The first agile principle says “Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software”. To make this happen, agile teams need to measure their progress towards delivering business value. How do teams measure their progress towards delivering valuable software to customers? We willRead More →
The purpose for this Introduction to Scrum post is to give you a brief and quick overview of Scrum Framework: Scrum is a lightweight, iterative and incremental agile framework that is open to change. Scrum is the most popular agile framework that is used to manage software projects. It’s aRead More →
Rolling wave planning is a key strategy used in agile project planning. Near-term work is planned in detail and future work is planned at a higher level. Planning is done in waves as the project progresses and becomes clearer. See Illustration 1 below: Why Is Rolling Wave Planning Important ToRead More →
Quality Management in Agile Projects is different than a traditional waterfall project. An agile approach focusses on shifting the role of quality earlier and continuously throughout the development lifecycle. Waterfall methods validate quality towards the end of a project, making bug fixing costlier. When teams transition to agile they sometimesRead More →
If you are leading an agile project, nothing is more important than understanding your role as a servant leader. A servant leader serves the team selflessly by doing whatever is needed to help them be more successful. It’s a leadership approach meant to empower the team so they can makeRead More →
My first introduction to agile software development was very focussed on the mechanics of Scrum. I was sent to a 2-day Scrum Master Certification (CSM) course back in 2012, at the time I was a functional project manager with little knowledge of agile. The instructor spent maybe an hour orRead More →
Most project managers have dealt with managing changing scope. It usually goes something like this: “We want it all, just make it happen!” These requests should be expected because a project will change; the scope changes, requirements change, etc. If you are agile and embrace the agile principles, you knowRead More →
Create a Business Competitive Advantage with Agile. This post will discuss Value-Driven Delivery, which is core to agile development. If you want your business to survive in today’s competitive environment, you need to find a way to add value to your customers. You must figure out ways to create aRead More →
When working on an Agile project, it is critical for the team to communicate effectively. Project communication is one of the most critical success factors for any project, regardless of the project management methodology. In fact, it is said that around 80% of a project managers job is communicating. ItRead More →
This is the second part of Estimating In Scrum. In Estimating In Scrum – Part 1, we looked at story points and how relative sizing is used for estimating work. We are going to take this further and discuss how using story points and velocity can be used to forecastRead More →