How to Write A Well-Formed User Story
5K- by Shilpi Jain
- 17th Oct, 2018
- Last updated on 06th Mar, 2019
- 7 mins read
Bill Wake has given us the mnemonic INVEST which help us in writing a well-formed User Story.
Working with User Stories may be easy, but writing effective User Stories can be hard.
Top challenges in Writing User Stories:
- Getting teams engaged.
- Adding too much or too little detail
- Splitting stories.
Reminder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![Top challenges in Writing User Stories]()
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Story writing workshop is important to understand the User Story in details and who are the users of that particular functionality and what the users do to use the product.
Conduct a Story writing workshop Quarterly.
Three tips for a successful story writing session are:
- Set the single objective for the meeting.
Objective should be MVP (Minimum Viable Product.) and engage the team in various discussions on top user Stories with the Product Owner. - Have the right participants,
Scrum master, Product Owner and other stakeholders, Development team (Agile coach) (optional) may be User Roles.
Ask the Product Owner about the top requirement/features to be delivered.
In MVP, Brainstorm the requirements in detail which will help in a more innovative solution.
Visualize the relationship between stories.
User Story Mapping technique:
Document each step in the process. Writing the sequence of steps needed to complete the user story will make it clearer which may have been overlooked and easier to estimate. The chances of missing any functionality can be minimized.
We can read the below functionality is Login and enter credentials, you may also click on “forgot password” and then submit.![User Story Mapping technique]()
Another advantage of using mapping is that we can get the prioritized list of user stories as mentioned in the below diagram by lanes.![Another advantage of using mapping]()
SPIDR has come to our rescue. Beautiful concept given by Mike Cohn.
How to Split a User Story: Biggest challenge…![How to Split a User Story]()
Spikes: -The user story is large and difficult to split when there is a spike activity involved in it. Spike doesn’t lead to any working functionality but it just for the knowledge enhancement for the team for example-Investigation of new technologies and investigating different tools etc.
Paths: - The user story may be large because of the different paths associated with it. See the flowchart below to understand the example: In an e-commerce website, after selecting the items the payment method cart, the payment method can be visa card, mastercard or PayPal.![]()
So, it is recommended to split the user story based on the number of paths taken.
It can be easily logically split into small stories as: - As a <user>I want to pay using credit card or
- As a <user>I want to pay using PayPal
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Here, there is no need to split using visa card or mastercard, as both come under the category of credit cards.
Interfaces: - Split a story across multiple interfaces (mobile OS or browser) or data interfaces.
Example: As a <user >I want to display in Android device.
As a <user > I want to display in IOS device.
As a <user > I want to display in web browser.
So, it can be split into 3 different logical user stories.
Same is the case with the browser also. Split by different browsers example: Chrome, IE, Mozilla etc, because working in all browsers will take time and the efforts would be large.
There are a few scenarios in which there are complex interfaces. A perfect example will be a sign-up form (with the details) but blank UI. It means the functionality is fully working with buttons and links but no color and proper UI/UX image. The UI can be built in subsequent sprints with a different user story. So, separating the UI work with functionality is also a good way to split the user story.
There is a similar case when the user story says- As a <user> import data from a file and note says (Must support: CSV, Excel and XML) Split each supported file format with different user story as-
As a <user> I want to import data from a CSV.
As a <user> I want to import data from an Excel.
As a <user> I want to import data from an XML
Data: - Develop an initial story with a subset of data.
Example: Suppose I need to buy a car.
As a car buyer I want to know what is the best car in the market.
To come up with this decision, we need to investigate many things example consider mileage, cost, big, small, comfort, features etc. as a separate user story.
As a car buyer I want to buy a car with minimum cost.
As a car buyer I want to buy a car with good mileage.
So, a functionality is developed incrementally with different data inputs to buy a car.
Rules: - Relax business rules or technology standards in an initial version of a story.
Sometimes a user story is considered as large because of the different business rules or business standards.
Example: I want to buy something online for my kid’s birthday party, at least 15 items.
But website shows there is a limitation of 2 items per buyer.
Relaxing a rule is sometimes followed by a user story which is a great way to split.
For example, in a project, we develop some functionality (sort the employees with their skill set). This will be a database query and may take quite a few seconds depending on the load. So, there is a performance issue which is very important to consider. Better to split this as a separate user story.
Add the right amount of detail to the user story. Not too much detail not very less…The right balance is required…
But how to find out if the details are in correct proportion or not?
The answer is “Retrospective”. Ask each team member if the detail that was given was enough to complete the user story in one iteration.
JUST ENOUGH AND JUST IN TIME
The reason is that if the information provided by the BA is not sufficient to complete the user story in one iteration, then there will a delay in the project delivery and customer will not be happy. Similarly, if the detail is too much then a lot of work in upfront needs to be done and the project delivery will be on time and with the exact functionality which was decided before the start of the sprint more like a waterfall model
- A very important aspect while defining the user stories is about user roles. Avoid writing user stories from the perspective of a single user, identify different user roles who will interact with the software. Write stories for a single user.
- Create constraint cards or write tests to ensure the constraints are not violated.
- Keep the user interface out of the stories for as long as possible.
Let us see some examples of user stories which look fine but can be written in a much effective way.
1) As a Product Owner, I want to display my ratings on my webpage.
Issue/Drawbacks- It is not only about “you”. Focus on End users and stakeholders.
Correct: As a trainer, I want to display my ratings on my web page so that the visitor can choose wisely.
2) Design Brochure Layout
Drawbacks: Not independent, No business value.
Correct: As a restaurant owner, I want to design Brochure Layout so that the visitor gets order from it.
“Identification of who what and Why are the key factors”
So, the user story suggested format/template is:
As a <>, I want <> so that <Business value>.
Few more examples:
Story | Description |
|---|---|
The user can run the system on windows xp and Linux | Good user story, but still suggested to split into three (Windows,XP and Linux) |
The user can undo up to 50 commands | Good user story |
All graphing and charting are done by third party library. | Not a good user story as user will not care how graphing and charting are done. |
The system will use log4j to log all the messages | Not a good user story and log4j should not be written as logging mechanism. |
The user can export data to XML | Good user story |
A user can quickly master the system | Neither quickly and master should be defined. Needs to be changed |
Shilpi Jain
Shilpi is an experienced Scrum Master have 9+ years of experience in IT industry. She worked in companies like GE Healthcare and Nokia Siemens and currently working as a freelancer where she has contributed in many Technical Articles on Scrum/Agile, Project Management Tools (Atlassian, Jira and Rally), Project Management, Scrum Agile Certifications Questions and Answers (Test Paper Writing). She carries certifications like Certified Scrum Master, Fundamentals of Scum, Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB). She always shares her personal experiences in her Articles. She is a passionate writer and blogger about the Scrum and Agile Methodology.
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Any changes in the business requirements, market conditions or technology may result in changes in the Product Backlog.A Product Backlog may contain functional, non-functional, infrastructural, and architectural elements. They also work on the important risks that are needed to be removed or mitigated.The Product Backlog is refined and revised periodically so that it can be helpful for the next level of planning. This is known as Product Backlog Refinement. 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Scrum will certainly not fail you in doing so as it is designed to work for you, as long as you know how to make it work.Let’s address the common challenges that teams and organisations face during the implementation of Scrum and look at the possible solutions.1. Resistance to change: Organisations are generally resistant to changes. Change can be difficult and uncomfortable, hence people generally avoid it. Scrum may prove to be challenging to deploy for established organisations. The major challenge that they face is the change from yearly or semi-annual releases to weekly iterations. For an organisation to start using Scrum, it will require a shift in the fundamental mindset which will change the old habits and bring along new, more effective ones.Get out of comfort zone: It is very important to understand what an individual’s true feelings are towards adopting Scrum and why they resist changes. Learn about them and find measures to help them overcome it.An incremental approach can be observed as well. Start small, that is, involve one team and showcase their results. Let their experience inspire others.2. Distributed team: A major issue that a distributed (Scrum) team faces is communication. Conflicting working hours and a difference in time zones may diminish the overall effectiveness of the team, making collaboration difficult in many cases. Lack of communication may cause delays or unnecessary errors, which can lead to poor sustainability, ultimately affecting productivity.Everyone should be on the same page: It is very important to be considerate of the fact that team members of different nationalities will have different traditions. Apart from this, coordination and trust are very important as well. One can also take the following practical measures:A boot camp can be conducted where the whole team can come together. These sessions can give an understanding of a customer’s requirements and goals.Designated members can be relocated to different places, where they can work with the resident team on a temporary basis.Team members working in different time zones should be provided with different facilities like video conferencing, instant messaging software, and desktop-sharing abilities.Teams can be paired across different locations. It functions in a way that when one member is clocking off for the day, his corresponding team member may be starting his day across the globe. He can take over the work and continue working.3. Handling bugs and high-priority tasks: One can receive unexpected and urgent requests from stakeholders and customers. Bugs might also arise in the process. Some of these can be added to the Backlog, though it is recommended not to add all of them. They might be needed to be taken care of as soon as possible.Assign a person for the same and allow more time for bug fixing: Assign a person from the team who will focus all of his attention on tasks like fixing bugs, responding to urgent requests, etc. Also, with the development of progress, increase the time allocated for bug fixing.Scrum Vs KanbanAgile is a set of principles and ideas while Scrum and Kanban are frameworks that help teams and organizations to put these agile principles and values into practice to get things done.Kanban and Scrum follow the same principles, while their practices differ. The main aim behind both of these frameworks is to help you build better products.Kanban in a nutshell:Kanban is a tool which is used to organize work so that efficiency can be improved. Like Scrum, Kanban breaks down its work into small chunks and makes use of a Kanban Board. The Kanban Board is used to keep track of the work as it advances through the workflow. It not only displays the workflow but also optimizes the flow of tasks within different teams. The work to be done is time-bounded in Scrum, whereas Kanban limits the amount of work to be done in a condition, that is, it limits the ongoing tasks and the to-do list. Kanban visualizes the work and limits the work in progress so that the efficiency can be improved.There are several differences in the philosophies and practical applications of Kanban and Scrum, as well as many individual differences. Let’s have a look at them.ScrumFactorKanbanThe Scrum Team consists of the Scrum Master, Product Owner, and the Development Team.Team RolesThere are no defined roles in a Kanban Team. The roles need not be cross-functional.Each sprint is estimated or planned based on the Backlog Sheet.Work BoardWorkflow/ Work Item/ Kanban Board is used to track the work.Scrum emphasises on regular, fixed sprints.ScheduleThere is no iteration or time-boxing in Kanban. It has a continuous flow.No changes are made during the Sprints.Change philosophyChanges can happen at any time during the process.Releases are made at the end of each sprint.ReleaseThere is a continuous delivery in Kanban.Best applicable for teams which have stable priorities that will not change much over time.ApplicationBest applicable for projects which have a lot of varying priorities.Productivity is measured using velocity through sprints.Productivity MeasurementMeasures productivity by measuring the amount of time that a team takes to complete a piece of the project from the starting till the end.List of Scrum certificationsScrum Master certification is one of the oldest and also the most popular certification in Agile. Certifications help and are needed because they are a confirmation on the implementation and also a verification of the knowledge gained.They validate your knowledge in Agile and Scrum.The most popular certification programs are:Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM: Scrum Alliance)Certified Scrum Product Owner® (CSPO: Scrum Alliance)Certified Scrum Professional® (CSP: Scrum Alliance)SAFe® Agilist (SA)SAFe® Program Consultant (SPC4)Professional Scrum Master™ (PSM: Scrum.org)Certified Scrum Developer® (CSD: Scrum Alliance)LeSS (Large Scale Scrum)Scrum Master Certified (SMC™)Certified Agile Leader (CAL: Scrum Alliance)SAFe® 4.0 Advanced Scrum MasterSAFe® 4.0 for TeamsProfessional Scrum Product Owner™ (PSPO: Scrum.org )SAFe® 4.0 Product Manager/Product OwnerMost of the basic certifications do not require any experience as a Scrum Master and can be taken up directly after completing training. However, the Advanced certifications require completion of basic certification and work experience ranging from a minimum of 1 to 2 years.In conclusionThe Scrum Framework is simple and easy to understand, and so are the rules, artifacts, roles, and events. Scrum doesn’t keep a count of the amount of time that you have spent working but measures the tasks that have been accomplished. It makes one more efficient with their time and work.It is ideal for complex and difficult projects as the tasks are broken down into small user stories. The transparency throughout the development cycle along with the distribution of roles and planned events are added advantages. Progress can be observed in a small amount of time which might even lead to quick releases.But, if the team is accustomed to the traditional Waterfall model, then they might feel difficulty in adopting Scrum. But the long-term benefits outweigh the problems faced in the initial learning curve, making it a cogent framework to adopt for your organization.
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7599
- by KnowledgeHut
- 09 May 2019
- 20 mins read
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5 Silent Killers Of Agility (Using Scrum) You Cannot Ignore
By Jeremy Smith
We all know that ‘agile’ is the buzz in IT and has been for at least 10 years now. The draw is the iterative delivery and the ability to adapt to change. Iterative delivery means that work can be delivered in small functional chunks sooner vs. One big giant release after months or years. Unfortunately calling yourself agile and even adopting some of the principles are not enough. Below I highlight some of the silent killers to agility. 1. Ceremonies Lack Value – In scrum the following ceremonies exist:Daily Stand-up – A 5 to 15-minute meeting, intended to be conducted standing up (to ensure the time box) where the team members answer 3 questions: What did I do yesterday? What am I doing today? Do I have any roadblocks? This meeting is intended to be highly informative.Backlog Grooming – A weekly meeting where the team reviews the backlog and ensures stories have the proper level of detail (as determined by the team) and have a story point value.Sprint Planning – A meeting that kicks off each sprint (project cycle) where the Product Owner presents the work suggested for the sprint. The team reviews discuss and agrees on a body of work commitment.Retrospectives – In traditional projects, this is called a ‘post-mortem.’ In the scrum, this is done more frequently to ensure that the team quickly adjusts to repeat positive behaviors and discontinues negative behaviors.Demonstrations – A meeting that wraps each sprint where a team member presents the work completed to the necessary stakeholdersThe problem arises when one or many of these ceremonies are seen by the team as unnecessary. I am not prescribing a strict adherence to these ceremonies, but if you deem a ceremony to be part of your process, there’s a reason. If the team doesn’t understand that reason, you need to constantly reiterate the value to your team.2. Changing resources – A common characteristic of Agile teams is that they are stable. This means that the team is staffed with stability in mind. When the team stays together, unchanged, they learn how to best work together and they grow with each other. Every time a new member is added the team has to be partially focused with onboarding new team members and it messes with the team chemistry. Additionally, the team’s velocity will need to be re-established based on the changing resources.Solution: When possible, insulate your existing team(s) from change. If needed, spin-up completely new teams, so as to avoid impacting the existing teams.3. Scrum Master to Team Ratio – The Scrum Master is the public servant for the team. Their role is to coach, mentor, remove roadblocks and protect the team. With that role and those responsibilities in mind, it’s easy to see that the Scrum Master has to be intimately involved with the team to be able to perform their function and serve the team. When a Scrum Master is spread across too many teams their effectiveness is heavily diluted. Best case is to have each Scrum Master with only 1 team. I’ve seen and functioned in environments that capped the Scrum Master to 3 teams or less. That’s a little more of a stretch, but with staggering ceremonies and sprints, it’s possible. When the Scrum Master has greater than 3 teams I’ve personally experienced (as well as observed) a decline in the ability to serve the team.Solution: Invest in more Scrum Masters. Bring on new resources or promote from within, just get that Scrum Master to team ratio down.4. The Personality of the Scrum Master – It’s very common in many organizations to convert traditional project managers to the role of Scrum Master. That can work, but it can also be problematic. The Scrum Master needs to be the right personality. A traditional Project Manager is constantly pushing the team to meet deliverable timelines within budget. A Scrum Master, while still invested in the team’s deliverables, is more interested in helping the team and the team members become successful. The Scrum Master’s role and personality are very different from a Project Manager. As mentioned in the previous point, the Scrum Master is a coach and mentor. That takes a special personality. Also, the Scrum Master needs to be fluent in ‘Agile’ practices and practical applications.Solution: Avoid the simple decision of converting Project Managers to Scrum Masters. Instead, interview for people with the right personalities and skills. Ask servant leader-centric questions when interviewing for a Scrum Master. 5. Time Off and Holidays – On my very first ‘scrum’ team we would spend a portion of our sprint planning to evaluate the calendar of the sprint. Each team member would look at their true calendars for the sprint and provide a daily capacity. That ‘true capacity’ could then be evaluated when choosing what stories and how many to bring into the sprint. Just know, it would be a disappointment for the team to fail a sprint simply because they didn’t take into account holidays or personal time off (most of which is known).Solution: Create a calendar at the beginning of each sprint and have your team provide their ‘real’ daily capacity. Publish that calendar for the entire team to see. The exercise alone gets people thinking about deliverable commitments, but publishing the calendar is a constant reminder.These silent killers in agile implementation can be silently sabotaging your teams, enterprise, or company’s implementation of agile. Also, you might see a completely different set of silent killers. It’s up to you to determine your non-negotiable practices and then work to mitigate those killers.
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- by Jeremy Smith
- 13 Dec 2018
- 7 mins read
We all know that ‘agile’ is the buzz in IT and... Read More
How SAFe®️ Core Values Quicken The Progress Of An Agile Team
By Mukundan Bashyam
What is Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®️)?The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®️) helps businesses address the significant challenges of developing and delivering enterprise-class software and systems in the shortest sustainable lead time. It is an online, freely revealed knowledge base of proven success patterns for implementing Lean-Agile software and systems at enterprise scale.Developed in the field, SAFe®️ draws from three primary bodies of knowledge: Agile development, systems thinking, and Lean product development. It synchronizes alignment, collaboration, and delivery for large numbers of Agile teams. Scalable and configurable, SAFe®️ allows each organization to adapt it to its own business needs. It supports smaller-scale solutions employing 50–125 practitioners, as well as complex systems that require thousands of people. Why use SAFe®️ ? SAFe®️ combines the power of Agile with systems thinking and Lean product development. It synchronizes alignment, collaboration, and delivery for multiple Agile teams. As a result, SAFe®️ provides dramatic improvements to business agility, including productivity, time to market, quality, and employee engagement, and more.SAFe®️ is improving business outcomes for companies of all sizes across the world. It has produced dramatic increases in time to market, employee engagement, higher quality, higher customer satisfaction, and overall improved economic outcomes. It also helps create cultures that are more productive, rewarding, and fun.QualityBuilt-In Quality practices increase customer satisfaction and provide faster and more predictable value delivery. They also improve the ability to innovate. Without quality, the Lean goal of the maximum value in the shortest sustainable lead time cannot be achieved. ProductivityWhen productivity increases, system development economics improves, as does employee engagement. For team members, productivity is a critical, personal need. Everyone feels better when they’re contributing more and doing less wasteful work.Employee EngagementAccording to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), employees with the highest level of commitment perform 21 percent better and are 65 percent less likely to leave the organization. Clearly, employee engagement is directly linked to business performance.Faster Time to MarketLean-Agile frameworks allow businesses to deliver value to the market more quickly. Companies that adopt Agile development practices routinely gain first-mover advantages and enjoy the higher gross margins afforded to market leaders. SAFe®️ enterprises typically see a 30–75 percent (as much as 3x!) improvement in time to market.SAFe®️ configurationsSAFe®️ supports the full range of development environments with four out-the-box configurationsEssential SAFe®️Portfolio SAFe®️Large Solution SAFe®️Full SAFe®️Essential SAFe®️The Essential SAFe®️ configuration is the heart of the Framework and is the simplest starting point for implementation. It’s the basic building block for all other SAFe®️ configurations and describes the most critical elements needed to realize the majority of the Framework’s benefits. Together, the Team and Program Levels form an organizational structure called the Agile Release Train (ART), where Agile teams, key stakeholders, and other resources are dedicated to an important, ongoing solution mission.Large Solution SAFe®️The Large Solution SAFe®️ configuration is for developing the largest and most complex solutions that typically require multiple Agile release trains and Suppliers, but do not require portfolio-level considerations. The Solution Train organizational construct of the Large Solution Level helps enterprises that face the biggest challenges—building large-scale, multidisciplinary software, hardware, and complex IT systems. Building these solutions requires additional roles, artifacts, events, and coordination. Portfolio SAFe®️The Portfolio SAFe®️ configuration helps align portfolio execution to the enterprise strategy, by organizing Agile development around the flow of value, through one or more value streams. It provides business agility through principles and practices for portfolio strategy and investment funding, Agile portfolio operations, and Lean governance. Full SAFe®️The Full SAFe®️ configuration is the most comprehensive version of the Framework. It supports enterprises that build and maintain large integrated solutions, which require hundreds of people or more and includes all levels of SAFe®️: team, program, large solution, and portfolio. In the largest enterprises, multiple instances of various SAFe®️ configurations may be required. Scaled agile framework core values - SAFe®️ SAFe®️ is broad and deep and based on both Lean and Agile principles as its foundation.Importance of core valuesCore values are the fundamental beliefs of a person or organization.The core values are the guiding principles that speak behavior and action.Core values can help people to know what is right from wrong.It helps companies to determine whether they are working on the right path or not.SAFe®️ upholds four Core Values: alignment, built-in quality, transparency, and program execution, as illustrated in Figure below and described in the following sections.1. AlignmentAlignment ensures that many people act as one unit or team, all pulling in the same direction. Alignment in SAFe®️ is achieved when everyone in the portfolio, and every team member on every ART, understand the strategy and the part they play in achieving it.SAFe®️ delivers alignment by orchestrating strategic themes, vision, roadmap, and PI planning. Economic prioritization and the visible flow of work through the various Kanban systems and backlogs provide visibility and transparency.2.Built-in QualityBuilt-in quality is one of the important core values of SAFe®️. The enterprise’s ability to deliver new functionality with the fastest sustainable lead time and to be able to react to rapidly changing business environments is dependent on solution quality. But built-in quality is not unique to SAFe®️. Rather, it is a core principle of the Lean-Agile mindset, where it helps avoid the cost of delays associated with recall, rework, and defect fixing. The Agile Manifesto is focused on quality as well: “Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.”The following sections summarize recommended practices for achieving built-in quality.SoftwareSAFe®️’s software quality practices—many of which are inspired by Extreme Programming (XP)— help Agile software teams ensure that the solutions they build are high quality and adaptable to change. The collaborative nature of these practices, along with a focus on frequent validation, creates an emergent culture in which engineering and craftsmanship are key business enablers. Test-Driven DevelopmentTest-Driven Development (TDD) is a philosophy and practice that recommends building and executing tests before implementing the code or a component of a system. By validating them against a series of agreed-to tests, TDD—an Agile Testing practice—improves system outcomes by assuring that the system implementation meets its requirements. TDD, along with Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), is part of the ‘test-first’ approach to Build Quality into development. Writing tests first creates a more balanced testing portfolio with many fast, automated development tests and fewer slow, manual, end-to-end tests. Acceptance Test Driven DevelopmentAcceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) is a practice in which the whole team collaboratively discusses acceptance criteria, with examples, and then distills them into a set of concrete acceptance tests before development begins. It’s the best way to ensure that all have the same shared understanding of what it is we are building. It’s also the best way to ensure we have a shared definition of Done.Behavior-Driven DevelopmentBehavior Driven Development (BDD) is a Test-First, Agile Testing practice that provides Built-In Quality by defining (and potentially automating) tests before, or as part of, specifying system behavior. BDD is a collaborative process that creates a shared understanding of requirements between the business and the Development Team. Its goal is to help guide development, decrease rework, and increase flow. Without focusing on internal implementation, BDD tests are business-facing scenarios that attempt to describe the behavior of a Story, Feature, or Capability from a user’s perspective. When automated, these tests ensure that the system continuously meets the specified behavior even as the system evolves. That, in turn, enables Release on Demand. Automated BDD tests can also serve as the definitive statement regarding the as-built system behavior, replacing other forms of behavioral specifications.Continuous IntegrationThis is the practice of merging the code from each developer’s workspace into a single main branch of code, multiple times per day. This lessens the risk of deferred integration issues and their impact on system quality and program predictability. Teams perform local integration at least daily. But to confirm that the work is progressing as intended, full system-level integration should be achieved at least one or two times per iteration.RefactoringRefactoring is “a disciplined technique for restructuring an existing body of code, altering its internal structure without changing its external behavior.” A key enabler of emergent design, refactoring is essential to Agile. To maintain system robustness, teams continuously refactor code in a series of small steps, providing a solid foundation for future development.Pair WorkSome teams follow pair programming, but that may be too extreme for many. More generally, pair work may couple developers and testers on a story. Still, others prefer more spontaneous pairing, with developers collaborating for critical code segments, refactoring of legacy code, development of interface definition, and system-level integration challenges.HardwareHardware quality is supported by exploratory early iterations, frequent system-level integration, design verification, modeling, and set-based design. The Agile architecture supports software and hardware quality.1.System IntegrationDifferent components and subsystems—software, firmware, hardware, and everything else—must collaborate to provide effective solution-level behaviors. Practices that support solution-level quality include:Frequent system and solution-level integrationSolution-level testing of functional and Nonfunctional RequirementsSystem and Solution Demos2.ComplianceSAFe®️ enterprises that build high assurance systems define their approved practices, policies, and procedures in a Lean Quality Management System (QMS). These systems are intended to ensure that development activities and outcomes comply with all relevant regulations and quality standards, as well as providing the required documentation to prove it.3.TransparencyTransparency builds trust. Trust, in turn, is essential for performance, innovation, risk-taking, and relentless improvement. Trust exists when the business and development can confidently rely on another to act with integrity, particularly in times of difficulty. Without trust no one can build high-performance teams and programs, nor build (or rebuild) the confidence needed to make and meet reasonable commitments. And without trust, working environments are a lot less fun and motivating.Here are few SAFe®️ practices which enable trust:ARTs have visibility into the team’s backlogs, as well as other Program Backlogs.Teams and programs commit to short-term, visible commitments that they routinely meet4. Program ExecutionSAFe®️ places an intense focus on working systems and business outcomes. History shows us that while many enterprises start the transformation with individual Agile teams, they often become frustrated as even those teams struggle to deliver more substantial amounts of solution value, reliably and efficiently. That is the purpose of the ART, and that is why SAFe®️ focuses implementation initially at the Program Level. In turn, the ability of Value Streams to deliver value depends on the ability of the ARTs and Solution Trains.ConclusionThe four Core Values of alignment, built-in quality, transparency, and program execution represent the fundamental beliefs that are key to SAFe®️ effectiveness. These guiding principles help dictate behavior and action for everyone who participates in a SAFe®️ portfolio. Successful teams and programs implementing SAFe®️ have aligned their organizations along these core values and getting many benefits—employee engagement, productivity, quality, and time to market.
Rated 4.0/5
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- by Mukundan Bashyam
- 13 Dec 2018
- 7 mins read
What is Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®️)?The Sca... Read More
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3 comments
Informative and well articulated
good presentation mam.Thank you.
Very detailed article Thank you