People & Teams

Articles

Three people 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.

Allan Kelly's picture Allan Kelly
telescope 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.

Heather Shanholtzer's picture Heather Shanholtzer
Roadblock You’re Ready for DevOps—but Is Your Workplace?

In order to adopt DevOps, organizations need to be able to embrace the openness it requires, encourage experimentation and innovation, and work across departmental silos. You may be ready to encourage collaboration and communication to reap the benefits, but what if your company culture isn't? Here's how you can influence your organizational dynamics to lay the groundwork for DevOps.

Matt Hilbert's picture Matt Hilbert
Sparkly "2017" sign Top 10 AgileConnection Articles of 2017

Agile software development is mainstream by now, but people are still finding ways to experiment with agile. Measuring agile success with metrics, the debate over whether to use estimates, and improving predictability in Scrum were all hot topics last year. The rise of DevOps has given even more material for people curious to adopt the practice, so automation and "continuous everything" were also popular subjects.

Heather Shanholtzer's picture Heather Shanholtzer
Whiteboard with sticky notes for each day's retrospective comments Experimenting with Daily Retrospectives

Experimentation is a great way to unleash creativity, continuously improve, and see what works and what doesn't. When a team was tossing around the idea of doing daily retrospectives, agile coach Ben Kopel decided to guide them through some iterations on the process. Here, he talks about what the team did and what they gained from both the retrospectives and the quick feedback from experimenting.

Ben Kopel's picture Ben Kopel
Agile estimation points 5 Overlooked Opportunities in Agile Estimation

Agile story estimation gives the team insight into the level of effort for each work item, allows the team to assess each requirement’s relative priority, and lets the team refine and clarify story items. But there are even more benefits that can be gained from the estimation process. Try to take advantage of these five opportunities for growth when your team is estimating stories.

Ajeet Singh's picture Ajeet Singh
Open agile workspace The Ideal Workspace for an Agile Team

If your agile team is all wearing noise-canceling headphones and stepping outside for conference calls, you have a problem. An agile workspace doesn't only mean putting everyone in the same room. The layout, configuration, and seating must be conducive to sustainable teamwork. Here are some tips about what an agile workspace is—and isn't.

Joel Bancroft-Connors's picture Joel Bancroft-Connors
Technical writing Fitting Technical Writing into Agile Development

As teams strive to move to a mature agile process, technical writers must adapt as effectively as the development personnel. This new agile process demands that knowledge dealing with software or product releases is only sparingly documented up front, making the technical writer's job of gathering information much more dependent on talking with people over reading requirements.

Robert Spielman's picture Robert Spielman
Icon of agile process Using Sprints for Agile Coaching

Discussing the work to be done as a group, building in short iterations, getting feedback, and looking for ways to improve are not just practices for development teams—it is an effective way to achieve any goal. Here, Ben Kopel details his experience of working with other agile coaches in a sprint to hire a new ScrumMaster.

Ben Kopel's picture Ben Kopel
Agile task board Using Agile to Lead Your Agile Transformation

There's something ironic about starting an agile transformation by spending six months creating a detailed transformation plan. We have to move away from a prescriptive playbook and toward a more responsive transformation model. Why not use the agile transformation as your first opportunity to be agile?

Joel Bancroft-Connors's picture Joel Bancroft-Connors

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