The Declaration of Interdependence for Developers
In Agile software development, the Declaration of Interdependence is a document that discusses the core ways that pieces of Agile depend on each other. A software development team is not a single person with a specific task. It is a complex and faceted structure that requires many concurrent events to work properly.
Declaration of Interdependence – Section 1
The first item of the Declaration of Interdependence states that “we increase return on investment by making a continuous flow of value our focus.” As a general rule of thumb, return on investment depends on increasing value. Since any request for software has an expected return on investment, it is up to the Scrum team to deliver a return on investment to the stakeholders in the form of value. Since developers are the role responsible for creating new features, they are the driving force behind generating value. However, developers require the direction of other roles to determine what features are most valuable. The most efficient team of developers in the world may fail to create significant value if they constantly work on less valuable requests. Therefore, developers rely on the product owner and stakeholders to know what features would add the most value to a product. These roles are interdependent in generating value for stakeholders, making it a key point in the Declaration of Interdependence.
Declaration of Interdependence – Section 2
Second in the Declaration of Interdependence is “We deliver reliable results by engaging customers in frequent interactions and shared ownership.” One of the biggest differences between Agile and traditional software development is how Agile gets constant feedback from stakeholders, while traditional development sticks rigidly to a contract. There are numerous benefits to this, but one of the most evident is that results are more “reliable”. Stakeholders can depend on being satisfied with each new release because every release contains the most valuable features that developers could finish. This establishes an interdependence between developers and stakeholders. Developers depend on stakeholders to remain in constant communication and voice what they want from the product. In return, stakeholders depend on developers to listen to feedback and incorporate it into development.
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