6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
Waterfall development is notorious for having copious amounts of documentation. There are contracts and specifications, and most of the communication is done via email or other written methods. The upside of this is accountability. The caveat is that the documentation quickly becomes overwhelming. When team members receive hundreds of emails, they begin to overlook individual messages.
In contrast, Agile emphasizes face-to-face communication. It is much harder to ignore personal communication than it is to skim through an email inbox. For developers, this gives them a presence in the team. When each developer gives an update on their current work, it carries weight. Everyone is listening, so everyone has an idea of how far along each task is. Developers know better what each other developer is working on, and can avoid interfering with other tasks.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
Metrics are a large part of traditional development methods. Management looks at figures like lines of code added per day, or the number of commits that developers perform. These numbers are supposed to show progress and indicate how much work is getting done. However, metrics do not show the bigger picture. Massive changes may only require a few lines of code. On the other hand, small fixes may take several commits in a short time frame.
Agile uses the working software as the main metric for the Scrum team. New features indicate that work is being done. Fixed problems show that developers are doing their work. As such, the developer role can worry less about how their metrics look. If a developer spends several days working on a feature without many additional lines of code, they don’t have to worry about bad reviews. As long as developers create working features, the project is moving along adequately.
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