Agile

The Agile model was designed by developers to put customer needs first.
This method focuses strongly on user experience and input. Plus, it makes
the software highly responsive to customer feedback. Agile seeks to release
software cycles quickly, to respond to a changing market. This requires a
strong team with excellent communication. However, if not implemented
carefully, it can also lead to a project going off-track by relying too heavily on
customer feedback.

Advantages

 It provides a responsive approach to the development of software since

it involves user and customer input.

 Agile is intended for everyone to focus on one task at a time.

 When compared to the waterfall model, the Agile model has a reduced
scope which results in better time allocation and estimation.

Disadvantages

 The final product depends on the customer. If the customer is not clear
on what is needed, the development team may move in the wrong
direction.

 If not implemented properly, it could lead to inadequate

documentation which hinders technology transfer to new members.

What are the 4 core values of Agile?

The Agile Manifesto outlines 4 Core Values and 12 Guiding Principles which
serve as a North Star for any team adopting an Agile methodology.

The 4 Core Values of Agile are:

 Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

o As sophisticated as technology gets, the human element will

always serve as an important role in any kind of project
management

o Relying too heavily on processes and tools results in an inability

to adapt to changing circumstances.

 Working software over comprehensive documentation

 o As important as documentation is, working software is more. This
value is all about giving the developers exactly what they need
to get the job done, without overloading them.

 Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

o Your customers are one of your most powerful assets.

o Whether internal or external customers, involving them

throughout the process can help to ensure that the end product
meets their needs more effectively.

 Responding to change over following a plan

o This value is one of the biggest departures from traditional

project management.

o Historically, change was seen as an expense, and one to be

avoided.

o Agile allows for continuous change throughout the life of any

given project. Each sprint provides an opportunity for review and
course correction.

Key components of Agile project management

 User stories

o Put simply, a user story is a high-level definition of a work

request.

o It contains just enough information so the team can produce a

reasonable estimate of the effort required to accomplish the
request.

o This short, simple description is written from the user’s

perspective and focuses on outlining what your client wants
(their goals) and why.

o The user story follows the general format "As a user I want
to functionality so that motivation.

 Example: As a manager, I want to be able to understand

my team members' progress, so I can better report our
success and failures.

 Sprints
 o Sprints are a short iteration, usually between one to three weeks
to complete, where teams work on tasks determined in the sprint
planning meeting. As you move forward, the idea is to
continuously repeat these sprints until your product is feature
ready.

o Once the sprint is over, you review the product see what is and
isn’t working, make adjustments, and begin another sprint to
improve the product or service.

o Sprints are implemented in the Agile framework Scrum but not in

some other frameworks like Kanban.

 Stand-up meetings

o Daily stand-up meetings (under 10 minutes), also known as

“daily Scrum meetings,” are a great way to ensure everyone is
on track and informed.

o These daily interactions are known as “stand up” because the

participants are required to stay standing, helping to keep the
meetings short and to the point.

 Agile board

o An Agile board helps your team track the progress of your

project.

o This can be a whiteboard with sticky notes, a simple Kanban

board, or a function within your project management software.

 Backlog

o As project requests are added through your intake system, they

become outstanding stories in the backlog.

o During Agile planning sessions, your team will estimate story

points to each task.

o During sprint planning, stories in the backlog are moved into the
sprint to be completed during the iteration.

o Managing your backlog is a vital role for project managers in an

Agile environment.

What are steps in the Agile methodology?

The goal of Agile is to produce shorter development cycles and more
frequent product releases than traditional waterfall project management.
This shorter time frame enables project teams to react to changes in the
client’s needs more effectively.

You can use a few different Agile frameworks—Scrum and Kanban are two of
the most common. Each framework implements Agile in different ways. For
example, Kanban teams use visuals to improve work-in-progress while Scrum
teams reflect on wins-and-losses to continuously improve.

However, each Agile methodology tends to follow the same basic process,
which includes:

 Project planning

o Like with any project, before beginning your team should

understand the end goal, the value to the organization or client,
and how it will be achieved.

o You can develop a project scope here, but remember that the
purpose of using Agile project management is to be able to
address changes and additions to the project easily, so the
project scope shouldn’t be seen as unchangeable.

 Product roadmap creation

o A roadmap is a breakdown of the features that will make up the

final product. This is a crucial component of the planning stage of
Agile, because your team will build these individual features
during each sprint.

o At this point, you will also develop a product backlog, which is a

list of all the features and deliverables that will make up the final
product. When you plan sprints later on, your team will pull tasks
from this backlog.

 Release planning

o In traditional waterfall project management, there is one

implementation date that comes after an entire project has been
developed.

o When using Agile, however, your project uses shorter

development cycles (called sprints) with features released at the
end of each cycle.
 o Before kicking off the project, you’ll make a high-level plan for
feature releases and at the beginning of each sprint, you’ll revisit
and reassess the release plan for that feature.

Some Agile frameworks, like Scrum, implement the following processes:

 Sprint planning

o Before each sprint begins, the stakeholders need to hold a sprint

planning meeting to determine what will be accomplished by
each person during that sprint, how it will be achieved, and
assess the task load.

o It’s important to share the load evenly among team members so

they can accomplish their assigned tasks during the sprint.

o You’ll also need to visually document your workflow for team

transparency, shared understanding within the team, and
identifying and removing bottlenecks.

 Daily stand-ups

o To help your team accomplish their tasks during each sprint and
assess whether any changes need to be made, hold short daily
stand-up meetings.

o During these meetings, each team member will briefly talk about
what they accomplished the day before and what they will be
working on that day.

o These daily meetings should be only 15 minutes long. They

aren’t meant to be extended problem-solving sessions or a
chance to talk about general news items. Some teams will even
hold these meetings standing up to keep it brief.

 Sprint review and retrospective

o After the end of each sprint, your team will hold two meetings:

 First, you will hold a sprint review with the project

stakeholders to show them the finished product.

 This is an important part of keeping open

communication with stakeholders.
  An in-person or video conference meeting allows
both groups to build a relationship and discuss
product issues that arise.

 Second, you will have a sprint retrospective meeting with

your stakeholders to discuss what went well during the
sprint, what could have been better, whether the task load
was too heavy or too light for each member, and what was
accomplished during the sprint.

 If your team is new to Agile project management,

don’t skip this essential meeting.

 It helps you gauge how much your team can tackle

during each sprint and the most efficient sprint
length for future projects.