breaking down features into smaller stories that the development team can build quickly is essential to keeping an agile release cadence. But what's the best way to do that? First, you need to understand the best practices for story sizes, and then you need story-splitting techniques to break them down. I'll walk you through industry best practices that include