Agile denken, oder: Wie man den Wasserfall überwindet

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There are several advantages of agile methods over the traditional waterfall model. While it may be better suited for software development, not all companies are willing to switch to a different method.The waterfall method has served us well for many years and is still considered a good method by many businesses. Agile methods are relatively new, but they offer the ability to control the development process and find requirements efficiently. Therefore, agile methods are a better option for businesses today.

If your company has decided to transition to using agile methods, this is the perfect article to help ensure a smooth transition.

Step 1 : The Right Project

To find the right project to implement agile methods, several important criteria must be analyzed

• Size

A project should last for at least 4 weeks in order to gather feedback data and understand the methodology. The optimal duration for a project is 12 weeks.

• Risks

Although the project should be important for the company, it shouldn't be absolutely critical. Ideally, there should also be no time or customer pressure. During a first pilot project, one should focus on implementing the methodology, rather than having to fight large forest fires.

• Participation

It is important to involve as many employees in a project as possible: project managers, designers, developers, testers, analysts. A project should go through all the development phases with these people: concept planning, design, analysis, development. It is important to have a clear understanding of each methodological aspect and to receive feedback from all participants throughout the process.

Step 2: Team Recruiting

It is important to have some prior project experience before taking on a new project method, so that it can be approached responsibly. All of the necessary skills can be gathered within an enthusiastic team. It is also key to have a few "agile advocates" on board, otherwise too much time would be spent arguing. A team full of enthusiasts would lead to a successful integration of agile methods. The key to an agile approach are individuals and interactions: self-organization and motivation are important, as are smooth interactions between team members.

Step 3: Role Formation

The next step is to assign roles to everyone on our team. The most important roles would be:

• Product Owner
• Scrum Master oder Agile Project Manager
• Software Developer
• Business Analyst or customer ( not really a part of the teams even though they have major influence in the Process)

These roles are divided into two groups: technical specialists and customer communication. The customer service side, represented by a Product Owner and a Business Analyst, is responsible for defining the requirements and shaping them into user stories. If a Product Owner provides the development team with "just enough" information, the work process

Step 4: Planning and Estimation

Creating a roadmap is the first step of any project. It's necessary to plan out each task and estimate roughly when each user story can be completed. However, since this is the first agile project, accuracy to the second is not required. Rather, one should simply become familiar with the process of estimation.

What should be included in the planning process? A project is divided into segments, which consist of functional user stories. Each user story has specific criteria that need to be elaborated on or fulfilled. Completing these tasks gives a good overview of how "finished" the project is.

User stories are a great way to describe the functionality of software. They can be written in any format and usually don't require more than two short sentences. However, many people prefer to use the following template:

"I would like to be considered for the position of___, in order to___."

In contrast, acceptance criteria are a tool for describing specific functional requirements and outlining the steps needed to achieve a desired result. They are usually formulated in the Gherkin language.

Scenario: Signing Up

Given: I am on the sign-up page

And: My username is valid

And: My password is valid

When: I click "sign up"

Then: I am logged in as a user

And: My user homepage opens

Let's take a look at estimation. Functionalities are sized using a system similar to T-shirt sizes: XS, S, M, L, XL. The sizes of user stories are relative to other user stories. A good starting point is a story that is clear enough to determine how long it would take to develop it exactly. This user story is used as a benchmark, and every subsequent user story is evaluated in comparison to this basic benchmark. So the entire evaluation system shows the relationships between larger and smaller tasks.

Step 5: Sprints and Sprint Planning

• Sprint Zero

In such a situation, the Sprint 0 is a key event that sets the approach for current and future problems: how to shape the vision of the project, how are the orders for manufacturing, how the team is prepared for agile work. The focus here is on creating the conditions for the team, not on writing large amounts of code – that comes in later sprints. It is an important problem that every agile project pilot must solve. It is important to define a sprint size so that the team has enough time to catch itself in case of operational risks.

• Sprint Planning

Now that all of the user stories have been written and reviewed by the team, and the release plan is in place, it's time to start planning the individual sprints. Any user stories that come up after this point will need to be reviewed by the team again. If the team agrees on the story, it will be defined as a task.

• Velocity

At Velocity, we use a metric called "velocity" to measure how many user stories a team can complete within a sprint. Of course, a team's velocity is not known at the beginning of their first sprint. The more data we have, the more accurate our predictions will be.

This metric should not be the primary driver for a team's actions – tasks should not be chosen simply to achieve a higher velocity value.

Step 6: Sprint Evaluation and Definition of Success

The key elements that impact the success of a sprint are standup meetings, interaction, and modifications.

The daily standup is a 15-minute meeting intended to answer the following questions:

• What did I do yesterday?
• What will I do today?
• Do I have any other problems at the moment?

Interaction is one of the most important factors in achieving success as a team. It depends on teamwork and the compatibility between each team member, as well as other factors. According to the Agile Manifesto, individuals and interactions are more important than processes and tools.

Sprint Review and Demo

In order to complete the sprint, the following steps should be taken: a review and a demo

The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the work that has been done and to show the finished product to the client. We will then receive feedback and decide if any further work needs to be done.

Afterwards, a retrospective will take place in order to show the following aspects to a project team:

• What did we do well?
• What could be improved?
• What concrete improvements could be made in the next sprint?

Once all the sprints are completed and the product is finished, it's time for a retrospective. The team will share their thoughts on what went well and what could be improved. This is also the time to gather feedback on how to use agile methods in other projects within the company. Even though initial attempts might not be perfect, it's worth trying something new. A little fresh air can do everyone some good.