Agile is iterative, encourages collaboration, and is always looking to improve processes. The most-read articles from 2020 show that software professionals were looking to improve their agile teams and workspace.
Agile is iterative, encourages collaboration, and is always looking to improve processes.
The most-read articles from 2020 show that software professionals were looking to improve their agile teams and workspace. This year, our two most popular articles were about team building and thinking beyond the traditional duties of the BA. Download the shareable infographic for ways to enhance your agile operations.
10. Redefining the Project Manager Role in Scrum
By: Pratik Kothari
Scrum teams are meant to become self-sustaining, so it’s natural for project managers to wonder how they will fit into this new environment. But they still have important skills. Their new role may—and probably will—look different from the traditional project manager role they’ve been used to, but there are still plenty of opportunities to provide real value to their new Scrum team. Read the article.
9. Kickoff Meetings Give Your Agile Projects a Running Start
By: Jane Thomson
Agile projects are ideally a collaborative effort among the team members and with the customers, and the planning process should be a similar endeavor. Everyone should get a clear understanding of the project as well as their respective roles and responsibilities. As the saying goes, well begun is half done. A well-planned kickoff meeting sets the tone for a successful project. Read the article.
8. The Ideal Workspace for an Agile Team
By: Joel Bancroft-Connors
If your agile team is all wearing noise-canceling headphones and stepping outside for conference calls, you have a problem. An agile workspace doesn't only mean putting everyone in the same room. The layout, configuration, and seating must be conducive to sustainable teamwork. Here are some tips about what an agile workspace is—and isn't. Read the article.
7. 4 Balanced Metrics for Tracking Agile Teams
By: Joel Bancroft-Connors
Whatever your feelings on metrics, organizations will expect them for your team. You don't want to measure only one aspect to the detriment of other information, but you also don't want to measure too many things and scatter your team's focus. Here are four metrics that balance each other out and help gauge an agile team's productivity, work quality, predictability, and health. Read the article.
6. 3 Elusive Qualities of a Great Product Owner
By: John Yorke
When it comes to guiding the development of a product and ensuring you’re building what the user actually needs, a product owner is the most important hire for the team. There’s just one problem: A good product owner can be really hard to find. The characteristics that make a good product owner are elusive, but here are three qualities you should prioritize in your search. Read the article.
5. Why DevOps Still Needs Release Management
By: Adam Auerbach
Release management is still critical in a DevOps environment. You likely will just have to change your current process. You will no longer need to track implementation or back-out plans as part of change orders; you just need to be able to track the application, its components, and its promotion schedule. The key to maintaining these change orders is automation. Read the article.
4. 18 Questions to Ask for Better Backlog Refinement
By: Derk-Jan de Grood
Refinement is time spent during the current sprint discussing and elaborating product backlog items so that they are ready for future sprints. Unfortunately, many teams do not unlock the full potential of refinement. Backlog items should be sliced, and a solution should be proposed, reviewed, and discussed. If your team is having trouble getting started, here are 18 questions you can use to trigger refinement discussions. Read the article.
3. 7 Qualities of High-Performing Agile Teams
By: Pooja Wandile
A high-performing agile team delivers exceptional results time and again, irrespective of the challenges they encounter. While their results may seem magical, lots of effort goes into building such a team, on the part of team members themselves and their leaders. Here are seven common qualities high-performance teams exhibit that you should strive for when building your own agile team. Read the article.
2. Virtual Agile Games to Strengthen Distributed Teams
By: Doug Husovsky, Jeff Schlaver, Rich Stewart
While many games and related materials have been created for collocated team-building activities, there is a need for more of these artifacts in virtual form to support distributed teams. These three authors developed a set of virtual agile games that can be downloaded and played remotely, for team-building with newly created teams or as a fun activity with established teams. Read the article.
1. The Modern Role of the Agile Business Analyst
By: Rich Stewart
The business analyst (BA) has played a key role in software development. But within a modern agile context, the role of the BA is less clear, and there is some confusion as to whether the product owner role subsumes that of the traditional BA. Let’s look at the roles the BA can play with agile teams and how to fully leverage their expertise to supplement or augment that of the product owner. Read the article.
