Newsletter – May 2018

 

Getting Things Done in an Agile Way

In business, we need to have systems and procedures in place to get all our must-do tasks completed quickly and efficiently. This month, we’re focusing on getting things done in an “agile” way. This is a whole way of working with three core values: inspection, adoption and transparency. These form the basis of how projects are delivered, and how the people involved work, collaborate and communicate.

There are some great tools available to assist you, including KanBan Flow – more about this below.

If you need help understanding how to get things done and putting procedures and systems in place to do so, or any other aspect of your business, give me a call on 027 447 7577 and we can have a chat.

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Getting Things Done: The Agile Way

Start getting things done the Agile way, and you’ll soon reap the rewards

Getting things done the agile way needs to be looked at as a philosophy, rather than a process, and follow it to the T. All parts of the philosophy are important to be followed – picking and choosing parts of it won’t get you the benefits you want, at the rate you want.

Inspection, adoption and transparency are the three core values of the Agile way of working. These values form the foundation for the way agile projects are delivered, and how the people involved in these projects work, collaborate and communicate. Including these core values in your projects is the only way to gain the full advantages of the agile way.

Inspection

In the ‘agile’ sense, inspection means four things:

1. Choosing the right people to make the right decisions and work on the right tasks, at every step of each part of the project process;
2. Evaluating the project at regular intervals to make sure things are going in the right direction;
3. Updating or redoing the plan, depending on the outcome of your evaluation;
4. Putting policies and procedures in place around how and when the team should communicate and collaborate, so that everyone knows where they, and the project, stands.

 

Important to note is not to plan too far forward, as agile is a highly iterative way of working. Planning too far forward, or using too much detail, is likely to be a waste of time and effort.

Teams need to know of an understand the end goal, however the overall point of inspection is for teams to be hyper-aware of the present: what’s being done right now, why, and how well it’s working.

At the end of each step in the process, retrospective inspections should take place to determine what’s been done so far, and investigate what’s succeeded and what hasn’t before moving on to the next step.

Adaptation

Working in an agile way means continually adapting based on what your inspection activity finds. Adaptation is an important part of the process, so you’ll need to get used to it – both in relation to what is being developed, and the process you’re following.

Evolution will be undoubtedly necessary depending on your solution to the outcome of your evaluation and the regular user feedback you collect – which is also part of any agile project. Therefore, the process will need to change with it.

Scope

Another important principle of the agile way of working is scope. The scope of an agile project will almost certainly expand over its duration. This needs to be understood and accepted by the whole team from the get-go.

Transparency

Transparency in the agile way results from several sources:

1. Inspection and adaptation
   Described above.
2. Frequent customer feedback 
   Regular user-testing, undertaken throughout the development process at strategic points.
3. Extreme collaboration
   Allowing clients complete visibility and input into the project by involving them in meetings, giving them use of collaborative tools and allowing them to provide regular feedback as we you work on their project.
4. The ‘definition of done’ 
   Deciding, and agreeing on, what ‘done’ means for each element of each stage in the project. This should include reviewing, feedback and the desired output results, as well as the completion of the task.
5. A common language
   Deciding on and defining key terminology at the outset, so the entire team understands what to expect and how to interpret information about the project and the final product.

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