BabSim and... Agile Practices
What Is Agile?
Agile is not a process, it’s a philosophy or set of values. It is an alternative to traditional project management, typically used in software development. It helps team members respond to unpredictability through incremental work cadences, known as sprints.
Why Agile?
Agile provides opportunities to assess the direction of a project throughout the development lifecycle through sprints, at the end of which teams must present a potentially shippable product increment.
By focusing on the repetition of abbreviated work cycles as well as the functional product they yield, the agile philosophy is described as “iterative” and “incremental.” The results of this “inspect-and-adapt” approach to development greatly reduce both development costs and time to market. Because teams can develop software at the same time they’re gathering requirements, the phenomenon known as “analysis paralysis” is less likely to impede a team from making progress. And because a team’s work cycle is limited to short time increments, it gives stakeholders recurring opportunities to calibrate releases for success in the real world.
Agile development helps companies build the right product instead of committing to market a piece of software that hasn’t even been written yet. Agile empowers teams to continuously plan and re-plan their release to optimize its value throughout development, allowing them to be as competitive as possible in the marketplace.
Core Agile Principles
- Satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery
- Welcome change requirements
- Deliver frequently, preferring a shorter timeline
- Business and Technical sides work together daily
- Pick the right team & support and trust them
- Face-to-face communication is key
- Working software is the primary measure of progress
- Work at a sustainable pace
- Technical excellent and good design enhances agility
- Simplicity, maximizing the amount of work not done, is essential
- Best results emerge from self-organizing teams
- The team regularly reflects to become more effective
Interested in learning more about Agile?
Join us for a 2 day comprehensive workshop starting 9/9 :
Agile Practices for Managers – 9/9/13
This course introduces managers to management principles in an Agile environment. Students learn the paradigm shifts that occur when organizations move from traditional environments to Agile environments. Students learn the different management dimensions to examine the organization, and the appropriate techniques which should be used to assist and support Agile teams to successful implementations.
Throughout the course students will also work on Agile teams which simulate the environment of their workers. The environment enables students to better understand the perspective of Agile team members. It also gives the students an opportunity to test subtle changes to the Agile environment and observe the results for additional learning.
This course is intended for leaders/managers/project managers who want to learn to manage Agile Teams. Agile Team members such as developers/testers/analysts will also benefit from the foundational management concepts. (No practical experience with Agile methods is necessary, though some familiarity with Agile principles and practices is useful).
About the Instructor
Scotty Bevill – PMP, PMI-ACP, CSP, CSM, CELC, CPC
As a mentor and certified coach, Scotty Bevill has made it a personal mission to assist others in their journey to personal actualization. From executives and functional management to project teams and independents, a understanding of self as a state of “Agile Being…” Scotty is a Certified Executive Leadership Coach among other things. As the Founder and CEO of Bevill Edge®, he keeps a focus on consulting in State Government & Enterprise Business Process Management assessments and implementations. Scotty is a Certified Executive Leadership Coach, Project Management Professional (PMP®), PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACPSM), Certified Professional Coach (CPC), Certified Scrum Professional (CSP), Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Innovation Games® Trained Facilitator (IGTF), and Innovation Games® Qualified Instructor (IGQI).
For more information please call 800.288.5937 or e-mail: info@babsim.com