Agile Methodology

📈 Agile Project Management

We follow these principles:

• 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 behavior accordingly.

🤼 Scrum

We use the scrum method on many of our time-based projects. It is one of many methods based on the Agile principles. Here is how it works:

📋 1. Project Backlog

A prioritized list of work that needs to get done. The list is maintained by the product owner (will be one of our full-time crew members). This is a dynamic list of features, requirements, enhancements, and fixes that acts as the input for the sprint backlog. It is, essentially, the team’s “To Do” list.

🏃 2. Sprint

A sprint is a short, time-boxed period when a scrum team works to complete a set amount of work. One to two weeks is a pretty typical length for a sprint.

"Sprints make projects more manageable, allow teams to ship high-quality work faster and more frequently, and gives them more flexibility to adapt to change." Atlassian

The development team (this is you 👈) pulls work from the backlog as there is capacity for it. Before each sprint starts there will be a sprint meeting, in which the team decides who will do what.

📆 3. Sprint meetings (stand-ups)

A super-short meeting that happens at the same time every few days.

"In many sports the team huddles before each play. The huddle is strategic: it keeps the team informed, connected, and calibrated throughout the game. For software teams, the stand-up is like the team’s huddle. It’s even commonly known as the daily scrum, and reinforces “we” to keep everyone aware of the team’s landscape and progress." Atlassian

Be prepared to comment on these 3 questions in every sprint meeting:

• What did I do since our last meeting?

• What do I plan to do until our next meeting?

• Are there any obstacles that will keep me from completing my tasks?

📜 Guidelines

Here we list a few practical considerations that we found useful.

👍 Good practice

• Do time or difficulty (story point) estimation before starting with a task; keep track of your time; and compare with your estimate afterwards.

• Do issue status updates before the scrum session.

• Scrum sessions should be kept short. In general, only talk about things that concerns at least half of the group.

• Jump on the next task if you are blocked on a specific task.

• Feel free to take issues from the backlog if you are done with your set of assigned issues.

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Learn more about Agile & Scrum on Atlassian.com