4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
Communication is key in any project, but especially so in software development. However, traditional development methods have communication isolated. Operational employees communicate with management. Managers communicate with customers. Customers rarely have much of a say in the process at all.
Agile software development opens up communication to all parties. With meetings like the daily stand-up, all roles in a project have representation. Developers, QA, and analysts all participate, along with the Scrum Master. The product owner serves as a representative for customers and stakeholders.
This meeting happens daily, and everyone involved contributes. Therefore, everyone gets exposure to all daily operations. Better communication yields better teamwork, and creates a better product. For developers, this means having a voice in the project. Instead of doing work silently, developers can offer feedback and communicate directly with stakeholders and other roles. This communication could be during the sprint reviews for example and allows the developers to take a more active stance on the project, and how it changes in the future.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
Traditional development is a top-down management style and revolves around managers assigning work to operational level employees. The individuals are less important than the tasks and work. Developers and other operational employees are mostly considered interchangeable.
Agile software development allows Scrum team members to organize themselves. They select the tasks that best fit the individual’s skill set. Management takes a hands-off approach and allows the Scrum team to work within itself. These self-organizing teams allow developers to better cater to what they know. Instead of receiving assignments at random, developers can gravitate toward products and environments in which they work better.
Recommended Further Reading
The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course:
Course Contents
Section 1: Agile Project Management
Section 2: Using the Agile Manifesto to Deliver Change
Section 3: The 12 Agile Principles
Section 4: The Agile Fundamentals
Section 5: The Declaration of Interdependence
Section 6: Agile Development Frameworks
Section 7: Introduction to Scrum
Section 8: Scrum Projects
Section 9: Scrum Project Roles
Section 10: Meet the Scrum Team
Section 11: Building the Scrum Team
Section 12: Scrum in Projects, Programs & Portfolios
Section 13: How to Manage an Agile Project
Section 14: Leadership Styles
Section 15: The Agile Project Life-cycle
Section 16: Business Justification with Agile
Section 17: Calculating the Benefits With Agile
Section 18: Quality in Agile
Section 19: Acceptance Criteria and the Prioritised Product Backlog
Section 20: Quality Management in Scrum
Section 21: Change in Scrum
Section 22: Integrating Change in Scrum
Section 23: Managing Change in Scrum
Section 24: Risk in Scrum
Section 25: Risk Assessment Techniques
Section 26: Initiating an Agile Project
Section 27: Forming the Scrum Team
Section 28: Epics and Personas
Section 29: Creating the Prioritised Product Backlog
Section 30: Conduct Release Planning
Section 31: The Project Business Case
Section 32: Planning in Scrum
Section 33: Scrum Boards
Section 34: Sprint Planning
Section 35: User Stories
Section 36: User Stories and Tasks
Section 37: The Sprint Backlog
Section 38: Implementation of Scrum
Section 39: The Daily Scrum
Section 40: The Product Backlog
Section 41: Scrum Charts
Section 42: Review and Retrospective
Section 43: Scrum of Scrums
Section 44: Validating a Sprint
Section 45: Retrospective Sprint
Section 46: Releasing the Product
Section 47: Project Retrospective
Section 48: The Communication Plan
Section 49: Formal Business Sign-off
Section 50: Scaling Scrum
Section 51: Stakeholders
Section 52: Programs and Portfolios