Top 5 Agile Trends to Take You Safe Through 2019 and Beyond
By Shubhranshu Agarwal
In recent times, Agile has proved to be more than just a buzzword in the IT industry.The amazing results of Agile project management have widened its scope for implementation in other than IT industry also; therefore, we often come across the terms like “being Agile” and “doing Agile”.More and more organizations and enterprises irrespective of size and business niche are adopting Agile with an eye on commitment, delivery values, profitability, customer’s satisfaction etc. Because of continuous Agile evolvement, you need to align Agile practices with the latest trends to compete with excellence in 2018 and beyond. Following are the top five Agile trends that will help you plan and sail safe through the competitive marketing environment. 1) Short-Term Activities Oriented Agile Training:Organizing the short-term activities oriented intensive workshop/training, planned to train the participants for implementation of specific skill in real projects, is a new emerging trend in Agile organizations. The long and exhaustive classroom training of 4 or 5 days are no longer a preference. The short–term Agile workshops/training leave the Agile team members with new ideas and cohesive understanding of the Agile roadmap. The improved capability to execute short iterations supports to market the product early. In addition, Agile workshops are helping the organizations to develop multi-disciplinary Agile specialists to maximize overall performance.2) Rapid Feedback:Predictions are good to plan but the ever-changing working conditions, new demands, and altered quality standards etc deviate the results. The biggest trend in Agile management for 2018, I noticed recently, is to focus more on rapid feedbacks of developments rather than depending on the predicted outcome. Rapid feedback is vital for Agile teams to understand the way project development is going. Creating a friendly environment allowing every team member to comment and even seek the feedback saves considerable time besides giving a true picture of progress. Continuous Integration (CI) is the best tool to maximize the benefits of rapid feedback.3. Embracing Agile Spirit: Over the years, a number of organizations twisted & curled Agile methodology to meet their interests and suitability; as a result, some of these tasted just the semi-success. The new trend shows that organizations are embracing the Agile spirit as a part of organizational culture. Organizations are conducting short-period objective oriented trainings to strengthen the Agile mindset of team members.The application of modern Agile principles leads the organizations to deliver more values with satisfactory profit. There are four core characteristics of Agile mindset - value matters, small cycles matters, ecosystem in entire organization matters and culture matters. Agile Spirit embracement can be improved by following the five simple tactics- be transparent, be disciplined, ensure participation, get everyone aligned and set up collaboration as an Agile tool. 4) Cloud-Based Solutions:More Agile teams are adopting cloud-based solutions to find new ways for envision (prediction), coding, testing and deployment faster than they are/were doing now with the intention to have an edge over their competitors. Server-less computing has become the favorite of Agile teams; as, it reduces the need of ‘always on’ traditional server infrastructure, in addition to reducing the infrastructure and operational costing. The organizations that follow cloud-based Agile methodology have enormous competitive advantages supporting for higher quality, greater agility, faster market responsiveness, reducing costing, improving client’s experience etc. It can be said that Cloud technology is going to be an Agile accelerator.5) More Focus on ‘Business Value’ of User Stories:“If you can’t measure the results, you can’t improve the process” fine fits to modern Agile culture. Today, Agile organizations are more focused on measuring the lagging indicators like ROI of new products/ features, Net Promoter Score (NPS) of team members & customers, cycle time and operational stability etc. Using three-dimensional metrics, encompassing complexity, ROI and business value, is the new approach to measure the business value of a user story. Identifying business values before writing a user story rather than writing a user story and then evaluating the business values is a significant shift in modern Agile practice.Summary:Agile culture adoption is growing fast in organizations around the world. Internal Agile coaches, consistent Agile practices, and implementation of a common tool across Agile teams are the top three factors encouraging businesses to continue their Agile journey. According to ‘12th annual State of Agile report’, the top five Agile benefits reported by the organizations are –Better project visibility – through- rapid feedbackFaster delivery – through – cloud-based solutionEnhanced productivity – through – activities oriented learning workshopsImproved ability to manage the changing priorities – through – deep focus on business value of a user storyBetter IT alignment – through – Agile spirit embracementKnowledgeHut provides objective-oriented customized Agile training that helps the organizations match the steps with the latest trends in Agile methodology.
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Shubhranshu Agarwal
Shubhranshu Agarwal is a technical writer with special interest in business management and project management subjects. Over the 15 years of freelance content writing, he has written a lot to help the industries, businesses and project managers to achieve the sustainable growth by implementing strategic critical management methodologies.
Posts by Shubhranshu Agarwal
Top 5 Agile Trends to Take You Safe Through 2019 and Beyond
By Shubhranshu Agarwal
In recent times, Agile has proved to be more than just a buzzword in the IT industry.The amazing results of Agile project management have widened its scope for implementation in other than IT industry also; therefore, we often come across the terms like “being Agile” and “doing Agile”.More and more organizations and enterprises irrespective of size and business niche are adopting Agile with an eye on commitment, delivery values, profitability, customer’s satisfaction etc. Because of continuous Agile evolvement, you need to align Agile practices with the latest trends to compete with excellence in 2018 and beyond. Following are the top five Agile trends that will help you plan and sail safe through the competitive marketing environment. 1) Short-Term Activities Oriented Agile Training:Organizing the short-term activities oriented intensive workshop/training, planned to train the participants for implementation of specific skill in real projects, is a new emerging trend in Agile organizations. The long and exhaustive classroom training of 4 or 5 days are no longer a preference. The short–term Agile workshops/training leave the Agile team members with new ideas and cohesive understanding of the Agile roadmap. The improved capability to execute short iterations supports to market the product early. In addition, Agile workshops are helping the organizations to develop multi-disciplinary Agile specialists to maximize overall performance.2) Rapid Feedback:Predictions are good to plan but the ever-changing working conditions, new demands, and altered quality standards etc deviate the results. The biggest trend in Agile management for 2018, I noticed recently, is to focus more on rapid feedbacks of developments rather than depending on the predicted outcome. Rapid feedback is vital for Agile teams to understand the way project development is going. Creating a friendly environment allowing every team member to comment and even seek the feedback saves considerable time besides giving a true picture of progress. Continuous Integration (CI) is the best tool to maximize the benefits of rapid feedback.3. Embracing Agile Spirit: Over the years, a number of organizations twisted & curled Agile methodology to meet their interests and suitability; as a result, some of these tasted just the semi-success. The new trend shows that organizations are embracing the Agile spirit as a part of organizational culture. Organizations are conducting short-period objective oriented trainings to strengthen the Agile mindset of team members.The application of modern Agile principles leads the organizations to deliver more values with satisfactory profit. There are four core characteristics of Agile mindset - value matters, small cycles matters, ecosystem in entire organization matters and culture matters. Agile Spirit embracement can be improved by following the five simple tactics- be transparent, be disciplined, ensure participation, get everyone aligned and set up collaboration as an Agile tool. 4) Cloud-Based Solutions:More Agile teams are adopting cloud-based solutions to find new ways for envision (prediction), coding, testing and deployment faster than they are/were doing now with the intention to have an edge over their competitors. Server-less computing has become the favorite of Agile teams; as, it reduces the need of ‘always on’ traditional server infrastructure, in addition to reducing the infrastructure and operational costing. The organizations that follow cloud-based Agile methodology have enormous competitive advantages supporting for higher quality, greater agility, faster market responsiveness, reducing costing, improving client’s experience etc. It can be said that Cloud technology is going to be an Agile accelerator.5) More Focus on ‘Business Value’ of User Stories:“If you can’t measure the results, you can’t improve the process” fine fits to modern Agile culture. Today, Agile organizations are more focused on measuring the lagging indicators like ROI of new products/ features, Net Promoter Score (NPS) of team members & customers, cycle time and operational stability etc. Using three-dimensional metrics, encompassing complexity, ROI and business value, is the new approach to measure the business value of a user story. Identifying business values before writing a user story rather than writing a user story and then evaluating the business values is a significant shift in modern Agile practice.Summary:Agile culture adoption is growing fast in organizations around the world. Internal Agile coaches, consistent Agile practices, and implementation of a common tool across Agile teams are the top three factors encouraging businesses to continue their Agile journey. According to ‘12th annual State of Agile report’, the top five Agile benefits reported by the organizations are –Better project visibility – through- rapid feedbackFaster delivery – through – cloud-based solutionEnhanced productivity – through – activities oriented learning workshopsImproved ability to manage the changing priorities – through – deep focus on business value of a user storyBetter IT alignment – through – Agile spirit embracementKnowledgeHut provides objective-oriented customized Agile training that helps the organizations match the steps with the latest trends in Agile methodology.
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- by Shubhranshu Agarwal
- 01 Aug 2018
- 6 mins read
In recent times, Agile has proved to be more than ... Read More
What Is Kanban In Agile Values, Principles, Benefits & Career
By Shubhranshu Agarwal
Introduction:Kanban is getting a wide-scale popularity in Agile organizations because of its unmatched values, principles, and benefits. The certified Kanban training courses, designed for different levels, allow the program managers, delivery managers, project managers, software product developers and business analysts etc to choose the best and to boost up their career growth. What is Kanban?Kanban methodology gets its name from its literary meaning- visual signaling used to start an action to control and manage the work in progress. The Kanban methodology reflects that the work progress flows continuously through a structured system instead of being managed according to prefixed time boxes.Kanban is a widely used methodology to design and improve the flow management of knowledge work. It allows the Agile organizations to start the project with the existing workflow system and to drive evolutionary changes gradually. They can do this by visualizing their flow of work, limit work in progress (WIP) and stop- starting and start finishing. Eight Kanban Values:Project development teams applying Kanban methodology embrace the following eight values to improve the quality and performance:Customer Focus: Kanban methodology guides to optimize the workflow to serve a specific purpose ensuring the ultimate satisfaction of customer.Collaboration: It encourages consistent improvement. Project team members work collaboratively to find appropriate solutions for the process improvements. Kanban guides to improve the way teams work together.Understanding: It guides to understand the working pattern within organization, as well as, the tailored approach to make required changes.Transparency: The core strength of Kanban transparency comes from process visualization, introduction of new policies and creation of feedback loops. Kanban teams enjoy the transparency at all the levels like status update, process understanding, work visibility, decision-making process, and change of opportunities. Leadership: Kanban encourages leadership with the ability to inspire other team members for continuous improvement to deliver maximum value.Agreement: Everyone is committed to continuous improvement and agree to move collaboratively towards the goals accommodating and respecting the differences of approach and opinion.Balance: The different viewpoints, capabilities, and aspects should be balanced to achieve the expected results.Respect: It encourages respecting the current responsibilities and roles of individuals. By respecting the current roles of team members, it is easier to gain their willingness for the recommended changes.4 Principles of Kanban Agile Methodology:The Kanban Agile methodology involves the following 4 principles:The quick communication should be intuitive and agile through easy to comprehend visual signals.Different tasks, with feasible limit, should flow simultaneously without affecting the quality.The task flow should be periodically controlled through tests and KPIs to judge the future problems well in time.The Kanban Agile methodology seeks consistent process improvement as well as adding values to each project development stage. The final result should be fine-tuned to client’s needs.Kanban Benefits for Agile Organizations:The use of Kanban methodology in Agile project management delivers multiple benefits to organizations; the more commonly experienced 7 benefits are:Kanban Improves The Visibility For All:Kanban information board offers the holistic view of bottlenecks, progress, blockers, process inefficiencies and impediments at a glance. The latest Information is available not only to project team members but also to external stakeholders.Kanban Values Business Value:Kanban promotes cost-based decision-making to identify, prioritize, and execute the most value-added works at the earliest. The guiding mantra is – “what features will differentiate the organization from the rivals?”Kanban Reduces Context-Switching:The ‘Personal WIP Limits’ in Kanban Agile methodology relieves the teams from being overburdened. The work items to be delivered are numbered with priority; it helps to complete high-priority and high-value tasks earlier giving more values to organization.Kanban Reduces Value-Less Activities:The WIP limits make the Kanban information board a pull-based system that helps in on-time completion of high-quality tasks by reducing the valueless activities.Kanban Improves Sustainability:Kanban helps to manage the work at a sustainable and smooth pace eliminating distressing peaks that often lead the team members to frustration, low performance and make them less focused on the task.Kanban Introduces Kaizen Culture:Kanban introduces Kaizen’s concept evolving around the continuous and incremental improvement all across the information board. The flow-based on-time smooth delivery of software reduces the cost and efforts invested for inventory management.Kanban Makes Predictions Reliable:The predictions based on the latest real data are more reliable rather than the project manager’s guess. The timely predictions improve the delivery standards continuously. Implementation of Kanban in Agile:Kanban is an Agile methodology as it fulfils all the 12 principles of Agile manifesto whilst it is incremental not iterative. Kanban offers a set of tools that helps to become more Agile. Agile teams can use Kanban tool set to improve the existing processes. The optimized WIP according to the team's capacity helps the Agile software development teams to have more flexible planning options, faster outputs, better transparency and a clearer focus.The purpose of using Kanban board is to ensure that workflow is as per set standards, and all the dependencies are identified and resolved at the earliest. The basic Kanban board has a three-step workflow:Kanban board keeps the Agile team members updated for any state of work item at any point of time. The Kanban board helps the Agile teams build compliance in planning, reduce the cycle time, focus on value, to be more responsiveness to modification, to deliver the product effectivelyScope of Kanban Training:A variety of classroom and team/corporate Kanban training courses is available allowing the project management professionals to choose the best as per profession, career objective and experience. The more in-demand courses are-Kanban system design (LKU) training courseKanban management professional (LKU) training courseLean Kanban training courseTeam Kanban practitioner (LKU) training course Team Kanban Practitioner is the entry-level course designed to introduce the practitioner with Kanban board concepts and visualization tactics that help for better project management. Lean Kanban training course, widely growing popular in software industry, provides insights into implementation of Lean and Kanban principles with WIP model. Kanban management professional training course provides understanding of Kanban cadence encompassing commitment, replenishment, delivery planning etc. Kanban system design training course is designed to train the professionals for introducing the Kanban system into the existing workflow. Career Prospects with Kanban Certification:Kanban is getting a wide-scale popularity in IT project management and other business sectors including manufacturing because it can overcome the problems often faced while implementing Scrum and Waterfall methodologies in Agile. Because of growing competencies, it is not necessary to break up the complete project into small and uniform units before the start; here, Kanban has an edge as it enables the project development team to work over the mixture of different size units with different level complexities as per priority. Kanban certification demonstrates the commitment to learn the best, and, organizations value this quality. A certified Kanban training course is the best pick for the program managers, delivery managers, project managers, software product developers. and business analysts etc to boost their career growth almost instantly.
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- by Shubhranshu Agarwal
- 25 Jul 2018
- 2 mins read
Introduction:Kanban is getting a wide-scale popula... Read More
What is Estimation Projection & Validation in Agile?
By Shubhranshu Agarwal
Ensuring successful software development within constraints of ‘scope, schedule, and cost’ has been a conundrum that every software development methodology tries to solve. In any scenario, we can fix only one of these 3 parameters. For example, if we fix the software estimation, we have to keep the schedule variable according to the new changes in scope. Similarly, if we fix the schedule, we will have to adjust with varying scope and cost. Fixing of all these three factors is against Agile culture. The scope keeps changing as the project makes progress on the agreed timeline, so, the estimation becomes a challenging task for the product owner.What is Estimation in Agile?Agile software estimation is used for realistic planning to implementing the project requirements as per commitments. The estimation also supports for projections that are used by the product owners to prioritize the tasks and to schedule product releases. To simplify the task, estimation can be made a 10-step process as shown in fig. 1:How to Do Realistic Estimation (Techniques):The following three techniques are often used for Agile estimation:1. Expert Opinions: By collecting the opinions of people with previous experience on similar project types.2. Analogies: By comparing an already delivered similar project to current project; the parameters are more accurate and scalable.3. Disaggregation: By breaking the project development into the smaller units.All the three above-mentioned techniques can be used simultaneously also. Planning Poker is the most widely used estimation perfectly blended with opinions, analogies and disaggregated tasks. To know more about ‘Planning Poker’, you can refer to "Agile Estimating and Planning" – a book written by Mike Cohn. Validation in Agile Estimating & Planning:Sometimes, the project team members get confused by the terms verification and validation because of the thin separating line. Verification is focused to assess – ‘Did I build what I said I would?’, while, the validation is focused on - “Did I build what I need to satisfy the customer and organization?”The validation helps you verify the methods and results. The validation in Agile makes you more confident for having accurate and goal directing database derived by using the most effective technique. To simplify the process, the validation exercise can be stipulated in three steps:1. Demo in Sprint ReviewThis type of validation demonstrates the software features/functionality completed during the particular sprint in the presence of customer/ advisory board or user group to highlight progress and to gain the important feedback. The gained feedbacks ensure that the team is on the right track. This validation exercise can be programmed as per sprint cadence; and, you should have sufficient time for two or more end-of-sprint reviews if there are different user groups. The sprint review validation demands 1:1 demo also if you need to satisfy a particular person in user group.2. Hands-on Experience:Under this validation model, also called ‘Alpha testing’, customers get hands-on experience of using the software or particular feature in a pilot working environment. This model is highly effective for cloud-based applications where a number of users can access and use the software. It is usually programmed for once or twice for each release. The participants are selected on the basis of created customer profiles. 3. On-the-premise Installation Validation:At this validation stage, the customers install the delivered software over their systems in the actual working environment. The exercise is often called acceptance testing or Beta testing also. It gives you feedback on how the developed software can be used in other environments with different user interfaces. This validation exercise is commenced at the last stage of release. All the concerned users are the participants of on-the-premise installation validation.Conclusion:The estimating in Agile environment helps to implement the viable solutions and is the key startup exercise for Agile project development. To get the training for Agile estimation and planning, you may visit – KnowledgeHut. Agile Estimation and planning training provides an understanding of estimation tools and techniques helping you manage iterative processes better.
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- by Shubhranshu Agarwal
- 29 May 2018
Ensuring successful software development within co... Read More
How Does SAFe 4.5 Implementation Help An Organization Grow Fast?
By Shubhranshu Agarwal
All the enterprises, irrespective of their size, nature, and strengths, must learn to adapt quickly to ever-changing technology, trends, and economic conditions. Only the companies understanding the urgency to change the ways of managing the challenges and working can succeed in the highly competitive environments. The Scale Agile Framework (SAFe), originally released in 2011, helps businesses to counter the complex challenges of developing and delivering projects in the shortest period, while sustaining the profit ratio by using the advanced methodologies.Here are 5 key areas where you can endlessly improve with Leading SAFe 4.5.What is SAFe & SAFe 4.5?SAFe, also known as ‘enterprise-scale development methodology’ is a framework designed by Dean Leffingwell. This freely available ‘information base’ guides the organisations to apply Lean-Agile practices to improve the overall performance and bring in better alignment, transparency and built-in quality within the organisation. The successful SAFe implementation helps the organisations to work with portfolio, program, team, and optionally large solution levels with much improved capabilities through the optimised use of available resources.SAFe 4.5, the latest version of the popular SAFe framework is the result of unabated pursuit of Scaled Agile Inc. to match the diverse needs of different sized organisations. SAFe 4.5 is focused more on four key areas:Essential SAFe & ConfigurabilityLean Startup & Lean UX Scalable powered innovationDevOps & continuous deliveryImplementation roadmapSafe 4.5 For The Organizations Poised For Rapid Growth:The number of organizations large and small both are getting outstanding competitive benefits by SAFe 4.5 implementation. The more in common revealed SAFe 4.5 implementation benefits apart from several others include:10 – 50% more motivated happier employees30 – 75% quick value delivery to market 20 – 50% improvement in productivity25 – 75% reduction in defectsBefore going ahead for discussing the most experienced SAFe 4.5 benefits in detail, I would like to highlight 8 key SAFe 4.5 characteristics inspiring more and more organisations to adopt it:Publicly available & free to useAvailable in a highly usable formPractical for most of the organizationsSpecifies terms, concepts & practices clearlyConveniently codifies agile practicesOffers extensions to follow Agile practicesRegularly updated with reliable support modelSo, coming to the point ‘how the SAFe 4.5 implementation helps the organizations’; here are 5 key areas where the improvement is experienced and shared the most after SAFe 4.5 implementation:Essential SAFe Offers Flexible Configurability:The ‘Essential SAFe’ feature of SAFe 4.5 helps the organisations to start up swiftly by understanding the required products/services earlier. Essential SAFe identifies the key elements to make the organisations assured of achieving the desired results. By incorporating Essential SAFe in organisations realise more benefits of implementing SAFe.Lean Startup & Lean UX Scalable Power the Innovation:Lean UX & Lean portfolio management features of SAFe 4.5 help the organizations innovate and implement a strategy in the swift mode to taste the benefits earlier. Agile Teams & UX designers, using Lean Startup & Lean UX Scalable model, accept that the ‘accurate answer’ is not known in advance; so, they apply Agile methodologies to avoid Big Design Up-front (BDUF). Lean UX innovation methodology instills the confidence, sense of ownership, and the feel of ‘1 team, 1 product’; as a result, organizations deliver the better quality products in a shorter time span.DevOps improves Stability, Availability, Reliability, and Security:DevOps, a new feature in SAFe 4.5, is a cultural mindset defining a set of technical practices. It improves communication, automation, close cooperation and integration among the professionals engaged in planning, developing, testing, deployment, release, and maintaining the solution. SAFe 4.5 empowers the organizations to break down the silos and to empower Agile Release Trains (ART) & Solution Trains to deliver innovative features to end users.Implementation Roadmap to Accumulate Substantial Benefits:Implementation Roadmap, the key feature of SAFe 4.5, addresses the role of SAFe program consultants working externally and internally both as the change agents. SAFe Program Consultants are the change agents hired to apply their expertise in SAFe implementation with intrinsic motivation to improve the processes. The new way of working helps the organisations accumulate the substantial benefits like enhanced productivity, better employee engagement etc.Conclusion:To experience SAFe 4.5 benefits, the organisations need to embrace the Lean-Agile mindset to apply Lean-Agile principles. The leaders must identify the Value Streams and Agile Release Trains (ARTs) to implement the Lean-Agile portfolio, to build the quality, and to sustain the continuous value delivery system. And, the ‘culture evolvement’ is the key to success. Are you ready for it – to accept the changes?Creating the SAFe 4.5 Implementation roadmap is all about an incremental approach to plan and learn a bit. To continue SAFe 4.5 implementation effectively and to ensure the workforce engagement, the projects leads in Agile organisations must share their view of SAFe implementation. The certified SAFe 4.5 experts are expected to maintain the energy and enthusiasm that they devote to short iteration cycles.
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- by Shubhranshu Agarwal
- 22 May 2018
- 2 mins read
All the enterprises, irrespective of their size, n... Read More
What is Agile Planning & Agile Planning Levels?
By Shubhranshu Agarwal
What is Agile Planning? Agile planning is focused on getting the answers to simple questions like - what is to be built, when will it be completed, how much will it cost and who should be involved etc. The project managers also explore hidden dependencies for various activities to minimize the idle time and optimize delivery period. Agile planning revolves around measuring the velocity and efficiency of an Agile team to assess when it can turn the user stories into processes, production-ready software, and quality product delivery. The ultimate goal of Agile planning is to have a clear picture of project vision, production roadmap with sprint schedule, and business interests. To simplify the things, Agile planning can be stipulated of different levels - product vision; product roadmap; release; iteration; daily commitment. Level 1: Agile Planning For Product Vision – Five Tips: Agile planning starts with product vision creation ensuring that strategies are aligned properly and the development team spends its time on creating the right valuable product. The product vision guides the team members for the shared goal like a lighthouse. The product vision statement tells about ‘how the product supports organization’s strategies.’ You can simplify the process of Agile product vision development by making it a four-step exercise – development, drafting, validation, finalizing. The following five tips will help you to get the most out of it: Product vision should deliver the unique feel of ownership to keep you motivated. Validate your product vision with all the stakeholders, Scrum team members, users etc. Develop the product vision iteratively & incrementally with the scope to make it better over time. The product vision pitch should address all the key concerns of different stakeholder groups pertaining to quality, product goals, competition, longevity and maintenance needs etc. Focus your product vision on the values for users and customers not merely on the most advanced technology. Level 2: Agile Product Roadmap Planning– Five Tips: An Agile product roadmap is a plan that describes the way the product is likely to grow; it also facilitates for learning to change. To succeed in Agile management, you need to have a goal-oriented roadmap as it provides crucial information about everyday work by the team. As a powerful Agile management tool, it helps to align all the stakeholders and to estimate sufficient budget for quality product development as per schedule. Creating effective roadmap is often a challenge because changes occur unexpectedly in an Agile environment; however, the following five tips will help you plan the most effective roadmap: Do all the necessary prep work including describing & validating the product strategy. To know more about ‘Product strategy in the Agile world’, visit - https://svpg.com/product-strategy-in-an-agile-world/ . Focus your product roadmap on goals, benefits, objectives, acquiring customers, removing technical debt and increasing engagement etc. Let your product roadmap tell a coherent story about the likely development of a product. To simplify the task, you can divide the product roadmap into two parts- internal product roadmap and external roadmap. The internal product roadmap is focused on development, service, supporting groups, marketing, sales etc; while, the external roadmap is focused on prospective & existing customers. Keep the product roadmap simple and realistic to make the features understood by everyone concerned. Make your product roadmap measurable; so, think twice before adding timelines and deadlines. Level 3: Release Planning – Five Tips: In Agile landscape, the release is a set of product increments released to the customer. The release plan defines how much work your team will deliver by the mentioned deadline. Release planning is the collaborative task involving Scrum master (facilitates the meeting), Product owner (shares product backlog view), Agile team (provides insights into technical dependencies & feasibility) and Stakeholders (the trusted advisors). The following five tips will help you in effective release planning: Focus on goals, benefits, and results. Take dependencies and uncertainties into account. Release early but don't release just for the sake of scheduled releasing. Only release the work that is 'Done'. To know more about ‘Definition of Done (DoD)’ in Agile, plz visit - https://www.knowledgehut.com/blog/agile-management/definition-of-done-use-in-agile-project . Each release process has the scope for betterment. Continuous release process improvement helps you deliver more values for the product. 5 levels of #Agile planning ... and the DoD. #ProjectManagement #pmot https://t.co/qTalLiJS1S by John Goodpasture pic.twitter.com/dlWuMTnC8e — JoseAntonio Martinez (@MartinezBuenoJA) November 14, 2016 Level 4: Iteration Planning – Five Tips: The iteration planning is done by holding a meeting, where all the team members determine the volume of backlog items they can commit to deliver during the next iteration. The commitment is made according to the team's velocity and iteration schedule. The following five tips will help you in effective iteration planning: Span the iteration planning meeting maximum up to 4 hours. The planning meeting is organized by the team and for the team; so, everyone should participate. Avoid committing anything that exceeds the historical team’s velocity. Keep time for ‘retrospectives’ in the past sprints before planning for the next one. To know more about ‘Agile retrospective’, visit - https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/heartbeatretro/. Follow the four principles – prepare, listen, respect & collaborate. Level 5: Daily Commitment Planning– Five Tips: Like many other planning activities for Agile management, the daily commitment planning also needs the synchronized partnership of teams. The daily planning meeting is focused on completing the top-priority features. The 15-minute standup meeting facilitates face-to-face communication on individual’s progress and impediments if any. The following five tips will help you in progress-oriented daily commitment planning: Keep it around the task board. Start on time regardless of who is present or not. Let each team member go through the questions like - what he did yesterday, what is his plan for today, and, is there any impediment?. Use ‘Parking Lot’ for the unresolved issues. The purpose of daily Agile-Scrum planning is to let the team members know about ‘being done’, ‘needs to be done’ and ‘hindrance if any’. Anything out of this scope should be listed in ‘Parking Lot’ to be dealt later. Do preparation ahead of time. The team members should know ‘what they need to share’. Conclusion: Agile planning levels are not time-consuming or complex; instead, these help product owners focus on the right group of professionals and the product development stage. The strategic Agile planning for different levels reduces considerable time, effort, and cost that is otherwise invested in repetition, correction, and last minute meetings etc.
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- by Shubhranshu Agarwal
- 11 May 2018
- 5 mins read
What is Agile Planning? Agile planning is focus... Read More
Does The Lack Of Knowledge Sharing Affect Your Scrum Productivity?
By Shubhranshu Agarwal
Knowledge sharing is the biggest advantage of working in a group or as a team. The proper utilization of knowledge of every team member contributes to successful project delivery. However, a number of organizations have experienced major setbacks just because of not detecting and resolving the issue of ‘lack of knowledge sharing’ on time. In a Scrum – Agile organization, knowledge sharing becomes more important because Scrum, an Agile framework, is designed to complete the software development project through the collective efforts of the team. Knowledge Sharing Barriers –You May Not Know: To deal with the issue effectively, we can divide the commonly identified knowledge barriers into three categories: 1. Individual Knowledge Sharing Barriers: Low awareness about the benefits of knowledge sharing with others. Insufficient evaluation, feedback & communication. Lack of interaction between the team members 2. Organisational Knowledge Sharing Barriers: Lack of managerial direction for clear communication Inadequate spaces, resources and time to share and gain new knowledge Lack of transparency in recognition of performance 3. Technological Knowledge Sharing Barriers Improper integration of IT systems & processes Frequent obstructions to communication flows lack of compatibility between working process, project planning, execution and management Reluctance to use the latest technology due to lack of training Scrum helps teams deliver products with constant adaptation & improvement. A social entertainment and gaming company also reported a 73% gain in productivity.#agile #scrum #game #gaming #entertainment #tech #technology #software #adapt #adaptation #productivity #improvement pic.twitter.com/OjKsMutKR1 — Exceptional_LLC (@Exceptional_LLC) May 6, 2018 Negative Impacts of Knowledge Sharing Barriers on Scrum Productivity: A number of times the well-maintained velocity of Scrum projects takes a big hit when a star performer resigns all of sudden. The best you can do is to extract the maximum knowledge out of him during his stay period and to share the gathered information to another team member; it slows down the project besides developing uncertainties in the minds of your Scrum team members. The numbers of Scrum team members are questioned when an employee quits.Many a time, this questioning negatively affect their productivity and commitment both. The very common silo in Scrum Project Management you experience is when a newcomer joins your team and the team members are asked to pull that new member up to the required velocity. Many times, Scrum team responds to changes to deliver the best but few members still don’t believe in comprehensive documentation; it creates the dependency on each other. In the absence of proper training and commonly accepted Agile – Scrum culture, primarily focused on knowledge sharing, most of the projects run at a low velocity. Lack of knowledge sharing is the major cause of reworking that increases the delivery period and the cost as well. Effective knowledge sharing, essentially is the key to building self-organizing Agile teams. This is best described in the following video- 5 ways to Improve Knowledge Sharing for Better Scrum Productivity: The proper flow of knowledge sharing within Scrum team dramatically improves the productivity with quality. Scrum Master indeed is a manager as he/she manages the process of exchanging information. There is a lot of knowledge in the Scrum team members; and, getting it out on time for the people who need it is a challenge for Scrum leaders. The following 5 hacks will surely help you improve knowledge sharing: Store the Documents for Anytime Usage: Document all the knowledge and put it safely in an easy-to-access repository. The scope of this tactic covers the project relevant data of all the laptops and tablets also. 2. Conduct Demo meetings Within Team Or With Client: While preparing yourself for the demo meeting, you will need the documents to show the development; as a result, all the shared information will be available to you and for all. 3. Pair Programming: The idea behind ‘Pair Programming’ is to assign a particular code work to two programmers at the same time to prevent knowledge silos and to encourage transparency as well. It also helps both the developers to improve the quality by going through the ideas of each other. In addition, it takes care of ‘surprise resigning’. 4. Motivate Scrum Team Members: Most of the people don’t want to share their knowledge unless they expect something in return; therefore, Scrum members need motivational support by extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. 5. Go for Extreme Programming (XP) Extreme Programming (XP) is an Agile framework powered by the practical values of courage, communication, feedback, simplicity, respect. Make it a part of your Scrum strategy. Conclusion: The zero-gap knowledge sharing through the fastest route is the key to success in Scrum projects. It is also true that one roadmap doesn’t take everyone to the desired destination but the strategy with clear vision and goal matters; and, same is the case with knowledge sharing in Scrum. The ‘Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO)’ and ‘ScrumMaster (CSM) Certification Trainings’ help you deliver the best quality product at the earliest through strategic knowledge sharing system.
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- by Shubhranshu Agarwal
- 10 May 2018
- 4 mins read
Knowledge sharing is the biggest advantage of work... Read More