How do you keep stakeholders and users informed during software development?

Identify and list all relevant stakeholders involved in the software development project. Determine the communication channels and tools that will be used to facilitate communication. Define how often eg weekly / monthly progress updates communication will occur and the timing for various communication activities. Specify what information will be shared in each communication, such as project status, issues and risks, feature updates, and changes in requirements. Develop a plan for communicating in the event of critical issues, such as system failures or major delays. By implementing a well-structured communication plan, software development teams can enhance collaboration, prevent misunderstandings and meet stakeholder expectations.

1.Identify a single channel of Communication – Mails, Teams, Slack, Intranet Portals, etc. Do not create multiple channels. 2.Do not create multiple mail chains, message chains with different subjects. It confuses, dilutes the historical updates. 3.Identify the right stake holders. 4.Clearly articulate the action items, owners and ETAs. Mention this in the comms only when you have discussed and aligned with the owners 5.Mention clearly when would next update will be sent 6.Set-up meetings only if necessary. Bring right set of people with clearly mentioning the agenda, problems to be discussed, options with pros and cons mentioned and your recommendation 7.Share the agenda, documentation etc. prior to the meeting as a pre-read

Status update meetings are a nightmare. Avoid meetings to communicate those. Changing the meeting's name to "sync" doesn't help, either. Generally speaking, a bi-weekly situational status report is more than enough a mechanism for keeping all involved parties updated on the project’s pertinent areas.

Creating a well-defined communication plan before software development is crucial for ensuring that all stakeholders are informed, aligned, and engaged throughout the project. 1-Identify all relevant stakeholders 2-Define clear communication objectives. 3-Identify the most important messages that need to be conveyed. 4-Choose the appropriate communication channels for each type of message and audience. 5-Determine how often you will communicate updates and at what times. 6-Assign roles and responsibilities for communication.

Distance is inversely proportionate with effective communication. Bridge the distance between stakeholders and developers by strategically integrating their involvement into the project roadmap: invite representatives to Daily Scrums, senior stakeholders to Retrospectives, and leadership to Demos

I would break it into 3 simple parts > understand and take sign off from the users on the requirement (BRD will be helpful) > Share the project plan with timelines for completion of the sprint of each section of the project. This way all are aware of the timelines and keep a track of it > Use of tools like JIRA will be helpful for everyone to get updates on the project progress

In addition to outlining goals, scope, roles, responsibilities, and channels, it's essential to include a contingency plan in your communication strategy. This plan should address how you'll communicate in the event of unexpected challenges or changes, ensuring transparency and adaptability throughout the project lifecycle. Additionally, incorporating feedback mechanisms into your communication plan enables continuous improvement and ensures that stakeholder input is valued and integrated into decision-making processes.

I believe giving access to agile tools to the stakeholders and users may not always be a good idea because stakeholders and users may not be very tech savvy or familiar with the specific agile tool being used, which can hinder communication and collaboration. Secondly, the cost associated with these tools and their licensing models can sometimes limit access for stakeholders and users.

One of the most powerful tools is user stories having a clear user story will help to get the requirements clearly. Also, Jira dashboard is another effective tool which can be used and presented to showcase overall progress with key risks and issues instead of having separate PowerPoint. Refine your product backlog very often with product owner and key stakeholders.

Embrace agile methodologies, leveraging tools like Scrum or Kanban, to facilitate regular stand-ups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives. Agile practices promote continuous communication and adaptability.

Yes, documentation is an essential artefact of development projects. Of course. But it's not always the best method of providing stakeholder update or at-a-glance progress indication. Instead, consider implementing a single dashboard available to anyone with a legitimate interest. Show what matters (progress against current objectives, etc.). Keep it simple!

There are many benefits in having well structured and up to date documentation. It is crucial for end-users, providing them with insights on how the product operates, along with instructions and guidance. It serves as a foundation for the development team to build and expand software components. In substantial projects, especially when the original contributor is no longer with the company, it can be challenging to discover the rationale behind specific decisions or uncover the motivation behind the certain change. This is where internal technical documentation proves invaluable. Last but certainly not least, there's the onboarding process, where new team members can greatly benefit from a written repository of collective knowledge.

Documentation should never be a required reading. It should be a helpful additional resource people can reference. Make sure people can get the relevant information quickly and effectively from your documentation. Do not restate things that are actually specified somewhere else (in code, in examples, etc.). Treat outdated documentation as offending your target audience - always keep it up-to-date. Consider different contexts and audiences of your documentation. Sometimes keeping multiple, separate documentation parts (linked to each other) is more effective than trying to fit all information in a single source. Build effective means to submit (or correct directly) documentation errors for your audience.

In software development, comprehensive documentation is vital for effective communication and understanding. It encompasses a range of documents, including requirements, specifications, design, testing, user manuals, and release notes. Platforms like Confluence, Google Docs, or GitHub facilitate the creation and online sharing of this documentation. By providing clear information on features, functionality, and quality, documentation addresses stakeholder inquiries and ensures consistency and accuracy. It serves as a valuable resource to guide users and developers, fostering a shared understanding and minimizing errors or conflicts during the software development process.

I am a big proponent of TDD and using behavioural testing framework for testing. That way, our test scripts double up as documentation. Additionally you can use the same scripts for continuous testing in your CI/CD pipeline

Demo is not an MVP. If you just want to present your understanding of where you think you should be going, a simple mockup or partially functional slice will do. On the other hand, never present unfinished result and complete thinking you’ll fill in the missing parts before the official release. Make it clear when you’re presenting which one to avoid misunderstandings. Pre-recorded demo might save you a lot of time and embarrassment. If you’re demonstrating actual interactive system let your audience interact with it as well.

La réussite dans la démonstration de votre logiciel réside dans l'organisation de revues percutantes à la fin de chaque sprint, mettant en avant les fonctionnalités achevées. Il faut encourager une participation active des parties prenantes et des utilisateurs lors des sessions de démonstration, intégrant précieusement leurs commentaires dans le processus de développement. établir des cycles de feedback courts, permettant des ajustements. Cette approche, favorise une communication transparente, une réactivité aux changements et un engagement continu des parties prenantes.

In my experience scrum demos are the best way to showcase the progress of a software to the stakeholders . This will help us to gather the feedback at an early stage and accommodate any changes before it’s too late. Indeed helping the cost and planning of the project in a positive manner.

La démo est un jalon clé! Il évite l’effet tunnel d’un projet. Il y a cependant quelques pièges à éviter: - La démo n’a de sens que si elle permet un échange avec les stakeholders. - la démo ne doit pas être l’objectif quand on planifie son sprint (se donner de la visibilité vs fournir de la valeur) - démontrer à tout prix. Il faut adapter le contenu des démos à sa cible. Ex: la création d’un nouveau endpoint pour une api est une grande avancée dans un projet, mais est ce que cela va parler à des personnes non techniques?

Creating a balanced scorecard that encompasses Delivery, Quality, Team Health, and Governance dimensions is essential. This comprehensive approach provides a 360-degree view of sprints or program increments, empowering us to boost our metrics effectively.

Métricas s?o essenciais para uma gest?o assertiva, use e abuse de métricas, tenha em m?os números e deixará de fazer gest?o por feeling e contar com o acaso do destino em suas entregas.

Communicate clearly that you’re measuring and what data are you collecting and why. Do not collect if you don’t get a clear consent. Share the results of your measurements with the people from whom you collected the data if possible. Practice good, honest data analysis when measuring gathered data.

Metrics and analytics are important, but they should be very purposeful. Having too many datapoints make it hard to tell what's going on, but too little can introduce bias. Metrics for stakeholders should be quick, easy to digest, and have a very clear message.

In software development, collecting and analyzing metrics is crucial for evaluating performance, quality, and impact. Metrics encompass indicators like user satisfaction, adoption, retention, and functionality. They serve as a means to communicate results and demonstrate the software's value to stakeholders, showcasing alignment with user needs. Tools like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or New Relic facilitate the collection and analysis of these metrics, aiding in the identification of potential issues or areas for improvement. By leveraging metrics, you gain insights into your software's effectiveness, enabling informed decision-making and continuous enhancement.

Transparency in communication fosters trust, while responsiveness establishes reliability—both crucial in engaging with stakeholders. When considering the audience, it's important to discern the appropriate moments for delving into details, providing a comprehensive understanding, and when to maintain a high-level overview for clarity and conciseness. Striking this balance ensures effective communication tailored to the specific needs of those involved.

We use Atlas by Atlassian to coordinate product updates. Atlas is tooling to automate the collection of short, curated weekly updates pushed to interested parties. At the end of each week, Atlas prompts Product Managers to provide an update for their products. The PMs write short, Tweet-like status updates. They also update the target delivery date and the RAG status for whatever they're working on. Stakeholders subscribe to products they care about. Atlas then sends weekly updates to products you're subscribed to via email or Slack. Our updates tend to contain a lot of bulleted lists, emojis and recordings of Sprint showcases. They're a great way for stakeholders to get short, targetted updates about the products they care about.

In my view, to keep stakeholders informed during software development, transparency and responsiveness are crucial in building a positive relationship. One way is by providing frequent updates on the progress of the software development thru regular status reports. Another helpful way is to encourage the stakeholders to ask questions, provide feedback, and voice their concerns thru meetings, email exchanges, and be responsive to their needs. It is also important to document the development process, including goals, timelines, and challenges encountered, which is easily accessible to stakeholders. In the end, it is vital to ensure transparency and responsiveness to create a user-centric product. #customerengagement #softwaredevelopement

One thing I found useful for transparency is review sessions at the end of iterations. Talk about what was done, what wasn't, what's blocked. Demo what was completed. Talk about what's on deck for the upcoming iteration. That's a great time to gather new requirements or feedback about how things are going. It's also a good opportunity for stakeholders and engineers to chat. My teams have had insightful conversations during reviews and I highly recommend them.

Transparency, Visibility, Metrics, Agile tools and ceremonies is the key. e.g. Jira, Azure DevOps, Wiki, Confluence. There are queries and dashboards (metrics) in Jira and Azure Devops. Sprint review demonstrations to show and get feedback every iteration.

Firstly, software development requires a clear vision. This includes knowing the stakeholders and defining a proper role of them in the project. RACI matrix helps in it. Having a proper and timely communication channel helps in avoiding gaps and errors. Empowering team to step up and take responsibility, recognition of their efforts, mentoring and coaching, addressing skill gaps are the measures that helps in meeting client expectations. Ensuring stakeholders are informed through all means and the required members are part of the demos, scrum ceremonies, decision making meetings, etc will have a positive impact on the project.

Don’t treat stakeholders and users as outsiders. They are part of - and the reason for development - and there should be interaction throughout. Include them in as much of the process as possible. Verify the requirements, validate the functionality, ask the users, show the users, prove that what you are building is what they *really* wanted. You can have a well-defined and repeatable process, but if stakeholders are simply informed and not included, then success is not guaranteed.

For product success, engaging stakeholders and aligning expectations is key! Informing them is our chance to achieve this, requiring careful selection of communication timing, channels, and presentation content. Timing and channels: - Regular updates for consistent information flow. - Meetings for discussing progress and decisions. - Email summaries to summarize developments and plans. Content and method: - Demonstrations of new features or milestones. - Simplified explanations to make complex information accessible to stakeholders from various backgrounds. - Incorporating feedback to align with expectations.

Stakeholders are not limited to the team directly working on the project. It also includes clients, customer bases, shareholders, and sometimes even the larger public. More importantly keeping an eye out for new stakeholders and revaluating the engagement plan becomes critical for project health. Effectively managing the expectations and interests of all these groups especially the unanticipated ones can largely determine the success of any project.

This is simple. Use collaborative software development tools. Make the status/progress dashboards available to all stakeholders. If you need to call a meeting to know or update status, then you are not using right tools or not using tools in right ways. Do not rely on mails for collaboration. Mails between few people keep large team members in dark. Collaborate in the tool on the backlog item or story or epic or Release Theme or Release. This saves a lot of time in bringing people to speed. Saves time in solving a wrong problem and solving right problem in wrong ways.