agile transition

Many agile teams rework previously deployed stories, even after plenty of in-sprint testing. Even well-groomed, refined stories, framed with typical, alternate, and error scenarios and gracefully described in well-formed Gherkin, continue to encounter all sorts of bugs.

Modern software delivery involves lean principles, DevOps practices, and of course tools. Implementing those elements in harmony will necessitate a change in how teams operate—more specifically, it will require a change in how managers think about teams.

In Scrum, the product owner and the ScrumMaster are supposed to drive sustainable development. But there's a third force missing from the formula: the health of the code itself. We often forget that our code is also a member of our team, and we have to be concerned about its health and well-being as much as any other team member. That means using practices to develop good code from the beginning.

Agile should be about using tailored practices, techniques, tools, and team organizations that fully align to your business context. But the world of cookie-cutter solutions strongly influences businesses and their IT teams to follow their one-size-fits-all frameworks, methods, and tools. Such an approach often introduces many risks, so beware of the following symptoms that may indicate that your agile team has gone astray.