6 Reasons you Should Adopt Agile Project Management NOW!

There is a lot of buzz around agile project management and its adoption. Companies are practically in a rat-race to present themselves as an “agile mascot” of sorts.

Sure, there are lots of proven and anticipated benefits that make a strong case for its adoption.

Agile is more than just a framework or a project management methodology. It has to do more with the company’s culture, its vision and its people.

You cannot use agile as a wrapper to cover all things waterfall!

Based on our experience with the work we have been doing to help our customers implement the agile methodology we have come across quite a few advantages that make a fair case.

 

Let us review some of them in the interest of making you take that leap of faith!

Fail Fast, Succeed Faster

The iterative and modular approach offered by the agile scrum is a great way to test those great ideas. E.g. a new feature or product, service, redesigning existing product, strategic initiative etc.

Sprints or iterations are your rapid fire rounds to check how an idea would turn out during an actual implementation, would it be a market fit, something your customers would love or how successful it would be overall.

The results help you to course-correct in time, re-strategize or redraw an entirely new plan.

Important thing here is, you do not have to commit significant resources for this. Hence, you save yourself a lot of money, time, efforts and disappointments.

Moreover, the technology climate change is a constant. When you layout plans for a year or more things are bound to change and latest eruptions will prove disruptive.

But being agile will allow you to stay relevant and provide that leeway to shift gears when needed.

Clearer Requirements

As you continue to make MVPs and take the minimalistic approach you are exposed to multi-dimensional thought process in terms of your requirements.

Seeing a small feature or a partial one in action reveals loopholes in your concept or shed in light towards more meaningful and important aspects that you may have missed entirely.

At the same time while running active projects, sprint planning and sprint reviews & print retrospectives help you set the right priorities on your product backlog items (PBIs).

There is greater participation from your Scrum teams that shapes the product in greater alignment with the overall end-product reducing your chances of project failure or customer disagreement.

Constant User Feedback

This is by far the most significant benefit of agile product development.

Majorly because, the customers and end users are actively engaged throughout the product development right from start to finish.

Sprints help us deliver shippable product increments. And at the end of each sprint, the Product Owner presents the finish increment to the customer thereby inviting their feedback.

This leads to prompt course correction and prevents the team from any deviation.

Furthermore, active customer engagement leads to requirements and quality refinement too as the team is under constant watchful eyes.

Having the opportunity to receive end user feedback directly is a huge gift for the Scrum team. It helps them assess how best they have understood the end goal and can learn from their mistakes. Quickly!

Lastly, the team’s confidence too rises with each product increment and so does that of the customer.

Self-Organizing Teams

Agile has a huge focus on the people rather than the technology.

Right from the constitution of the “Scrum Team” to deciding what goes into the Sprint the team will work on is the hallmark of the scrum methodology.

Sprints are always advised to be a minimum of 1 week and maximum of 4 weeks. But the best recommendation is 2week sprints.

Similarly scrum teams are mandated to be of 3-10 team members at the most.

Why so?

Agile runs on the concept of self-organizing teams and the fact that each one works to his strengths. Thus, the scrum team is constituted so.

All relevant players like architect, developer, UI/UX, QA etc. are detached from the traditional silo model and brought together as one team.

This is done keeping in mind that all required skill sets to deliver a finished increment at the end of the sprint work cohesively and without distractions.

Moreover, the fact that the teams choose the set of items from the backlog for the Sprint puts their skin directly in the game.

It is their decision and hence there is deep commitment to complete the sprint successfully. Each one of them picks the items he thinks can be achieved within the sprint duration.

This not only improves their estimation skills but also helps them assess their true capabilities and build upon them over time. This is a hard thing to come by in the waterfall methodology.

And the greatest benefit of all is the freedom they are provided proved productive in meeting deadlines, greater planning and high quality outputs.

Greater Team Collaboration

Agile is also about a great team culture.

Take a closer look at the 4 Scrum Ceremonies:

• Sprint Planning
• Daily Stand-ups
• Sprint Reviews
• Sprint Retrospective

It is all about maximum engagement at all levels. Each of the 4 ceremonies has definite purpose in helping the teams meet the project goals successfully.

Sprint Planning is about getting together to decide the next sprint and set the goals based on the chosen backlog items.

Daily Stand-ups is all about quick check-ins on the progress made the previous day, hurdles for the day if any and quick overall status update. No communication fiascos ever!

Sprint Reviews is the test! Product Owner conducts this meeting in tandem with the scrum team and the business. The primary objective is to demo the working finished increment and invite customer feedback.

Sprint Retrospective is about assessing what went wrong and what worked in the previous sprint! The lessons learnt act as inputs to the sprint planning meeting.

So do you see the closed loop system? And note all of this is done across all iterations.

Most importantly, none of the information and learning can go stale given the short duration at which they are collected and synthesized.

The seamless continuous integration of ideas, learning’s, and feedbacks make a tremendous impact on the overall planning, execution and monitor and control aspects of your project.

Instant Gratification

This one is my favourite! And I bet yours too!

We live in an instant world. Everything made available at the tap of a thumb.

And without a doubt, every one of us wants to demonstrate and experience success instantly.

With agile this is easily achievable. As explained so far, the business can see tangible results on a weekly or fortnightly basis.

This allays any anxiety around the final outcomes, requirement disconnects or lack of visibility of the progress.

From the technology service provider’s perspective:

• you stay on track with assured constant feedback
• highly engaged customer
• negligible chances of disagreement
• high-performing and motivated team
• higher chances of success

What’s the big deal?

Agile has proved to offer a strategic vantage point in terms of ensuring customer success and enabling outcomes that are in direct alignment with their business goals.

 

Over time, you build confidence, gain their trust and become their extended team rather than just a vendor or commodity.

Internally, your organization stands to benefit from a unified, motivated and self-organizing workforce that is committed to the job at hand.

Remember, with agile your teams get 3 of the most crucial job satisfaction factors

• freedom to choose their work/role they play in a project
• visibility to the value of their contribution towards the goals
• instant learning and success

We all know that an enterprise’s success rides on the success of its workforce and agile makes it a little easier is what I’ve learnt!

Embark on your agile journey today with Orangescrum and take your enterprise to the next level and beyond.