Agile Principles

Course:  AGILP
Duration:  2 Days
Level:  I
Course Summary

Agile has been a vast improvement to many development teams stuck in the middle of a rigid, process-driven environment. Unfortunately, it is not easy to bring Agile into an existing organization with established people and practices. This course teaches techniques and strategies to move from your existing process to an Agile process. It focuses on explaining Agile from a ground-level point-of-view with workshops created from business projects.

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Topics Covered In This Course

Moving To Agile

  • Is Agile just another process?
  • A paradigm shift from a plan-driven mentality
  • Agile and the bottom line
  • How this course will help you become more agile

The Case Study

  • Case study background and circumstances
  • About the Acme Media teams
  • About the individuals
  • What does it look like when a team "becomes agile"?

Are You Ready For Agile?

  • What areas will you become more agile in?
  • The different flavors of agile
  • Create your own flavor to become agile within your constraints

The Fitness Test: All About Readiness Assessments

  • The importance of readiness assessments
  • Reducing the risks of agile adoption using assessments
  • Increasing productivity during transitions
  • Getting executive buy-in for agile adoption using readiness assessments
  • Conducting readiness assessments

The Importance Of Obtaining Executive Support

  • Why should we pursue agile?
  • The cost of migrating
  • The risks in migrating
  • Rewards for the executives
  • Communicating frequently with your executive team
  • The role of the sponsor
  • Following Acme Media as the company obtains a sponsor

Improving Buy-In By Creating A Core Team

  • Who should be in the core team?
  • Choosing the core team at Acme Media
  • The kickoff meeting

The Mindset Of An Agile Leader

  • The role of an agile coach
  • Agile management: more shepherding, less directing
  • Creating a team with an agile mindset

Injecting Agility Into Your Current Process

  • Understanding your current process
  • Enhancing the existing process

Selecting a Pilot Project

  • Characteristics of a good pilot
  • Evaluating projects at Acme Media

Feasibility: Is This Project Viable?

  • Feasibility in the big picture
  • Selecting a feasibility team
  • Introducing the known requirements to the feasibility team
  • The go/no go decision
  • Alternate feasibility paths

Aligning The Pilot Team With The Project

  • Identifying the pilot team
  • Preparing the pilot team
  • Envisioning the product
  • The tradeoff matrix
  • Project worksheet

Feature Cards: A Tool For "Just Enough" Planning

  • The structure of a feature card
  • A team approach to creating feature cards
  • Feature cards compared to...
  • Limitations in using feature cards
  • Hard-copy cards vs. electronic cards

Prioritizing the Backlog

  • The art of prioritizing, sequencing, and grouping features
  • Prioritizing the backlog at Acme Media
  • Other ways to prioritize features

Estimating At The Right Level With The Right People

  • Contrasting traditional and agile estimation techniques
  • The importance of whole-team estimation
  • A step toward agility: estimating size, not effort
  • Estimating story points at Acme Media

Release Planning: Envisioning The Overall Schedule

  • Defining the pieces of a release plan
  • Completing the release plan by assigning features to iterations
  • Communicating the release plan with a kickoff meeting

Iteration Planning: The Nitty-Gritty Details

  • Clearly defining the goals: what is "feature complete"?
  • Using feature modeling to identify and estimate tasks
  • Identifying and estimating tasks
  • Determining the hours available in an iteration
  • Bringing estimates and capacity together to complete the plan
  • Making status visible

Iteration 0

  • Initial vision for the architecture
  • Completing contracts with third parties
  • Preparing environments and support tools
  • Obtaining funding
  • Finalizing and dedicating the project team
  • Starting the work early

Delivering Working Software

  • Supporting the agile principles during development and testing
  • Where to begin?
  • Completing a feature

Testing

  • Unit testing
  • Integration testing
  • Functional testing
  • Exploratory testing
  • Test automation

Adapting: Reacting Positively To Change

  • Common reasons for adapting
  • Adapting during an iteration
  • Three ways Acme Media adapted during its first iteration
  • Adapting at the end of an iteration
  • How Acme Media adapts during adapt week
  • User Acceptance Testing
  • Changes in the business climate
  • Reviewing the findings and revising the plan for the next iteration

Delivery

  • When to release
  • Final testing
  • Preparing support groups and processes
  • Communication and training
  • Ready to release
  • Enough planning; let's deploy

The Retrospective: Working Together To Improve

  • Setting expectations for the retrospective
  • Time to digest: a survey in advance
  • Conducting the retrospective meeting
  • What to expect during the meeting
  • Converting the feedback into action

Extending The New Process Across Your Company

  • Common findings after a pilot
  • What the team learned from their pilot
What You Can Expect

At the end of this course, delegates will be able to:

  • Understand the importance of adapting Agile principles to the realities of their environment.
  • Apply a "partial-Agile" approach when the "purist" approach simply is not a viable option.
  • Customize deployments of Agile to the specific situation of a business situation.
  • Understand cultural realities of deploying Agile
  • Deal with the needs of executives, managers, and the development team during migration.
  • Understand how to use employee motivation and establish incentives that reward support of Agile techniques.
  • Create a custom Agile process that supports the realities of their environment.
  • Understand how to minimize risk as they transition to Agile iteratively, allowing time for their culture and processes to acclimate to Agile principles.
Who Should Take This Course

Individuals who are considering adopting Agile methods and want an in depth understanding of what the principles have to offer.

Training Style

Lecture (60%) / Case Study (40%)

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Every student attending a Verhoef Training class will receive a certificate good for $100 toward their next public class taken within a year.

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