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Agile Methodology

Agile Methodology is often related with Agile framework, a set of organization and workflow behaviours that help guide teams and product owners in scaling lean and agile practices.  Since the 2001 publication of the Agile Manifesto, various companies of different sizes have looked at what agile framework might work best for them such as Scrum or Rapid Application Development.

Agile training

Which Technique is Used for Agile Estimating & Planning

Agile estimation techniques

Agile methodology is a set of strong organisational tools, including templates to use at different levels of product development. These tools include the agile project plan template, release plan template, sprint planning template, roadmap template, and the user story template.

What are the benefits of agile estimating and planning?

Both agile estimating and planning are key techniques in Agile project management, particularly in software development projects. They enable project managers to forecast with predictability, reduce risk and manage expectations of stakeholders.

Agile estimation forecasts and calculates the required effort to complete product backlog items according to their prioritization and business value. Understanding the time needed to complete a task, enables more accurate sprint planning.

These estimates define the aspects to consider during release planning. They establish the timelines for the release and the duration of the Sprint.

What is the difference between planning and estimation?

Mike Cohn, author of Agile Planning and Execution, says, “Agile planning balances the effort and investment in planning with the knowledge that we will revise the plan through the course of the project. An agile plan is one that we are not only willing but also eager to change.”

Planning is all about forecasting and preparing whereas estimating involves focussing closely on specific variables like scope or schedule. For example, you might estimate the time required for a particular task. As agile plans are flexible, iterative change is an essential part of this lifecycle. These changes mean that new estimates may be required. Cohn also advocates the use of buffers with estimates to allow for uncertainty (ie extra time in case of unforeseen events).

What are the 3 levels of agile planning?

Agile project estimation evolves on 3 levels:

  1. the project or proposal
  2. the release, which includes the assignment of story points taken from user stories
  3. arrival at the sprint level, where tasks and estimated hours required to complete them may be assigned according to complexity.

Agile story points estimations

Story points estimations enable a comparative analysis of development team goals. Addressing the relative size of product backlog items, the process of estimating user stories engages the entire team, including the product owner, scrum master, and other stakeholders.

A story point is used in Agile software development projects to estimate the difficulty of implementing a particular user story. Teams spend time initially making a schedule, planning out tasks and deliverables, and then they break down each one, estimating hours and costs. The amount of story points completed per iteration determines a team’s velocity.

Estimation follows 3 steps:

1. the team analyse the user stories and define the story

2. team members and facilitators pick and discuss stories from the product backlog

3. the agile coach or scrum master lists items to be addressed in sprint planning and the iteration planning of the software project.

An alternative metric to story points is ideal days. Team members explain their ideal day spent on the agile project, drawing on case studies and known dependencies, to determine the time required to complete tasks.

Key Agile estimation techniques for constructing Agile story point estimations

The original Agile Manifesto, the basis of Agile methodology, didn’t clearly define planning and estimation. Consequently, an estimate could just be a guess. In 2005, Mike Cohn developed agile planning techniques to help improve the estimation process and ensure that estimates were educated guesses at least. Planning poker was one of these techniques.

Planning Poker

Poker prep

Poker is easily adaptable to the energies of a small team. It’s one of the most popular agile estimating and planning techniques. The game encourages engagement and produces fast results. It’s inclusive, gaining input from testers, analysts, software developers, and other team members.

To start the poker prep, everyone involved in story estimations gathers in a circle. Next, the product owner reads a user story to the circle. The story will fully describe product features, user requirements, and stakeholder expectations. Story told, discussions among the estimators and the product owner give everyone a chance to ask questions and clarify development targets.

Playing poker

To set up the poker game, each estimator-player holds a set of Planning Poker Cards. Each card shows a numerical value to assign to the user story: 0, 1 ,2 ,3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40 and 100.

After discussing the user story, each team member estimates the value of the story points by selecting the card that represents that value.

If all estimators select the same value, that becomes the final estimate. If the poker players select different values, those who assigned the highest and lowest values explain their choices. Discussion follows until an agreed re-estimation is found.

T-shirt sizes

Estimating size is a fast and useful way to reach a rough idea of requirements for large numbers of items in a product backlog. This is a great technique to ensure coordination between scrum teams working concurrently. It’s easy to visualise. However, one person’s L may be another’s XL as you’re not dealing in specific metrics (like Tshirt size in centimeters). Large or extra-large stories are known as epics.

Team members start with a discussion of the parameters to define ‘medium’. Then, each estimator on the scrum team assigns a size to the selected backlog item. The final estimate is the consensus reached after discussion and re-estimation of all size mismatches.

Dot voting

Dot voting is an estimation process used to rank product backlog items from highest priority to lowest. To start, all user stories and their descriptions are written on yellow sticky notes and posted to a board. Armed with dot stickers, pens, or markers, each stakeholder ranks the user stories. The product owner then orders the product backlog items from highest to lowest priority — from most to least dots. If there are stakeholders who disagree with the ranking or voting, user stories are separated into high, medium, and low-priority groups. Voting continues until prioritisation agreement is reached among all stakeholders.

Bucket system

Estimating work using the bucket system is faster and more flexible than planning poker for a large team grappling with a large number of items from the backlog. To begin, buckets — cards arranged on a table — are assigned values 0 to 5, 8, 13, 20, 30, 50, 100, 200, or more if required. Each product backlog item is written on a card and placed in the bucket selected by each estimator. Discussion continues until consensus on the whole product backlog is reached.

Affinity mapping

For small software development teams or start ups working with a relatively small number of backlog items, affinity mapping is a good bottom-up estimation method. Silently, team members have a go at estimating size.

Without group discussion, the product owner provides a list of backlog items to the team. Team members rank each item as smaller or larger and place them under cards on a wall. Discussion begins and the team may edit the wall, placing product backlog items appropriately, using T-shirt sizing or a Fibonacci sequence in the decision-making work. Finally, they reach a size estimation of the items.

An Agile approach is the through line

Agile methodology is the through line from proposal to product delivery, and agile estimation techniques define the agile project. These tried and tested techniques are essential to planning and project/ product management. It determines the scope and amount of work the agile team must complete to implement, test and deliver the product on time to the customer.

Learn more about agile estimating and planning with our Agile Training courses from Leadership Tribe today.

 

What Is An Agile Transformation Roadmap, And How To Build It?

Many organizations are increasingly embracing agility and improving their ability to respond to change, deliver value to customers faster, and achieve better results. Large companies across different industries, such as IBM, Google, McKinsey, Netflix, and Uber, have become supporters of Agile.

While Agile Transformation offers organizations many benefits, including a shared purpose that motivates teams, a renewed focus on customers, improved cross-team collaboration, quicker adaptation and pivot, higher ROI on efforts, and better creativity and innovation, it is a complex journey that requires adequate planning and guidance to achieve success.

An Agile Transformation Roadmap is a great tool to help organizations lay down a clear and structured path for any organization seeking to address the necessary changes systematically and implement a successful agile transformation.

In this article, we will discover an Agile transformation roadmap and its importance in achieving a successful Agile transformation and creating one. By reading this article, you will understand the critical elements of an Agile Transformation Roadmap and learn how to develop a roadmap tailored to your organization’s unique needs and goals.

What is an Agile Transformation Roadmap?

A roadmap is a visual or action plan for the transformation process that outlines the goals, strategies, key milestones, and steps needed to achieve a specific objective. It typically outlines the timeline, milestones, deliverables, and measurements that track progress and measure success. It may also include the resources needed, risks and challenges, and potential opportunities.

Roadmaps are adopted in various contexts, such as project management, product management, product development, marketing, or business planning. It is a strategic tool that provides context for the team, helps organizations navigate the complexities of Agile Transformation, and ensures that the process is executed efficiently and effectively.

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker. 

An Agile Transformation Roadmap can be considered a strategic plan that outlines the journey ahead and the steps required to achieve a successful Agile Transformation within an organization. It provides a systematic and structured approach to implementing Agile methodologies and practices while addressing the specific challenges and opportunities within the organization. The roadmap should be flexible, responsive to changes in the competitive landscapes, and iterative, with regular reviews and adjustments to ensure we are on track to achieve the desired business outcomes. 

A successful agile transformation roadmap should take into consideration of several vital components, including:

  1. Assessment of the current state identifies areas that need to be improved to adopt agile ways of working.
  2. A vision of the future state provides a clear understanding of what the organization aims to achieve and outlines the overarching objectives of the Transformation.
  3. Plan and timeline that paves a clear path for achieving the desired future state and provides a timeline for attaining key deliverables, taking into consideration of the cultural and structural barriers to Agile adoption.
  4. Agile practices that are most effective in achieving the organization’s objectives and goals, such as Scrum, Kanban, and Lean.
  5. Change management for managing change and ensuring that stakeholders understand and support the transformation process.
  6. Metrics and measurements to track progress and determine the Agile Transformation’s success.

In summary, an agile transformation roadmap is critical to any successful agile transformation. It clarifies our objectives and a plan of action, addresses cultural and structural barriers, and ensures that the Transformation is executed efficiently and effectively. By following a well-defined roadmap, organizations can achieve the desired future state and reap the benefits of being agile.

Why use an agile transformation roadmap?

An agile transformation roadmap is critical to guide the organization’s transformation journey. It benefits the organization and stakeholders in several ways, such as:

  • Provides clearly defined vision and objectives and ensures everyone involved in the Transformation understands expectations and works towards a common goal.
  • It helps to build trust and collaboration between teams and improve motivation and creativity.
  • Outlines efficient and practical step-by-step process with clear milestones and helps to prioritize and focus on essential aspects.
  • Identifies risks and obstacles early in the process and provides a plan to address them promptly.
  • Uses measurable outcomes to inspect progress and success, ensures Transformation is on track, and makes necessary adjustments to achieve the desired results.
  • Improves value delivery and increases Return on Investment (ROI).

Agile transformation roadmaps come in several different forms and serve a variety of audiences:

  • For external customers: These roadmaps provide a high-level, generalized view of the new features or the problems to be resolved. They excite customers about what’s coming next and are visually appealing and easy to understand.
  • For internal organizational leadership, roadmaps provide high-level updates to show progress toward goals and “translate” technical tasks into business terms for the ease of internal stakeholders.
  • For product owners, roadmaps unify teams to focus on high-value deliverables, communicate priorities effectively, and build consensus on how a product grows and changes over time.
  • For scrum masters, roadmaps help them to effectively guide their teams through the Agile transformation process, ensure alignment with the overall strategy, track progress, facilitate teamwork, and measure success.
  • For the developers, roadmaps provide a better understanding of the “big picture,” allowing team members to gain context for everyday work, focus on the most critical tasks, avoid scope creep, and enable fast and autonomous decision-making.

Agile transformation roadmap: How to build one?

Agile transformations are challenging for all organizations and employees. How can we build a transformation roadmap to guide organizations to become successful agile organizations?

We can build roadmaps in several ways, using different formats and approaches depending on what serves your purpose and how your team likes to work. Some standard versions include details about the prioritized customer value to be delivered and specific deliverables organized by releases and plotted on a timeline.

Define the Current State

Before embarking on an Agile transformation, raising awareness of the organization’s current performance is essential. It may include collating data on several aspects, such as organizational culture, structure and process, leadership maturity, change readiness, business agility, and technical practices. In addition, gaining insight into potential pushback beforehand would offer valuable guidance on effectively addressing them as they arise.

Gathering as much information and feedback as possible from stakeholders using various approaches, including surveys, interviews, and observation, is advisable. All this information can be helpful to improve your understanding of where the organization is now and helps to pave the way to where it wants to be in the future.

Build a Leadership Team that is Committed to Transformation Success

To successfully implement an Agile transformation, it is crucial to have the full support and alignment of senior stakeholders. This requires assembling an internal leadership team committed to its success and will drive the Transformation forward.

It is essential to gain buy-in from executives, department heads, team leaders, and influential individual contributors, and where possible, seek guidance from external sources. Learn from other companies that have already undergone Agile transformations, leverage their best practices, and avoid the common pitfalls.

“Great teams do not hold back from one another. They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, weaknesses, and concerns without fear of reprisal.” – Patrick Lencioni.

Create an Inspirational Vision 

Once you have comprehensively understood your current state and assembled a capable team to lead the journey, you must define an inspirational vision and clear objectives for your Agile Transformation.

The vision is the ‘North Star’ that will unite everyone involved and guide the efforts in transforming the organization for the long term.

An organization needs to answer five essential questions effectively to be agile. These questions should be approached iteratively, allowing for rapid learning and experimentation in line with Agile principles.

  • Where can Agile assist the company in creating value, and how do we measure success?
  • How are we going to structure and enable cross-functional teams?
  • What are the effective Agile processes for the value being created?
  • What is the backbone for the Agile Transformation?
  • What are the scope and pace of the Transformation? e.g., a backlog of tasks and a sprint schedule.

Determine Implementation Approach for Agile Transformation

Your company’s Agile Transformation success depends on how you implement it. You can choose the most suitable implementation approach based on the specific scale and complexity of your context and your organizational assessment.

For instance, below are some of the typical implementation approaches:

  • Emergent: This is where teams bring Agile processes in from the bottom up until they surface to leadership. Most Agile transformations have emergent elements to a certain extent, where we progress with the learning and feedback loop.
  • Top-down: This approach is adopted when the organization has a clear and robust vision and plan and execute all the necessary steps to get there. For larger organizations, the Transformation may happen in stages throughout the company, incorporating continuous learning and improvement.
  • Scaling agile: Many organizations prefer to iterate their pilots a few times before committing to a full-on transformation. Based on the learning and experience collected, they embark on scaling up Agile across the entire organization.

Agile promotes flexibility and adaptability, and it is a learning process where we keep on testing, conducting retrospectives, learning, adjusting, and improving our ways of working as needed.

Start with a Pilot

A pilot provides a safe ground for ‘trial and error’ and helps to evaluate how ingrained the current processes are and identify any resistance that may arise when rollout the organizational initiative.

Continuous experimentation and improvement are the hallmarks of high-performing organizations, and pilot teams are the engine that drives that process.” – Nicole Forsgren, Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps

To conduct an effective pilot, prioritize the projects that create value for your organization. Assemble a team to focus on the project, set a foreseeable deadline, and build regular check-ins to monitor progress and make necessary adjustments.

Additional training and coaching are crucial for change success as part of the pilot project. For instance, new Agile teams may need some teaching to understand an Agile framework, create a backlog, and track progress. And coaching can empower teams by removing impediments and ensuring everyone has the necessary resources (e.g., software development tools). 

Agile pilot projects are crucial in building momentum and gaining buy-in from stakeholders for an Agile transformation. They offer an opportunity to demonstrate the value of Agile methodologies, particularly to skeptical stakeholders who may resist change. By showcasing the tangible benefits of Agile, you can build trust and gain support for scaling Agile practices throughout your organization.

Scale and Improve Agile processes

Once you’ve completed a pilot project, scaling Agile across your organization can be a challenging task. While smaller teams may experience initial success, scaling Agile to larger groups can take time and effort.

Here are some of the critical strategies that can help you scale your Agile efforts effectively:

Start by being the ‘fly on the wall’ and define the end-to-end value streams. Instead of scaling Agile practices department by department, identify the customer journeys that cross-functional Agile teams can address. It will help connect the dots, incorporate Agile practices across the organization, and foster a culture of collaboration.

Develop a robust communication plan that promotes transparency and brings teams together. It may include monthly town halls or meetings to share progress and best practices. Encourage stakeholder involvement to demonstrate support from leadership.

Empower team members to create their own goals and self-manage their work. It requires a shift from traditional top-down goal-setting exercises to a more agile approach where leaders serve as facilitators to support team members in setting their objectives and KPIs.

Gradually change old practices that alienate from Agile principles, and align with Agile processes. Address why these changes matter and their business value, gather feedback to constantly pivot and improve and ensure the Agile Transformation is well-received.

Enabling the Agile Transformation

An Agile Transformation requires a change in the backbone of your organization, including culture, governance, team structure, decision-making, technology, and reporting.

To implement your Agile transformation strategy successfully, they must evolve, and here are some key points to consider as you scale Agile throughout your company:

  • Agile Mindset and Culture: Fostering Agile ways of working that value collaboration, transparency, inspection, adaptation, and continuous improvement.
  • Agile Governance: Establishing processes for managing and prioritizing work and ensuring compliance with organizational policies and rules.
  • Agile Project Management: Implementing agile project management techniques such as Scrum or Kanban to manage projects and ensure efficient delivery.
  • Agile Team Structure: Aligning the organizational structure with agile principles, such as cross-functional teams, self-organizing teams, and decentralized decision-making.
  • Agile Tools and Technologies: Adopting agile tools and technologies to facilitate collaboration and communication among teams.
  • Agile Metrics and Reporting: Developing metrics and reporting mechanisms to measure success and identify areas for improvement.
  • Agile Coaching and Training: Providing coaching and training to employees on agile methodologies and practices.

The essence of Agile adoption requires us to reevaluate what we do and align with the principles of agility. As we navigate the agile transformation journey, we must remain open and adaptable, continuously listening to feedback from our people and adjusting our Agile roadmap accordingly.

Continuous Learning 

Continuous learning sustains the results of Agile Transformation. Integrating consistent training and development into your organization’s structure and values is essential.

You may want to consider the following steps to enable consistent and continuous learning experiences in your organization:

  1. Set clear learning objectives: Clearly define what your organization hopes to achieve through learning and development initiatives. Identify the skills and knowledge critical to your organization’s success.
  2. Develop a learning strategy: Develop a comprehensive learning strategy that aligns with your organizational goals and objectives. Determine the learning methods, tools, and platforms that will be used to deliver training.
  3. Communicate the importance of learning: Communicate the value of learning to your employees. Clear that learning and development is a critical component of your organizational culture and necessary for employee growth and development.
  4. Provide ongoing training and development: Provide regular training and development opportunities to your employees. These could include online courses, classroom training, mentorship programs, conferences, and workshops.
  5. Encourage peer learning: Encourage employees to share their knowledge and expertise with their colleagues. It could include setting up mentoring programs, hosting lunch and learns, or creating online discussion forums.
  6. Measure learning outcomes: Regularly assess the effectiveness of your learning and development initiatives. Measure their impact on employee performance, job satisfaction, and overall organizational success.
  7. Establish an internal knowledge management system: An effective way to manage your organization’s processes and knowledge is by creating an internal knowledge hub that anyone can access, promoting collaboration, and ensuring that learning is captured and retained.
  8. Continuously improve your learning initiatives: Continuously improve your learning and development initiatives based on employee feedback, new technologies, and industry best practices. Stay in tune with the latest innovations in learning and development.

Anticipate and Plan for Potential Challenges

Successful Agile transformations require a cultural shift and may present various challenges and impediments to be addressed.

Here are five common challenges that organizations may anticipate during an Agile transformation:

  • Resistance to change: One of the most common challenges in any organizational change. The key to managing this is to clarify ‘why’ we are doing it and what are the benefits Agile ways of working may bring.
  • Isolation of Agile teams: Agile teams do not work in a vacuum and should be embedded in or closely aligned to business and get buy-in from all stakeholders.
  • Lack of cultural change: Agile adoption should become part of the organization’s DNA and manifest in everything the organization does.
  • Dependency issues: Cross-functional teams may get stuck waiting on each other. It is critical to understand how teams work best, define their interdependencies, and plan accordingly.
  • A trap of Agile Myth: Some companies may fall into the trap of ‘doing’ Agile instead of ‘being’ Agile, mistaking scrum as Agile, or thinking Agile works as a silver bullet. To prevent this, leadership and culture must embrace the Agile manifesto and principles as a new way of working, not just as tools.

These challenges are not insurmountable, and companies can overcome them by staying focused on their goals, continually listening to their teams, and adapting their approach as needed.

Conclusion

Companies must be agile to adapt and succeed in today’s competitive business environment. Agile methodology provides the framework for teams to continuously build, learn, and improve. Implementing an Agile transformation is a journey that requires patience and dedication, but the rewards are significant.

Planning the steps and gaining leadership support is crucial to ensuring a successful Agile transformation. It helps to create a powerful ally that can help you navigate the process of changing mindsets and cultures.

An agile transformation roadmap is a strategic tool to help organizations achieve successful Agile Transformation. It outlines the vision, communicates a clear direction, aligns stakeholders, prioritizes actions, and updates progress. It helps agile teams stay focused and on track while adapting to changes in the environment or customer feedback.

If you need further information, please do not hesitate to contact us

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Why Do Developers Dislike Agile?

How did agile methodology develop?

Running a business requires business people to be on their feet and to make effective decisions in a split second. For, these decisions can affect an entire organisation and its growth, the company’s lifecycle, and operations from stakeholders down to new staff.

The importance of quick and effective decision making is also applicable to the development team and programmers. It is probably why a group of programmers collaborated a long time ago to find ideas and implement them to better themselves and their profession. Their ideas turned to experiments to decide their efficacy and impact of the operations of the programmers, coders and development team. At the time, practices like pair programming, user stories, stand-up meetings, iterative approaches and processes that are used today widely, was, but, just a few experiments. However, among these trials, some ideas failed, while some worked. The group of programmers weren’t disappointed by the failures and chose to work on the new features that worked.

Their steadfast determination led to the formation of principles that are known today, as the Agile Manifesto. The manifesto and the concept of Agile spread like wildfire due to its efficacy in making operations easy and effective. So, much so, that, business people outside the developer world began using these agile methods to run their organisations and to train their executives.

The widespread use of the concepts also led to the formation of practices that hindered the growth of companies and individuals working in them. A certain amount of structure and formality was built around Agile that was a contrast to its beliefs. Ultimately, this lead to concepts like Scrum Teams and Scrum Master. When done right, the concepts are about ensuring a team is able to work together and solve problems through training and coaching. However, without proper training and knowledge about the concepts of Scrum and Agile, the employees can feel like slaves and start disliking the idea.

 

What does it mean to be agile?

The Agile Manifesto created in 2001 in Utah by seventeen developers talks about various elements of the software development lifecycle:

  • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

  • Working software over comprehensive documentation

  • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

  • Responding to change over following a plan

The content of the Agile Manifesto, and the four key values in it, shows the true nature of the Agile model and what it means to be Agile, not just in a software development process such as (FDD: feature-driven development), but in workflow overall. An Agile mindset keeps people as a priority over tools and development processes. The first value of the Agile Manifesto focuses on this point strongly by promoting dynamic communication between teammates and colleagues over a structured one.

Being Agile also means that an individual or company focuses more on the task at hand than the documentation. However, this does not mean it promotes a lack of records. What it tries to propagate is a work culture where individuals don’t waste their time documenting every little detail and following a hierarchy from testers to project managers and developers in getting approvals. Instead, they utilize their time to finish the task effectively and fast across the team – therefore assisting in rapid application development or extreme programming for example.

Agility is a set of practices that involve a product’s end-users in the development process of the same. Unlike negotiation, where the consumer is approached at the start and end of the production. This Agile mindset is more adaptive and can help speed up the process of software development (or services in case of businesses) by constantly checking in the customer’s feedback through smaller milestones and 2 week sprints. Then it is easier to refactor necessary changes based on business needs and customer needs alike avoiding large technical debt.

Being Agile, like its dictionary definition, means to be able to move quickly. The core of the concept of Agility is reacting to change with positivity and fluidity – consider this a continuous integration for instance. So, if one iteration doesn’t work out in the development process, the agile team’s focus is changed in the next sprint.

 

How do companies implement Agility?

When it comes to implementing Agility in companies, many fail to capture the essence of the concept. They treat it as a medium to improve the performance of an Agile team of employees. It should be used as a tool to transform the work culture of an organisation.

For instance, when one is not able to estimate the results of an experiment precisely. What an Agile-mindset should do is to accept that sometimes there are parameters that are uncontrollable and unpredictable. However, what most companies do is try and bring in new methods to ‘improve’ the ability to estimate, review story points, tweak metrics, refresh/revise the overall strategy or software development method for instance.

The above is one among many such practices and mistakes that individuals and companies alike make in implementing Agile. Moreover, organizations make things worse by adding rigid structure and unrealistic ideas into the mix.

For instance, a manager set a two-week deadline for a task that could use a little time. They asked for daily reports and daily standups, instead of every week. This practice of micromanagement led to the employees being stressed out as they needed to have something to report to the head every day. This kind of practice may get faster results, but they will lack quality. It violates Agility because it can often get caught up in feedback loops, burndown rates or working on projects in very small increments. Being Agile means having the freedom to be self-organizing, to choose your work and set realistic deadlines and be open to changes. Many organizations fail to grasp this and many team members often don’t know when to stand up to it.

 

Why developers dislike the agile software development methodology

 

Lack of knowledge

One of the foremost reasons why software developers hate agile is that their managers don’t understand the concept of Agility. They try to utilize the ideas of Agile in a structured manner. In turn, this violates the nature of an Agile-mindset and ends up regressing to traditional project management tactics that they are familiar with.

The fault lies in their understanding of the principles mentioned in the Agile Manifesto. The inability to comprehend the concept makes them implement structure and hierarchy that they are familiar with from experience. This results in a work culture that makes employees feel like they are slaves and pushes them further away from team work and collaborate less often within.

For instance, pressuring the team to follow a short deadline to complete a task that can use a little time. In such situations, the employees subjected to the pressure are exhausted, making them hate working at the company or in a team.

 

Process-oriented development teams

Another reason developers dislike Agile is the way their superiors treat the concept more as a religion than a process that can increase productivity. Which means, they blindly stick to their beliefs and refuse to budge towards a more agile approach of product management. Consequently, they forget the core of Agility – change.

When superiors have incomplete knowledge of the concept and believe it to be something akin to a religion that can save them, they try to force it on their team. Moreover, they refuse to be flexible with their implementation, thinking they need to follow a rule strictly. Whereas, an Agile framework and Agile mindset within the team’s members should be able to adapt to changes with ease.

When practitioners of Agile fail to grasp the concept itself, it leads to their teams disliking Agility and choose to work against it. This reduces functionality across the team and causes issues overall.

 

Will to change during a project

The fundamental reason that makes software project managers (and project managers overall) unknowingly violate the principles of Agile is basic human nature. Since childhood, an individual is moulded to listen and take orders from people superior to them. The training remains deep in the consciousness of an individual as they grow to be independent and salaried individuals, including the rebellious ones who flaunts authority.

This nature then is applied in the implementation of Agile with a structured process, as it makes it comfortable to do so. Another reason why individuals don’t wish to be Agile is the core reasoning of the concept and the ability to make the project or product owner responsible for blame. On the other hand, an Agile-mindset not only responds positively to change but also takes responsibility for tasks. As such, if it fails to blame no one other than the individual themselves it puts the risk on them in these changing requirements.

The very idea of taking upon blame or responsibility for failure is scary to such individuals. For, as human beings, they fear failure the most.

Moreover, the usual blame game is not applicable when being Agile. It is not surprising when considering human nature that individuals dislike taking the culpability, and would rather blame a third-party for something that went wrong in the overall project or product development for instance. As such, when a particular idea fails in a strategy one can easily hold the manager responsible or the team leader; or even overall resource – blaming anyone but themselves. However, when applied in a true sense, Agility does not support blaming others and promotes taking responsibility for their own actions. This is one of the aspects that makes individuals dislike Agile.

 

Are there any lean alternatives to Agile development

The only alternative to Agile processes is Agile alone. The structured and the managerial way the concept of Agility is handled and the human nature causing it is the root cause of why developers dislike Agile and why the concept is not effective sometimes. As such, the only way forward from this slump is to implement the true meaning and essence of Agile.

Managers have to be ready to let go of their false beliefs and be open to change in a decent timeframe. They should try and establish a work culture that focuses its prioritization on Agile, following the four core values and twelve principles of the Agile Manifesto. Only then, would the employees like developers start accepting the concept and applying it effectively in retrospective and for ideas moving forward.

To conclude, Being Agile and having an Agile-mindset is important for the growth of a company, enabling cross-functional teams and therefore its overall productivity. As such, an organization and its executive should implement whatever is necessary to make its employees accept the concept. Through Business Agility programs from institutions like Leadership Tribe, a company can train its managerial staff to make them understand what Agility and being Agile means. Doing so will lead to the staff being better managers who can inspire their teams into being Agile.

The human nature that constantly fights Agility can only be changed by implementing the core values of concept in daily life without limiting it to professional areas. Therefore, to make developers like, and use the concepts of Agility, a manager should be Agile thoroughly. We, at Leadership Tribe, offer Agile methods in our coaching and training to support you and your team members in your journey to being Agile, as well as Kanban, Scrum Methodology, Sprint Planning and more.

Learn more about Agile Project Management and Agile Project delivery frameworks such as Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) with LeadershipTribe and contact us today for more info.

How To Make Agile Transitions In A Company

“Thriving in today’s marketplace frequently depends on transforming to become more agile”- Scott M. Graffius

Most organizations are thriving and surviving in the digital era by transitioning towards agile methodology from traditional methods. By adopting agile transitions, they are gaining improvements and substantiative performance, leading to profitability, improved growth, employee engagement and ultimately customer satisfaction. However, many companies claim they are running an agile work environment, but many struggle to take the agile manifesto by heart.

If you’ve ever studied the agile manifesto or got the coaching of agile transitions, you probably will not be surprised that this working style can be a challenge.  This manifesto is the disrupter of the traditional status quo which can be uncomfortable for many people. Therefore, many organizations fail to see the kind of results agile promises to deliver, only if properly implemented.

Agile transitioning: a case study

Let’s take an example of Agile transitioning in a well known organizational structure.

The Dutch banking group, ING in 2015, decided to shift from traditional methodology to the Agile Model inspired by the giant market leaders Netflix, Google and Spotify. Fortunately, ING’s new approach boosted their employee engagement, marketing and increased their work progress, clearing out backlogs of tasks and overdue initiatives.

To truly adopt an Agile environment, it takes willingness and commitment to let go of all the conventional method of doing things in the organization. The agile transformation is not just about some fancy jargons and new meeting styles; it’s a whole way of business transformation.

You may immediately want to know how Agile transition works and how the transition from waterfall to agile transformation can work. But before building that agile transformation roadmap, you must know what it is.

What is agile transition?

The agile transition is the transforming act of an organization’s nature or forms progressively to the one that can thrive and embrace a collaborative, self-motivated and flexible fast-paced environment. The agile manifesto principles and values can be exercised and taught in any organization, with agile teams whether small or large. However, the organization needs to understand the agile framework basics and values to get healthy and true agility rewards.

Agile Transition

How does an agile transition work?

The agile transition process begins by setting goals, designing a leadership team and forming an agile transformation road map for the team to meet business needs. Organizations create the progress check-ins periodically contrary to the planned product roadmap. Then, crucial adjustments/changes are made to keep the project on track while keeping it realistic with these cross-functional teams.

How to transition from waterfall to agile

To make the agile methodology work, the organizations running on the bureaucracy, waterfall project development, or silo management system must embrace the agile transformation roadmap. Employees will need coaching in agile transitions to make the most out of it. They need to understand and embrace the core principles of agile. This requires empowering the employees to work autonomously, to be self-organizing and to be confident in independent decision-making while educating them on rewarding and evaluating the staff in this new business paradigm.

New procedures should be established. New tools must be adopted to facilitate the new work patterns, product management and development process. Each leadership team and employee may need training, ownership and distribution throughout the agile process.

Successful ways to facilitate the transition from waterfall to agile

 

·      Communicate regularly

When you move to agile methods such as scrum training, sprint planning and workflow management methods like Kanban, the teams need to communicate daily. Daily stand-up meetings are a good way to do this. It remains a crucial part of the testing and development activities for agile coaches and teams. Leaders need to understand where the pain points are developing in the team and substitute an environment that makes the best solution to remedy to such issues. In such a growing environment, it’s also vital to be ready for any potential changes. By developing a clear line of knowledge, the development team will keep implementing iterative changes to achieve project deliverables.

 

·      Strengthen the mutual vision for a successful agile transformation

Most organizations are good at making operational and financial goals, but such goals only motivate the upper management or product owners rather than the organization’s average worker. To boost the mutual vision and develop an agile organization, the company needs to reestablish the key performance indicator (KPI) metrics and connect everyone with a more profound sense of purpose. This goal and objective needs to flow top-down, from senior management to those implementing the projects.

Customers and employees are the heart of any business, so step away from the financial projections and charts and ask how your service/product contributes to the world? What would your company’s success mean for employees and customers?  What will it mean to you in retrospective?

 

·      Train staff on the agile rollout

Bringing new practices and ideas to the work members could be a disaster. Many professionals are likely to be accustomed to shifting and working to agile practices without guidance, which fails. To perfectly implement agile approaches in an organization, training sessions should be conducted. Also, organizations can look into the institutions that help the teams understand agile through different resources like blogs, seminars and books.

 

·      Encourage collaboration amongst team members

There is no template overall, but agile transition’s essence is collaboration across each individual team. By communicating effectively and collaborating through different tools, the team becomes solid and buy-in towards agile development is encouraged. Companies can also engage agile approaches when testing to ensure that the functionality and requirements of the project/product developments are up to the standard.

 

·      Give everyone time to adjust to the agile transformation strategy

Like Rome wasn’t made in a day, your company will not transition and make an agile transformation in one day either. Whether C-suite, stakeholders, project managers or support teams, when you move groups of people from a conventional project management based system to a result-based system, it always comes with a learning curve and a potential cultural shift in the company. As an organization, you have already few projects lined up, and it’s best to finish them before agile implementation.  Don’t try to force buy-in right away, or try to convert every business project into an agile project overnight.

 

Wrapping-up the agile transformation journey

 

Agile practices

In a nutshell, agile adoption – converting from traditional waterfall methods to agile methodology is not an easy job as a manager or team. This is an essential aspect for any corporation to understand the core’s agile concept and then deliver it to their employees in order to develop an agile mindset. Managers/leaders can play their part by encouraging business agility, in turn motivating the entire organization and its teams to become adaptable to change. However, if implemented correctly with the proven tips and right coaching, this methodology can take the organization above the sky (like the Dutch banking group example) and increase business value in time.

Contact Leadership Tribe to find out more about preparing for Agile Transitions and build your agile transformation roadmap today

Using Fibonacci Series in Story Point Estimates

Many have asked why Fibonacci series is used for the story point estimates. Though I agree, it is not the only way to estimate based on relative sizing and many of them use different methods, Fibonacci sequence is used frequently.

In this article, I would like to help you to get a better understanding of the fundamentals behind using the Fibonacci series. And you won’t even need a deck of cards for this one.

 

Example Fibonacci sequence – estimated effort

Let’s take a Fibonacci Scale example where you are asked to hold a weight of 2 Kgs.

If the weight is increased by .02 Kgs (i.e. 2.02 Kgs is the total weight), it would be very negligible to notice the difference by the person who lifts the weight especially when they are unaware that it was increased by 0.02 Kgs.

The same is true when a person is asked to lift the weight of 5 Kgs and then it is increased by 0.05 Kgs without them noticing, the person wouldn’t feel the increase in the weight.
Weber in 1834 realised that there is a particular threshold and the ratio, the background intensity to the incremental threshold, is relatively constant.

In the equation, K is constant.

1Δ⊥̅⊥̅=?

ΔI = IK

Coming back to Fibonacci sequence in this series of numbers, an accurate estimate would be 1, 2, 3, 5, 8,13,21,34,55…

However, this modified Fibonacci sequence in Agile estimation world is 1,2,3,5,8,13,20,40…

Each estimation is modified just for the sake of easiness of use of 20,40,80 and 100.

As you understand from the above sequence of Fibonacci numbers, it is clear that 2 is 2 times bigger than 1. However, the gap between 3 to 5 or even between 5 to 8 is not double. These nonlinear sequences work well in the high-level estimates as they reflect great amount of uncertainty. This will prevent one user story being too close to another.

The user stories that would be worked out in upcoming PI planning, would better to be estimated within one order of magnitude.

Enjoy using the planning poker with the above-mentioned Fibonacci series and get better high-level and accurate story estimates. This estimation method will improve project management.

 

 

What is planning poker?

Planning poker is a method to estimate story points and was developed and named by James Grenning. However, it became more well-known when Mike Cohn raised awareness of it in his book Agile Estimating and Planning.

 

Agile estimating and planning poker sessions

How does this and theories of planning poker cards relate to Agile Training? The estimation process for instance can be used as part of the planning technique when seen fit. Sprint planning is often an example of this where the solution is ironed out during the progress and changes from initial estimates, but the basic path is largely accounted for initially. Whether scrum poker, even traditional poker with a deck of playing cards, or another estimation technique, the same baseline principle is behind each iteration. It can help to account for the estimated effort or amount of work for example.

 

How does planning poker work?

At an agile estimation and planning meeting, all scrum team members will be given a deck of cards. A moderator will chair the meeting, but won’t participate in the estimation process.

The product owner will summarise a user story. Then the team will make their estimate by selecting the relevant card and placing it face down. Everyone then turns over their cards to show their estimations of the amount of work required. This with high or low estimates can justify and explain their choice.

The team continue to play planning poker until a consensus on the amount of work required is reached.

NB: this doesn’t have to relate to time. The units estimated could be story points, t-shirt sizes or another factor requiring a sequence of numbers.

 

When to use planning poker

Whilst this estimation method can take time, it does ensure that the scrum team members have their say and feel invested in the user story. It is an effective method of tackling a product backlog and determining the time required to resolve each backlog item.

It is an effective method to determine accurate estimates of development time required in software engineering for example.

 

Agile estimating and planning poker sessions

How does this and theories of planning poker cards relate to Agile Training? The Estimation process for instance can be used as part of the planning technique when seen fit. Sprint planning is often an example of this where the solution is ironed out during the progress and changes from initial estimates, but the basic path is largely accounted for initially.  Whether scrum poker, even traditional poker with a deck of playing cards or another estimation technique, the same baseline principle is behind each iteration.

From product owners and shareholders to consultants and execs, software development teams, advertising teams and more, learn how your team members can become more agile teams and Schedule a Consultation with us today. Leadership Tribe specialize in agile development and training courses for your entire team to help you streamline the planning process and estimated effort and make it a more functional team today.

How Does Agile Project Planning Work?

In contrast to other project management methodologies, the essential strengths of the agile software development process are teamwork, a focus always on user experience, and a flexible response to new circumstances as they arise.

Transparency, agility, and forward collaborative motion optimize teamwork throughout the development cycle. Agile’s iterative approach contrasts the plan-to-product linear arc of traditional project management methods, such as Waterfall.

The Agile Manifesto draws from the agile principles guiding the process that has become an industry standard for efficient software development. The manifesto highlights four primary tenets: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools; working software over comprehensive documentation; customer collaboration over contract negotiation; and response to change over following a plan.

Agile methodology & project planning

Agile methodology starts with sprint planning in a discussion of how best to achieve product development goals. The meeting includes the product owner, stakeholders, the scrum master, and other members of the development team.

The release plan for the sprint will determine how many sprints are needed in the project lifecycle in order to produce the deliverable as soon as it fulfils the definition of done.

  • At the planning meeting for each initiative, two questions are central: How can we best produce a user-friendly new product or enhance an existing product? What does the user want?
  • What is most likely to impact delivery of the iteration? What does the development team need? What are the dependencies that could impact product development — and how best can we manage them?
  • Early in the software development process the team will focus on those iteration features that involve the highest risk and produce the highest value.
  • From previous experience, the team will decide on the amount of work they can complete in a sprint and, perhaps, implement a Kanban board or burndown chart to be able to eyeball their real-time daily progress.
  • To keep end user needs always in sight, the product owner and the team assemble and evaluate a list of user stories about the release.
  • The product owner or stakeholder will add a product iteration at the outset to help clarify the goal of the team during the usual 2-week sprint.
  • The product owner will add user stories to the product backlog and make sure iterations are performed until all user stories have been included in the development process.
  • At completion, each iteration of working software is tested by end users. They evaluate the test results with team members, the product owner, and all stakeholders to secure feedback and continued engagement with the work of the project.

Agile project management

An agile roadmap helps frame the project management lifecycle from initial planning to completed deliverable. To accomplish the task, the transparent and flexible agile process relies on a framework set in clear principles and methodologies.

The agile project follows the agile path

  • Description of the initiative by the product owner and any stakeholders and assembly of the self-organising agile project team;
  • planning of development steps that draw from the backlog of user stories and setting out the development team workflow, the scrum;
  • execution of the plan, with commitment to track progress by means of scrum events, achieved milestones, respected dependencies, Kanban boards, and new information;
  • production of a working iteration of project deliverables;
  • testing and evaluation of the iteration’s performance; and
  • completion of the development process with a working product.

The roadmap is a core project management tool in the agile planning process. The outcome is that, because the architecture of the software is sound, it can be maintained and continually adapted to changing software needs.

A note on the scrum

The scrum is where the goal of agile project planning meets the skill and focus of the development team. In the ever-adaptive scrum environment, the team begins the development process with features drawn from the product backlog list of deliverables to be included in the final product. From the standup daily scrum, to software iteration, through to the sprint retrospective, agile teams work collaboratively under the eye of a scrum master whose task is to make sure there are no obstacles to the team’s success.

Agile is the industry standard

From business to logistics to Human Resources to portfolio management, the agile framework and agile approach to software development projects have become the industry standard.

From the point of sprint planning, the responsive whole-team performance engaged to produce each agile iteration is remarkable. The focus of the Agile team is to successfully develop the most functional software features possible, based on the product owner’s wants and with full engagement of the development team members’ abilities. Learn more about scrum teams and digital transformation with our Agile Training & Scrum Training with online courses from Leadership Tribe today.

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