Transition

Articles

Encouraging growth Agile Managers: Trust Your Team and Encourage Innovation

In order to fully embrace agile and create an environment where individuals want to work together as a team, managers have to move from a role of dictation to one of direction and mentorship. Instead of making all the decisions, managers need to trust their team members and empower them to solve problems on their own, innovate, and fail—or succeed.

Lisa Rich's picture Lisa Rich Mic Riley
The Agile Manifesto Let the Agile Manifesto Guide Your Software Testing

Although its values are commonly associated with agile software development, the Agile Manifesto applies to all people and teams following the agile mindset, including testers. This article examines the four main values of the Agile Manifesto and reveals how they can bring agility to test efforts—improving quality for your team and your customers.

Nishi Grover's picture Nishi Grover
Agile team relationships Building Team Relationships as an Agile Coach

Only by creating a relationship based on trust can agile coaches be effective in aiding teams with an agile adoption. Joel Bancroft-Connors says the best start is actually to do nothing. Spend time observing the team first. This helps you understand the people and processes, which will help you determine the best course of action.

Joel Bancroft-Connors's picture Joel Bancroft-Connors
Learning soft skills Practice Soft Skills through Collaboration to Become Truly Agile

At the core of agile is the need to effectively communicate and interact with your team members, so it's important for all roles to practice soft skills. However, there is nothing soft about them. Soft skills are probably the most challenging thing you can focus on in your technical career. Rather than struggle to improve by yourself, develop these skills through collaboration.

Mark Kilby's picture Mark Kilby
Agile education For a Successful Agile Adoption, Put Education First

Education is a vital ingredient in transformations, and it should be one of the first steps you take in moving to agile. Regardless of anyone’s level of agile experience, everyone should go through the same training because the real value of training isn't the lesson plan; it's the shared experience. Everyone across teams having the same foundation is essential.

Joel Bancroft-Connors's picture Joel Bancroft-Connors
Roadmap Embark on a Change Journey for Agile Transformation

The leaders in an organization play a key role in making a team's agile change journey sustainable. Managers have to understand the team culture, address the real problems, and commit to undergoing self-transformation first before transforming others. Ledalla Madhavi outlines her process for coaching teams starting a successful agile journey.

Ledalla Madhavi's picture Ledalla Madhavi
Cookbook The Agile Cookbook: Recipes for Enterprise Agile Transformations

Scaling agile across a large, enterprise organization is different from dealing with just a handful of teams. Though you have the same key ingredients, there are several recipes for how to put those ingredients together. Enter The Agile Coach’s Transformation Cookbook. You can whip up an organization-wide agile transformation by finding your own recipe for success.

Joel Bancroft-Connors's picture Joel Bancroft-Connors
Medal indicating the top ten agileconnection articles of 2016 Top 10 AgileConnection Articles of 2016

There is no question that agile has gone mainstream. If you aren't already using at least some agile methods, you soon will be. TechWell took a look at which topics the growing agile community cares most about and put together a list of the most popular AgileConnection stories and interviews of 2016. From failing Scrum teams and successful agile communication to facilitating feedback and simplifying user stories, we've curated the content you need to read as we head into a new year.

Heather Shanholtzer's picture Heather Shanholtzer
Doctor holding prescription A Prescription for Your Team’s Agile Transition

When teams are transitioning to agile, making so many changes all at once can be hard. But just like with your health, in order to see progress, you have to commit, and when something starts working, you have to keep it up. Following this prescription should cure a team's agile ills and get its program on the road to recovery.

Allan Kelly's picture Allan Kelly
Sign: Changes Strategies for Implementing Agile in Small Organizations

The experience of implementing agile in a company of thousands of employees differs widely from that of a company of hundreds. Although the risks can be greater, the rewards can be, too. If you work in a small company that is interested in transitioning to an agile workflow, consider these strategies for implementing agile in small organizations.

David Kirk's picture David Kirk David Thach

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