Agile, Scrum & Kanban

Bring It All Together: How to Implement Processes in a Nutshell

When a company is small, it is important to establish specific frameworks and strategies to add method to the madness. To do this, squads were created with a product manager, engineering manager, data analyst, and designer. The charter was then established to define expectations and goals. A regular cadence was set up for sprint planning, grooming, demo sessions, and daily standups. Tools were used for knowledge management and a product roadmap was created to provide a clear picture of features. The outcome was positive as teams now understand the value of interdependency and collaboration. Everyone should be involved in the change management process.

Why Would Anyone Mob Program? (an intro)

Mob Programming is a concept where a team of ~3-5 works together on a single feature, with only one person typing at a time. It is a difficult process to go from troll-coding to mobbing, but it is an incredibly valuable and efficient experience. It is slow, but the quality of work produced is multiple times better than what a single developer can create. It also allows for full domain knowledge of the system developed, and one member of the mob can represent the team in meetings.

Dealing with Uncertainties and Adapting as You Go

Organizations are facing a high level of uncertainty due to the changes in the work environment since 2020. Teams need to find the right balance between short- and long-term plans and incorporate flexibility. Managers should have discussions with their teams about the organization’s mission and stakeholders. Teams should have weekly achievements instead of monthly targets and frequent and purposeful communication. To build long-lasting teams, team-building activities should be encouraged and mission-driven, autonomous teams should be fostered.

Destressing the Software Delivery Cycle

When joining a project with a customer who was unhappy and software being rushed to release, the team was under high-stress. To destress the team, a project manager documented what the customer expected and prioritized tasks. The team then set a steady release date to improve the customer experience and reduce the number of bugs. After a month, the team regained the trust of the customer due to the high-quality software delivered in a predictable manner. The learnings from this cycle were that it is difficult to break the stressful cycle when in the middle of chaos and that it is important to understand team dynamics to create a customized solution.

How to Replatforming a Major Organization

This article discusses the process of transforming an established organization that had been working in the same space for 30 years. The author implemented best practices to deliver products faster and globally, while also forming new partnerships and managing change. The author also provided advice for anyone performing a complete replatform, such as auditing the process, sharing successes and failures, and being an understanding and honest leader.

Successfully Handling Team Transition

A woman joined a company in 2018 and faced the challenge of transitioning the entire system from Denmark to India, building up the team in India from scratch, and managing projects without disrupting the usual business. She and her team overcame the challenge by introducing agile scrum, hiring more people, and building up their knowledge base. This experience taught her the importance of agile transformation, leadership skills, and active listening.