awb - 03 - agile framework

81 Agile White Book – AXA Emerging Markets EMEA-LATAM

Chapter 3 AGILE FRAMEWORK

V1.0


Contents

WHAT I WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER? ...................................................................................................................................................................... 84 AGILE AT A GLANCE .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 85 GET TO KNOW THE AGILE CORE ........................................................................................................................................................................... 88

AGILE MANIFESTO ................................................................................................................................................................. 89

AGILE PRINCIPLES .................................................................................................................................................................. 91

UNDERSTAND THE AGILE ECOSYSTEM ....................................................................................................................................... 92 FOCUS ON THE ESSENCE ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 93

PRIORITISATION AND VALUE ................................................................................................................................................ 93

EMPHASIS ON BUSINESS VALUE ............................................................................................................................................... 94

EARLY FEEDBACK AT A SUSTAINABLE PACE .................................................................................................................................. 95

BEST POSSIBLE DECISIONS ....................................................................................................................................................... 97

FLEXIBILITY TO ACCEPT CHANGES .............................................................................................................................................. 98

PLANNING AND SHORT CYCLES ................................................................................................................................................. 99

REQUIREMENTS AND USER STORIES........................................................................................................................................ 100

RELATIVE ESTIMATION .......................................................................................................................................................... 101 IMPLEMENT EFFECTIVE TECHNIQUES .................................................................................................................................................................... 102

AGILE RETROSPECTIVES ........................................................................................................................................................ 102

SIMPLICITY ......................................................................................................................................................................... 103

MINIMUM VALUABLE PRODUCT ............................................................................................................................................ 104

TESTING ............................................................................................................................................................................. 105

CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION .................................................................................................................................................. 107 SUPPORT PEOPLE & INTERACTIONS ................................................................................................................................................................... 108

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL, STABLE, SELF-ORGANIZED AND MOTIVATED TEAMS ...................................................................................... 108

MOTIVATION AND TEAMS ..................................................................................................................................................... 110

COACHING PROCESS ............................................................................................................................................................. 111

CHANGE IN LEADERSHIP AND SPONSORSHIP ............................................................................................................................. 112

SYNERGIES AND EMPOWERMENT ........................................................................................................................................... 114 UNDERSTAND THE AGILE UMBRELLA ................................................................................................................................................................... 116

SCRUM AT A GLANCE ............................................................................................................................................................ 116

EXTREME PROGRAMMING .................................................................................................................................................... 119

VISUAL MANAGEMENT & KANBAN ......................................................................................................................................... 120

ITS CORE PROPERTIES ........................................................................................................................................................... 121


Agile framework

Agile offers an approach of driving software

initiatives in companies where project management

relies mostly on communication, facilitation, quality

time for introspection, quick feedback receiving

from clients and a close integration between IT and

Business.


What I will learn in this chapter?

AGILE FRAMEWORK

I know why Agile and its benefits.

I know how Agile works and its practises.

I know the other frameworks.

AGILE

iN AXA

KNOW THE

AGILE ESSENCE - VALUES &

PRINCIPLES

- Roles

- Support people

- Teams´ structure

- Mindset change

KNOW PRACTISES &

CONCEPTS

- Prioritisation

- Business Value

- Sustainable pace

- Short iterations

- User Stories

- Mandatory meetings

- Etc.

UNDERSTAND THE

AGILE UMBRELLA

- Scrum

- Visual Management

- Extreme Prog.


In Agile, we use small cycles (iterations) to

get a quick feedback from clients.

Frequent feedback help to assure, that we

are heading the right direction.

Agile at a glance

Agile focuses on closer collaboration between business experts and development Teams. Business and IT speak different languages so both need to reach an agreement on how to make communication efficient, regular and mutually beneficial. Agile also uses stable motivated teams and time for reflexion in order to learn and improve the processes.

The whole framework is governed by a group of basic principles and values, which support people and their processes and are the essence of everything done in here.

While in traditional methodologies when the number of features and time is fixed the quality and costs are variable, in Agile the approach is different as we consider that features can vary but quality is not negotiable.


I want you to have in mind that Agile

is NOT a way to implement quick-and-

dirty solutions as many people can

think. Keep reading to know more

AGILE at a glance

By having that in mind, Agile manages very well typical project risks, things that require strong discipline and architecture governance. These are some of the Agile characteristics:

Help develop products in short lifecycles.

Deliver in a “test and learn” approach (continuous revisions and feedback).

Early check the real business impact and make quick adjustments.

Based on explicit values and principles.

It is all about teamwork.

We recognize that most effective software processes cannot be defined up front and it is a continuous improvement process that never ends.


AGILE at a glance

In some methodologies a simple set of practises can be sufficient to start implementing a new approach. In Agile the story is slightly different as you need more than just training but a deep cultural change.

Let’s review some Agile concepts:

Close Collaboration between IT and Business People.

A number of core and explicit values and principals which support the way we do things.

Quick feedback from clients to check we are heading the right direction

Technical quality is not negotiable.

Quality time to learn and improve.


GET TO KNOW the Agile core

In order to promote change, Agile implements a group of values and principles that govern the way that things are done.

Are you wondering why you need Values and Principles?

To help people execute and stay consistent with their duties.

To define boundaries that unify the organisational culture.

To help people stay aligned.

To promote healthy and positive values to be followed by individuals inside the company.



AGILE MANIFESTO

The Agile Manifesto or “Manifesto for Agile Software Development” is a formal proclamation of 4 key values and 12 principles to guide an iterative and people-centric approach to product development. They are the core and everything we do is influenced by them.

As sophisticated tools are available, the focus shifted from the people to the tools and processes. It is still people who produce any result, and consequently, the focus should be placed on people and communication.

Being more diligent about listing in a schedule all of the tasks necessary to accomplish product

deliverables gives a sense of safety. Unfortunately, no amount of big upfront planning can prevent

changes in design and scope. Agile then emphasizes on working software as primary measure of

progress ( “working” meaning that it satisfies end user needs). It does not mean that documentation is

not necessary but we truly believe that it should be pragmatic considering its purpose and the re-use

that its consumer will do with it (e.g. ease system understanding for maintainability).



Agile focuses on the activity of planning rather than a fixed plan. Products are dominated

by change: requirements, environments, interactions with other systems, etc. There is no product

where things never change and allowing clients to see and play with a product helps mature ideas

and collaboratively find new ways to solve a problem.

Software contracts have all the details right from what requirement are going to be delivered

and how to handle changes. Any modification that comes later to the contract, a negotiation process

goes through a big bureaucratic process to ensure that each part get what they believe is best. Agile

focuses on learning organisations and believes that what a customer initially wants can be different

from a collaborative idea in time. Agile teams focus on delivering value and collaborating with the

customer to get the best approach.

A good way to think about these key concepts is that they define preferences, not alternatives, encouraging a focus on certain areas. In order to achieve an Agile mindset, people need to know and fully understand the values and their connotations.



AGILE PRINCIPLES

Agile principles encourage people follow some healthy practises to make things better and keep the value all along the chain.

The majority of them are common sense, but unfortunately, really easy to forget when you have the finger in too many pies. Take a look and think how you could implement them in your workplace:

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development Team is face-to-face conversation.

Working software is the primary measure of progress.

Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.

The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.

Applying the four values and following properly the 12 principles is something which takes time but leads to better outcomes and it is a great starting point for the paradigm shift.



UNDERSTAND THE AGILE ECOSYSTEM

After the values and principles have been understood by everyone, the focus should be placed on certain areas to make sure Agile implementation is successful.

Based in The Agile Star concept, www.proyectosagiles.org

These 8 regions in the Agile Star are important to discuss in order to start moving the wheel and making people aware of the parts to improve.


FOCUS ON the essence

PRIORITISATION AND VALUE

As you certainly know, individuals have their own interests and it is not usual for them to compromise their needs for someone else’s benefit. Agile is always focused on prioritising well from the perspective of how valuable a requirement is, in order to remove incongruences/misunderstandings and create a consistent list of features (Product Backlog).

This is what I teach when explaining to prioritise:

There are no two requirements with the same priority.

Reaching an agreement on the meaning of Business Value is needed.

I show many techniques in Agile to help clients prioritise elements.

Development Team may point out the cost, technical risk, or other trade-offs associated with a specific requirement and you might need to decide if it isn’t as essential as any other feature.


We use business value to make sure that:

In the middle of the project the most critical objectives were achieved.

Elements delayed are less critical requirements (simplify, postpone or eliminate them).


EMPHASIS ON BUSINESS VALUE

Making these priority decisions is an essential customer’s responsibilities in the Agile customer-developer partnership (IT & Business). We are Business Value oriented and we always try to deliver as much of this as possible without compromising people, quality or piling a huge bunch of technical debt. This approach helps you identify all the mandatory parts of your system (must), needed (should) and optional (could).

Working really tight together allows people understand how worth something is and why is needed. A direct consequence is that everyone sees the progress and what is coming up next. While Business focuses on the value of things and verifies the real result, IT makes sure that quality is high and the productivity is stable.



EARLY FEEDBACK AT A SUSTAINABLE PACE

We deliver Product increments quickly in order to get enough feedback from clients and verify assumptions. For that to happen, it is essential for teams to be able to sustain an average pace into the coming future. Development Team and Business should also be aware of the effect of taking too much on-board and establish a conversation if that were the case. When you can’t work at a sustainable pace, you deliver less value and create a higher level of software debt and energy deficit.

To achieve this, Agile plans short development cycles of product increments (1 to 4 weeks) in order to divide complexity, increase project visibility (on results and speed) and help take better decisions while reducing risk of project overrun.

As you can see, we do not really worry about trying to define all requirements perfectly from the beginning as things will change and there will be a lot of learning during the project.



Additionally, everything is elaborated iteratively and incrementally in order to avoid Analysis paralysis, bad anticipated decisions and rework.

An important advantage of this tactic is that you always have a “ready to ship” tested product (early and continuous Q/A) as opposite to risky big bang approaches where testing and acceptance are at the end. Early releases of “Minimum Valuable Products” or MVP are ready in order to get feedback from real customers. MVP´s are always “Good enough” and never the “best” late solution.



BEST POSSIBLE DECISIONS

In here, we try to diminish assumptions for our “product list” as they produce a false sense of safety and increase uncertainty/risk. For that reason, we get a closer look into reality in order to validate emerging hypotheses (Lean Startup approach).

Many Agile requirements are treated as assumptions (or hypotheses) that must be validated by rapid experimentation in the marketplace. The aim is to eliminate wasteful practices, increase value and diminish risk.

Temporary indicators are also created in order to make faster and wiser business decisions while keeping assumptions and impact low.


These are some of the practises Agile uses to assure flexibility:

- Agile Planning and short cycles.

- Agile requirements and User Stories.

- Agile Estimating.

- Pairing in cross-functional teams.

Strong integration & communication between IT and Business.

..


FLEXIBILITY TO ACCEPT CHANGES

We believe that no requirement is taken for granted as reality is a dynamic system. People, markets, demands, all things are in constant movement and change. We have to accept this in every aspect of our work.

The closer we fix a requirement to the implementation time the better (last responsible moment). The goal is to deliver valuable software to support the customer’s competitive advantage supported by wiser decisions and short cycles.



PLANNING AND SHORT CYCLES

As we mentioned before, planning is short in order to support flexibility. The focus is on the planning activity rather than on the plan itself. Straight after the planning finishes an iteration starts. We believe that learning is encouraged more from getting started than it would be from a continued planning phase.

The positive value of this way approach is that ROI continues to deliver greater returns over time than does the traditional way.

Extracted from http://www.agilenutshell.com



REQUIREMENTS AND USER STORIES

Instead of fixing a requirement at the very beginning of the project, a more flexible idea is used: Agile requirements are an open opportunity to establish a conversation, learn and explore new ideas that can be closed at the very last responsible moment.

In here, a requirement is considered “closed” or ready just before developing it (Last responsible moment). In the meantime, you can grow, exchange points of view, make changes and assure that the best approach at that time is taken.

Agile also uses a way to write requirements called User Stories that are mainly used to establish a common ground of understanding between people.

Check Chapter 4 for more details.



RELATIVE ESTIMATION

For some business domains may emerge the need of creating detailed estimates that could withstand scrutiny from “scientific” teams. These estimates are generally based on the current knowledge with some contingency for the “known unknowns”. As you can imagine, it is almost impossible to really predict the unexpected and offer flexibility. As we see the world, this can stop teams from deliver what clients truly want on time.

Agile uses different techniques (relative estimation) which are normally reinforced by people generally located in the same place and sharing common ideas/goals. The approach allows synergies in the team, creates knowledge and experiences to help achieve the best solution in the shortest time.

Check Chapter 5 for more details.


IMPLEMENT effective techniques

AGILE RETROSPECTIVES

We emphasise on regular reflection as a mean to sustainable product development pace and

continuous learning. We have seen that iterations (Sprints) pressure may reduce opportunities

for the on-going learning and reflection. Reflexion is done here regularly to help optimize

teamwork, communication, learn more and get long term results during the lifetime of a product.

The focus is on improving and assuring that you are always tuning to the best practices while on

the move.

This is done by a periodical meeting called Retrospective where the Team reflects on what

happened during the last cycle and identifies actions for improvement going forward. The

retrospective is team-driven, and members should decide together which decisions to take and

how they will be implemented.

The outcome of retrospectives is to feed the actions or things to be improved back to the Team or

any other activity in the company that is obstructing from delivering more value.

Extracted from the book Agile Retrospectives – Making Good Teams Great - Esther Derby and Diana Larsen

There is a formal five-step process to carry out this meeting which is detailed in chapter 7.



SIMPLICITY

We believe that maximising the amount of work not done brings huge benefits. In order to

achieve that, Agile needs the following positive actions:

- People co-located as much as possible to achieve synergies. - Things that do not produce value removed. - Work in progress limited. - Things tested, automated, and good code practises as part of the ecosystem (i.e.

Extreme Programming). - A Minimum Valuable Product defined.

You should keep implementation to a barely minimum while maintaining the value. Always

support straight communication, simple processes, barely but sufficient tools and an early

reduction or elimination of actions/behaviours that do not add explicit value.



MINIMUM VALUABLE PRODUCT

We love maximising the validated learning for the least amount of effort. A minimum valuable

product (MVP) is the most pared down version of a product that can still be released.

An MVP has three key characteristics:

- It has enough value that people are willing to use it or buy it initially.

- It demonstrates enough future benefit to retain early adopters.

- It provides a feedback loop to guide future development.

The mandatory part is that early adopters should be able to see the vision or promised final

product and provide the valuable feedback needed to guide developers forward. Identifying a MVP

then is a crucial activity in Agile.



TESTING

In order to maintain a high quality product while keeping things simple, Agile recognises that:

In order to get a high quality product, testing is an integral and necessary part of

software development.

Testing is a feasible activity to automate and never done in separated phases but along

with coding.

Test-driven development is used

As teams are cross-functional, Testers offer their expertise in eliciting examples of desired

behaviour from clients, collaborating with the development team to turn those into requirements

and finally working software.

Testing and coding are done incrementally and iteratively, building up each feature until it

provides enough value to be released into production (Minimum Viable Product).



These are some of the advantages but not limited to:

The whole team is responsible for quality.

Communication is improved.

Defects are easy to understand and fix.

Fewer changes are needed between fixes as code between coding and testing is close.

Flexibility to incorporate new requirements

As we mentioned before, Agile testing involves all members of the team, with special expertise contributed by testers, to ensure delivering the business value desired by the customer at frequent intervals and at a sustainable pace.



CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION

Continuous integration is a software engineering practice in which isolated changes are immediately tested and reported on when they are added to a larger code base, without human intervention, in order to detect fails.

We recommend this practise to provide safe and rapid feedback so that if a defect is introduced into the code base, it can be identified and corrected as soon as possible.

Inspired by simple-talk.com

As the product is continuously tested, client always receive high quality “update”: This improves the relationship between Business and IT and help manage expectations as people know that software is working from the very first execution.


SUPPORT PEOPLE & interactions

CROSS-FUNCTIONAL, STABLE, SELF-ORGANIZED AND MOTIVATED TEAMS

Agile teams have an essential characteristic: they are self-organised, cross-functional and stable. A truly cross-functional team has all of the necessary skills to complete requirements during an iteration (including testing) and jointly manages the way to do so.

This creates synergies that increase productivity and creativity, while promoting knowledge sharing and reducing dependencies on specific individuals.

Stable means team members have time to grow with each other. You should challenge yourself to keep teams motivated through each day.

Team members benefit by learning across their roles, have a close contact with Business and challenge each other to provide accurate estimates as they become familiar with everyone’s skills.

These mature teams have better predictability and truly help Product Owner and stakeholders set realistic expectations.


Remember that in order for people to work in this way, you need a focus on the Agile values and Principles.


There are 3 proven characteristics that improve your chances of creating a great team:

Find individuals that historically positively collaborated together and are willing to “test and learn” new work approaches.

Look for people with an open-minded attitude.

Hunt for collaborative individuals that have not yet worked together.



MOTIVATION AND TEAMS

It’s not the manager’s job to motivate people but to create the right conditions for that to happen. We

believe that motivation is not just about the financial incentives but 3 main areas need to be supported:

Autonomy - People want the freedom to work how they like, to set their own rules and

conditions. This is why command-and-control/micro-managing employees is not our way.

You need to pay attention to the way that people work to see how they can feel more

comfortable.

Mastery - Individuals want to improve their skills, continuously learn and get better at what

they do. Make sure you reassure what can bring them knowledge and considered worth by

them.

Purpose - Everyone wants to contribute to something bigger. Make sure people can see the

huge impact their product and contribution is having on the organisation or client.

When employees have autonomy, mastery and purpose, extraordinary Teams are created and great

things happen; they are happy with their jobs, they are engaged and they deliver peak performance.


I, as an Agile Coach, can bring assistance in many areas and help everyone develop new expertise. I can also provide valuable feedback and advice and assist the transformation from being a group of individuals to a high performance Team. I am here to make your journey towards Agile more pleasant


COACHING PROCESS

We recommend expert support in change management and practices adoption when rolling out

Agile. An initial training is fine but discipline and hands-on coaching “in the trenches” to get teams on

board is a crucial.

Remember that she can jump in at any phase of the project and help members with values,

practices and techniques.


As a Manager, I always help the rest of management understand what Agile is and its benefits. I always explain:

- Why to focus on customers and Business Value.

- The power of synergies between motivated teams to achieve constant learning and offer a superior solution to the market.

- The importance of growing people and empowering teams to take decisions.

- The benefits of quick feedback loops and predictable delivery to achieve value quickly.

- Move the right pieces to remove organizational roadblocks to reduce complexity and unnecessary processes.


CHANGE IN LEADERSHIP AND SPONSORSHIP

Last but not least, leaders and management should fully support and help anchor transformation in order to empower the synergies between IT and Business.



We suggest you to identify specific people in charge of sponsoring Agile. A good sponsor is an individual in the organisation who believes in the change and has the authority to work with the leadership team and middle management to communicate about your ideas, explain why they are important, and establish a timeline for affecting the change.

We call these individuals Agile Champions and are key people in the organisation.

A main duty for them is to help managers understand:

What the roles are in the new process.

Why to ask for help/support to make things happen.

Intervene with potential people to alleviate their fears and concerns.

What the vision and a strategy are, or create one if needed and align it with the change drivers.


As positive collaboration is not an option but a

real need, you need to empower the following 3

areas:

Business involvement in a regular basis

as a crucial aspect.

Transparency and trust as an essential

asset.

Empowerment to the team to take

decisions as an important value.


SYNERGIES AND EMPOWERMENT

We have seen that an Agile organisation emphasises collaboration between IT and Business as the

main currency to increase the value creation flow. Both parts constitute a team as they share the same

problematic and goals and finally all fail or succeed. For this to happen, synergies and communication

need to be stressed.

When people don't trust the information they are receiving, the goal is diluted. There are 3 factors that

you can put in place to improve communications:

Physical proximity - The closer people are to one another the greater the opportunities for

communication are.

Temporal proximity– The closer people are to the same time the better the

communication is (i.e. distributed teams).

Amicability – How likely is someone to hear the thoughts of another person with good will

and to speak without malice.



The most effective communication is person-to-person, face-to-face, particularly when enhanced by a

shared goal and product. As you move further away, your communication deteriorates and becomes

less effective.

The ability to answer questions in real time is a key focus as helps provide people with the most

accurate answers and allows the learning process to proceed in the right direction.


UNDERSTAND the Agile umbrella

SCRUM AT A GLANCE

Scrum is one of the frameworks that are part of Agile, it is widely used in this book and popular in the Agile World. The main advantage is that it offers a group of practises and tools that allow early feedback, flexibility and time to market while supporting people.


Scrum Master

MmMaster

Product Owner

Product Owner

Unique representative of all stakeholders and users.

Facilitates priorities agreement in the Business side based on Biz strategy and

ROI.

Regularly accepts the completed product.

Collaborates with the Development team in requirement analysis and detailing.

Scrum Master

UNDERSTAND the agile umbrella

Scrum is based on experience and learning rather than theory. Let’s take a look at their basic concepts:

- Product backlog: A full list of prioritised requirements that defines a product.

- Small cycles with ready functionality: Usable product that meets the clients’ business goals (working software/product)

- Visual Management: Tools to create an environment where things are obvious from the minute you walk into the area.

- Regular interaction between business and IT.

- Quality time for reflection.

There are also mandatory meetings such as the Sprint Review, Daily Scrum, and Retrospectives; most of them are time-boxed (with a fixed time) and all have a clear objective.

Scrum defines the following 3 roles:

Develops a high performance, motivated and self-organized team,

including Bz and IT, that collaborates and improves continuously.

Process responsible, transmits the Agile values and principles.

Facilitates meetings, makes the team flow and creates synergies.

Removes impediments that the team cannot solve by itself.


Cross-functional and self-organized.

Estimates requirements and provides a solution.

Presents the results to the Product Owner.

Development Team


We may also consider some extra roles in order to make it more functional to a large corporation reality.

Experts that collaborate on a part-time basis and communicate directly with the Development Team. They are permanent team members.

This is role is still needed due to the complex environment and that the organization is on its way to agilization.

Coordinates relationships with third parties and other plans (Communication, trainings, HW & SW provisioning, etc.)

Removes impediments that are out of the scope of the SM (mainly organizational).

Financial, terms and scope control.

Project reporting.

Development Team

Extended Team

Extended Team

Project Manager

Project Manager


All these things allow me to

do my job better!


EXTREME PROGRAMMING

Extreme Programming (XP) is a widely extended methodology that assures simplicity in the code. XP helps developers keep code clean, simple and flexible to accept changes while maintaining the highest standards. The whole idea here is to offer techniques to write simple code and change the design plan accordingly if a need arises in the future. As a rule of thumb, people start with the simplest solution and just add extra functionality whenever needed.

Extreme programming is widely used in Scrum and other agile frameworks.



VISUAL MANAGEMENT & KANBAN

It is not new that when you see something you can understand it better. Visual management is a

practise widely used in Agile that makes important information visible to everyone, help establish

conversations, create synergies by helping people thinking together and align people.

We believe that you need to make things visible through setting common and visual

representation of facts/processes in order for things to change.

Visual management presents information in an easy to understand way by using visual

signals instead of text.

Agile teams are self-organised, they are empowered to decide how to solve a problem. As

command-and-control or micro-management patterns are not the desired option for us, Kanban

can avoid a close control on people as everyone knows what is happening.

Go to Chapter 10 “Kanban Techniques” for more details.



ITS CORE PROPERTIES

I have found that Kanban allows people work better as they agree on 5 core properties that also you can follow:

5. Visualize the workflow

6. Limit WIP

7. Manage Flow

8. Make Process Policies Explicit

9. Improve Collaboratively

For more details – please refer Chapter 10 (Kanban Techniques) and Chapter 3 for additional techniques.


REMEMBER

Agile requires quick feedback loops and close collaboration between Business and IT.

Values and Principles are the core of Agile framework.

Focus on Business value and small increments and integrated testing.

Techniques such as Extreme Programming and Kanban are practices widely adopted by Agile.

DEEPEN YOUR KNOWLEDGE

Agile Alliance

Scrum Alliance

BENEFITS

Business value is the main motivator when taking decisions.

Features are delivered incrementally, enabling some benefits to be realised early as the product

continues to develop and changes to be accepted in order to get the best possible product.

Testing is integrated throughout the lifecycle, enabling regular inspection of the product as it develops.

Teams have quality time to reflect about their work.

Agile keeps an organization honest and helps them to meet their goals by transparent

communication and small cycle loops.

http://www.agilealliance.org/

http://www.scrumalliance.org/

awb - 03 - agile framework

Leadership & Management