Ready, Go, Agile

Project:

Using Agile project management through the course of developing a website for an online retail store.

Comparative analysis between waterfall and Agile Approach

The executive team wants to understand whether to use Agile Methodology or Waterfall Methodology, so I created a comparative analysis of the two methodologies.

The table below contains the pros and cons of the Agile methodology

Pros of Agile Methodology	Cons of Agile Methodology
Adaptability: Priorities and requirements can be easily adjusted throughout the project. Departments that work with an agile production system can adapt quickly to change requests, even between clients that have slightly different preferences.	Stakeholders need to invest a lot of time throughout the project.
Collaboration: In an agile system, management encourages employees to think creatively to solve problems and create solutions for project challenges as they arise. Using an agile system in your department can help employees learn to collaborate with others to produce a better product with each piece of feedback they receive.	Deliverables, timelines, and milestones are less predictable.
Transparency: In an agile system, The whole team works together daily throughout the course of the product. With the daily stand-ups, every member of the team is aware of the project’s progress.	Long-term projects suffer from incremental delivery.

The table below contains the Pros and cons of the Waterfall methodology

Pros of Waterfall Methodology	Cons of Waterfall Methodology
Provides a very detailed definition of the deliverables, timelines, and milestones from the very beginning.	Any changes in the requirements are costly.
Reduces the amount of time developers spend interacting with stakeholders.	Requirements can be misinterpreted because the developers interact less with stakeholders.
Team deliverable is predictable.	Excessive documentation is required to create detailed definitions of the deliverables, timelines, and milestones prior to the beginning of the project.

After comparing the two approaches, the team decided to use the Agile Methodology.

Creating User Stories

The team will be creating a Website for an online retail store. It’s time to think through the customer’s need for online retail website features and functionality. giving an Informal description of features from the user’s point of view.

Here are a few lists of User Stories.

1. As a website visitor, I would like to be able to filter or search for a particular product category.

2. As a website visitor, I would like to be able to save an item in my collection in case I can’t buy the product now I will find the product without having to search again.

3. As a website visitor, I would like to choose the currency I want to be displayed.

... to mention a few.

Assigning roles and ceremonies

Now that we know the user stories, it’s time to prepare for the project kick-off and assign roles and ceremonies to the members of the team.

There are three members of the team, they include:

1. Product Owner

• Role Description: The product owner represents the stakeholders of the project.

• Role Responsibilities:

  1. The product owner is responsible for managing the product backlog and optimizing the values of the product.

  2. The product owner accepts or rejects the work.

  3. The Product Owner decides what is desired in a release after consulting all the stakeholders.

2. Scrum Master

• Role Description: The scrum master is the agile coach who manages the scrum process and removes impediments.

• Role Responsibilities:

  1. The scrum master is a true leader who serves the scrum team and the larger organization.

  2. The scrum master protects the team to achieve the sprint goal.

  3. The scrum Master is a Problem Solver – Works with stakeholders to escalate/resolve impediments so that the team achieves the sprint goal

3. Development Team

• Role Description: The development team is a cross-functional and self-managing team who is the ones that work on the project.

• Role Responsibilities:

  1. The development team adapts their plan each day toward the sprint goal holding each other accountable as professionals.

A few events happen during a sprint, they include:

1. Sprint Planning

• Participants: The entire scrum team.

• At what time: At the beginning of a sprint.

• How Long: 2 Hours

• Purpose:

  1. Agree on the sprint goal, a short description of what they forecast to deliver by sprint end, based on the priorities set by the product owner.

  2. Select product backlog items that contribute towards this goal.

  3. Form a sprint backlog by mutually discussing and agreeing on which items are intended to be done during that sprint.

2. Daily stand-up

• Participants: The entire scrum team.

• Frequency: Daily

• How Long: 15 Minute

• Purpose: To inspect progress toward the sprint goal and adapt the sprint backlog as necessary.

3. Sprint Review

• Participants: The entire scrum team

• At what time: at the end of the sprint.

• How Long: 2 hours

• Purpose: To inspect the outcome of the sprint and determine future adaptations based on this information, attendees collaborate.

4. Sprint Retrospective

• Participants: Scrum masters, architects, Product owners, POD team.

• At what time: At the end of the sprint.

• Frequency: once

• How Long: 1 hour

• Purpose: Reflect on the past sprints and inspect how the last sprint went to know what problems are encountered, and how those problems were solved.

Preparing for project kick-off

It’s time to get hands-on Agile and prepare for the project kick-off. It is time to take a close look at a software tool that can be used to manage the project.

There are several tools available for Agile ALM. For example, Jira, Azure DevOps, Trello, and others. For this project, we will be using Jira.

Jira helps teams plan, assign, track, report, and manage work and brings teams together for everything from agile software development and customer support to start-ups and enterprises. Software teams build better with Jira Software, the number 1 tool for agile teams.

Preparing for Challenges

In projects, like in life, things do not always go smoothly. Often life throws a curve ball.

Below is a list of scenarios of challenges I faced as a scrum coach.

Scenario 1:

The team has a scheduled daily stand-up at 9 am. The meetings usually take over an hour. A lot of time is spent discussing a tricky dependency between several tasks that require extensive conversation.

Diagnosis

The team should focus on the key questions. The scrum master should make sure daily stand-ups shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes. Any large issue can be discussed in a different meeting.

Remedy

Create a meeting that will be focused on the issues that is being occurred.

Scenario 2:

At the beginning of the sprint, the tasks were picked up by the development team. However, by the middle of the sprint, the development team starts to look to Scrum Master to assign tasks to individual developers.

Diagnosis

Team collaboration must prevail over centralized management

Remedy

Discuss with the team the importance of a collaborative approach in agile.

Scenario 3:

If a development team member needs to discuss a task with the Product Owner, the developer approaches Scrum Master to help set up a meeting with the Product Owner.

Diagnosis

There is a breakdown in communication between developers and businesspeople. In agile, the business owner and developer should work together daily throughout the project.

Remedy

The development team should be able to discuss this with the product owner directly.

Scenario 4:

The team is using the latest Agile Application Lifecycle Management tool because it is supposed to be the most effective. However, most of the team is having a hard time getting used to the tool.

Diagnosis

It might be the latest and greatest in application lifecycle Management, However, it is hindering the work rather than enhancing it.

Remedy

The team can get a tutorial on how to use the tool or a new tool can be considered.