Top 10 AgileConnection Articles of 2018

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Summary:
Agile isn't something you can adopt through tooling; you have to adhere to the agile principles every step of the way. The top articles from 2018 show that people were looking to improve and refine their agile practices, with popular topics including how to enhance your daily standups, retrospectives, and planning. Check out this roundup for ways to enhance your agile operations.

10. The Future of Agile Is Digital

Agile software development is no longer about a better way to develop software. Agile is about changing the way digital technologies, products, and services are created to take advantage of enhanced CPU power and the tools that power has made possible. Here's how digitalization is reshaping agile teams, projects, and the very definition of success. By Allan Kelly
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9. 5 Ways ScrumMasters Can Enhance Daily Standups

Daily standup meetings can turn into a perfunctory chore, with everyone simply going through the motions. It’s the ScrumMaster’s job to make sure that doesn’t happen and the meetings remain useful for everyone. With these five ideas, the ScrumMaster can actively help daily scrums be effective and encourage communication, transparency, and efficient delivery of value. By Ajeet Singh
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8. To Kick-Start Your Agile Project, Begin with a Minimum Viable Team

You've heard of a minimum viable product, which has only enough features to create a working model and provide feedback for further development. If you want to get started on a new project quickly, Allan Kelly suggests assembling a minimum viable team—only a few people, with only the necessary skills. They begin work right away, with a small budget and tight feedback loops, driving down risk. By Allan Kelly
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7. Agile Is Not a Process, It’s a Mindset

Agile transformation requires more than a change in process; it needs a change in mindset. In order to fully embrace agile and create a productive environment, you have to change how you think about priorities and failure. Priorities are decided proactively, not reactively, and failure is not punished, it is celebrated. Once you make this shift in perspective, you can reap the rewards of agile. By Lisa Rich
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6. 5 Tips for Getting Retrospectives Done Right

Unfortunately, many retrospectives are not productive. It may be that the discussions are unfocused, not enough data was gathered to be helpful for analysis, or the team concentrates too much on issues they can’t control. Retrospectives should be a key part of an agile process for helping the team improve. Here are five tips that will help you have more valuable retrospectives. By Marco Corona
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5. Rowing in the Same Direction: Use Value Streams to Align Work

Ambiguity abounds about value streams, so it’s good to clarify what they are, why they matter, and how to exploit them. It's important to help employees understand the organization's definition of value, to provide visibility on how business value is created, and to focus on the fast flow of value through the value streams. If everyone understands which direction to row the boat, they can steer toward it together. By Dominica DeGrandis
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4. 7 Qualities of High-Performing Agile Teams

A high-performing agile team delivers exceptional results time and again, irrespective of the challenges they encounter. While their results may seem magical, lots of effort goes into building such a team, on the part of team members themselves and their leaders. Here are seven common qualities high-performance teams exhibit that you should strive for when building your own agile team. By Pooja Wandile
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3. The Modern Role of the Agile Business Analyst

The business analyst (BA) has played a key role in software development. But within a modern agile context, the role of the BA is less clear, and there is some confusion as to whether the product owner role subsumes that of the traditional BA. Let’s look at the roles the BA can play with agile teams and how to fully leverage their expertise to supplement or augment that of the product owner. By Rich Stewart
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2. Agile Trends to Watch in 2018

With 2018 well underway, it seems like a good time to look ahead and think about what we hope to accomplish this year. Find out which agile trends these software experts are most looking forward to in the coming months. By Heather Shanholtzer
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1. Your Strategic Planning Should Be Agile, Too

What has agile taught us about trying to plan everything up front? It usually doesn’t work. So why does your company still use a yearly strategic planning approach that takes six months to develop and requires significant time and effort to pivot to new opportunities and challenges? We need to rethink strategic planning to incorporate design thinking, collaboration, and agility. By Phil Gadzinski
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Top AgileConnection Interviews of 2018 

How to Implement Agile Transformations at Large Companies: An Interview with Adam Auerbach
Why Bug Reporting Is More Important than Ever Before: An Interview with Sam Kaufman
Getting People to Embrace the Change Required for Agile: An Interview with Bob Galen
Understanding the Role of QA in DevOps: An Interview with Gene Gotimer
Giving Control Back to Software Developers: An Interview with Mike Faulise

 

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