Start with agile delivery

Over the past few years, agile methods (scrum, XP, crystal, FDD, and so on) have entered the mainstream. Industry Leaders have discovered that implementing these methods appropriately accelerates the project delivery time, increases customer and user satisfaction, and provides flexibility to cope with changes in business needs.
The Forrester Research Report shows that 14% of enterprises that adopted these methods in the first wave of North America and Europe have used agile methods, while in the second wave, another 19% of enterprises are moving towards agile methods. When new companies adopt agile methods, many managers have to face the same problem: "How do I implement agile methods "? This article will illustrate some key steps to help you start agile delivery.

First, it is helpful to understand some core principles that apply to all agile methods.
Core agile delivery principles:
Although in practice, various agile methods are somewhat different, they all advocate these core principles-iteration and Incremental delivery, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Iteration and Incremental Delivery: Project delivery is divided into small function releases and incremental submission, so as to manage risks and get user feedback earlier. These small release versions should be delivered in a relatively stable cycle (generally each iteration cycle lasts 1 ~ 4 cycles ). Iteration gets the greatest feedback within the same period of time and regularly delivers the most valuable products. The scope is revised to maintain stability. Planning, requirements, design, coding and testing started at the very beginning and were constantly updated to meet the changing needs of the project.
Collaboration: All core project team members (including on-site customers or decision-making representatives) should make face-to-face contact and interaction in a shared and open space. The exclusive space is used for orderly work, impromptu meetings, design discussions, and other formal or informal group activities. Team members complete tasks through continuous collaboration and do not need to manage and control tasks from top to bottom.
Continuous Improvement: Activities that review and improve the delivery process are also incorporated into agile methods. Project reflection (also called Project Review) is a contact meeting. It generally promotes regular reflection on successes and failures during the project process, including the tools and technologies used. Daily standing meetings provide an opportunity for members to exchange valuable information and continually adjust improvements in a meticulous manner.
For you, the best way to express these core principles is to engage in an iterative incremental process to achieve agile delivery. From two pilot projects, once you get real experience, you can expand to multiple projects and teams.

The best way to prove these core principles is to adopt an iterative incremental method for an agile release. Start one or two pilot small projects. Once you get real experience, you can promote them to multiple projects and teams.

Release the first Agile Project

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a step ". This is a famous saying of Lao Tzu. Everyone knows what it means. However, sometimes it is the most difficult to do. The following steps help you run your first Agile Project:

1. Select a pilot project. This pilot project should include the following:
   1. Business customers must have the right to make decisions on behalf of their organizations
   2. Within the scope of the project, the project team must have the right to make appropriate decisions
   3. The project manager must be authorized by the Team and the superior manager to make decisions on behalf of the team.
   4. The superior manager must support the team to learn and research the release methods, and arrange a certain lab time. After such support, it is very helpful to commit to a short-term initial release date (generally less than 3 months.
   5. Defining measurable business results and delivering them within a period is critical.
2. Build a project team. Team members should include all roles meaningful to delivery (marketing, business, architecture, development, testing, productization, etc ). This team should be divided into core teams and expansion teams. Core Teams (usually a project manager, several developers, customers, or customer representatives with the right to conduct business analysis) need to invest 100% in agile projects. Ensure that core team members are eager to learn and succeed in their positions. Extended team members can undertake multiple projects, but they need a schedule to intervene in the project.
3. Create a team workspace. Collaboration implies that all project personnel (development, testing, business analysis, and customers) should be close to each other. You need a team workspace. A public, open area, and private space. Public areas are used for organizing face-to-face communication and collaboration. Private space is used for personal work, such as personal email and phone conversations. This is also critical.
4. Operation Process wizard and project delivery. First, pass on the selected Agile Methodology to the entire team, including its concepts and exercises. Further training should be provided if necessary. Work with the entire team to plan a time-Boxed (generally 2 to 5 days) project delivery task, identify and record business results, risks and dependencies; prioritize high-level business requirements, identify roles and responsibilities, discuss, negotiate, and promise an iterative release schedule.
5. Start iterative Incremental delivery. (1) Develop an iteration plan for the first iteration. Allows business customers to pick out high business value needs and write a batch of user stories. User stories are high-level descriptions used to describe how the system solves a problem. After implementing a user story, if this user story implements a vertical "slice" in the system function set, then this story is a good story. A function "slice" is a complete set of functions from the user interface to data storage, rather than a horizontal "slice" of a technical system ". (2) The Story of customer selection in the first iteration; (3) the next iteration should repeat the above operation process.
6. Continuous improvement. Take some time to check and adjust your agile methods. Ensure that project reflection is carried out after every two or three iterations. Collect feedback from your business customers, team members, and other stakeholders throughout the process. Use these feedback to improve the adaptability of your project delivery and agile processes. Extend your method to integrate it with agile software development practices (Pair programming, test-driven development, refactoring, simple design, etc ).

Summary

Adoption of Agile Methods shows an increasing trend. If you want to try agility, you should first understand the core principles of Agility: iterative Incremental delivery, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Then you can use Agile Methodology in a pilot project. Once you get real experience, you can promote it to more projects and teams. In order to start your agile journey, the above six steps can be used as guidance.

(End)