The Newbie Guide To Agile by a Newbie

Agile is Tough. Really tough. After going through 2 releases within 2 months, with a team that is entirely new to Agile, it felt like going through a 100 meter sprint (pun intended) every week. In fact, as I am writing this, we are already heading into our 3rd release!

In 2017, after writing down a few articles on my personal learning, with the focus on Agile, I feel that I should perhaps kick-start 2018 with a newbie guide to Agile. After all, I was a complete newbie to Agile just 6 months ago.

As a Scrum Master of a new Agile team, I am the cap to my team agile knowledge. If I do not grow and improve myself, they will also stagnate. Without further ado, I have 5 simple tips from my brief but enriching journey with Agile!

Tip 1: Assemble the right team

Using Scrum as an example, a Scrum cell consists of the Product Owner (PO), Scrum Master (SM) and the Team. Choosing a PO, SM and Team with the right mentality towards Agile is of utmost importance. For example, if a PO only treats Agile as a way that allows them to churn out quick releases and have changing requirements, that is a big warning sign right there.

The first thing to do when assembling your team is to use the right tool for the right job. Just like how you will use a spoon to drink a bowl of soup and not a fork, contracts used for hiring your Agile team should not be using the traditional waterfall project contract. In fact, specific agile contract should be drafted with well-defined agile conditions such as co-location and multi-skilled personnel.

"You do not need individual superheros in your team. All you need, is a team, not individuals."

I cannot reinforce how important teamwork is in an agile team. Trust me, I have personally observed the capability of a disengaged team versus that of a highly engaged team. The result is evident; An engaged team with 5 members can produce greater quality work compared to a 6 members disengaged team. Hence, as much as assembling the right team is vital, having the guts to get the wrong people off the team is equally important.

Tip 2: Generate the right conditions

One of the most important factors for any team to succeed is the environment it is in. Not only just the physical environment but more importantly, the psychological environment. An environment which allows the team to speak freely with no fears of speaking up.

Having co-located teams and high bandwidth communication (face to face chats beats everything) greatly expedite the process of creating this safe environment. In my case, this is evident when one of my team members realized one of the changes the PO has made looks out of place and immediately clarified with him. He assisted to provide a better solution and the PO also thanked him for pointing out this change. (This further reinforce the safe environment for the team.)

"Be obsessed with creating a psychological safe environment for the team. The rest will follow."

One of the tricks I employed is to request each team member to take one of the PO story and explain the story requirements back to the PO. As time goes by, the team gets more comfortable with the PO and this helps to reinforce the habit of speaking up without fear. Establishing a psychological safe environment should be the constant goal of any Agile team.

Tip 3: Iterative Mindset

Once you have the right team and the right conditions, the team and most importantly the PO needs to have the right mindset. In Agile, that means having the mindset to develop a product through iterations of feedback and design.

The design of short releases of Scrum specifically aims to help the PO in adapting to the changing business environment and customer needs. The only way a PO can get useful feedback is by coming up with a minimally viable product (MVP) that his/her users can actually interact with. A PO with the right mindset will then make use of feedback from their users and prioritize their user stories accordingly.

"MVP should not be seen just as a product. It is more importantly, a mindset."

Tip 4: Leverage Testing as early as possible

Testing is the perhaps the best way to validate the work and understanding of any team. Instead of detailed documentations or lengthy emails, a working software trumps all of that. Instead of trying to do the thing right, a team should instead aim to do the right thing first. This is easily evident in the airplane exercise anyone can do with their new Agile team.

"Aim to do the right thing first instead of doing the thing right. There is no point in coming up with a perfect function which nobody wants."

Testing can be as simple as showing screens preview on a development machine for PO to review. Most importantly, test early and test often. The team should never leave testing to the last which would simply renders it into a mini-waterfall sprint.

One important testing tip is also to greatly leverage on automated testing. This not only improves code quality but most importantly, it helps to reduce manual testing. This will ensure that you have a test suite that is constantly growing in both quality and coverage.

Tip 5: Embrace Agile

Like I mentioned in my previous post, to me, Agile is simply daring to try. The team should fully embrace agile and dare to try new things. Dare to speak up when you feel the PO can improve on his/her requirements. Dare to try new ways of working and pivot when they are not working. Dare to abandon complicated tools if paper and pen works well enough.The list goes on....

"Embrace Agile knowing that Agile is both a mindset and a journey"

Ultimately, Agile can only work when the right team with the right mindset work together to create the right conditions. As cliche as it sounds, a team is only as strong as its weakest link. Aim to grow as a team, not individuals.

Summary

A-G-I-L-E, if you have not realized it yet,

is made up of these 5 tips. Hopefully this will help to reinforce these tips and boost anyone who is new to their Agile journey,

Finally, as one of the key points of Agile is continuous improvement. My last tip for anyone embarking on their Agile journey, is to keep a diary of your Agile learning. After all, there is no perfect recipe for Agile. So start creating your diary and come up with your best recipe of scrambled eggs!

Note: If you have anything to share regarding your Agile journey, would love to hear them in the comments below!