Signs of following a mimicked waterfall model
It would not justify if we say “Agile” is a buzzword in today’s world as it has already become a norm at least in the domain of software development. Agile is more of a mindset which guides us on how collaborative teams come together to deliver working software which adds value to the customers. The word ‘agile’ by google definition says able to move quickly and easily. Anything that stops the flow of moving rapidly can be called anti-agile.
Tethering the best practices of agile with some anti patterns in this piece of article. Glance through the article to check if your teams are still working on waterfall based model mimicked under the name of agile.
1. Compromising quality over variables can lead to dissatisfied customers and in the long run setting an example of a not so good product.
The art of delivering valuable software always goes back to the “Golden triangle rule” where quality is in the centre of the triangle not to be compromised whereas cost, time and scope needs a trade off based on the circumstances.
2. If a piece of work has no definition of done then it’s a calf lost in the midst of the woods. Into the vicious cycle with rework and time loss hindering the value we deliver for customers.
The mantra is set and thrive to the definition of done and go for an early feedback.
3. Agile project management tools if leveraged as the only and a strong source of truth leads many discussions into the rabbit hole. It breaks the team collaboration and can itself turn into an impediment.
Agile project management tools are highly beneficial if used in a right way to plan, adapt and move forward rather than tools only to document, restrict scope and track movements.
4. Dependencies and changes always stacked for future indicates a bad sign to the maturing metric of the product.
Agile software development embraces change and how quickly we adapt to the change which will make the product more adaptive, cautiously also having in mind that 80% of outcomes result from 20% of all causes. Priority becomes the key.
5. Not looking at ways to measure and account in every lap can lead to the finish line but with no victory. Teams who don’t have proper metrics accommodated in planning are more probable to be on the hind side in delivering value to the customer.
Metrics indicate measures of where we are. Measuring velocity of the team frequently, having a bug to feature ratio metrics or any metrics that works for the team is essential to know the strengths of the team and areas to do better
6. Relying on stakeholder demos only and having longer feedback cycles will gave us late results and hence time consuming.
Though showcases to stakeholders are a great way to accelerate feedback, it’s not the only way to get feedback. There is a huge difference between seeing a product flow and to execute the flow by stakeholders themselves. That’s where working sessions comes in to picture added upon with the frequency. The most beneficial way to get feedback can also be by allowing beta customers to access the product.
7. Placing user stories in a random fashion and creating highly dependent stories on each other can break the agility of the team.
User stories should always be independent of each other to thrive faster and techniques like story maps and event storming will help us in right placement of stories without sacrificing the priority.
8. Siloed teams don’t produce value and hence the value we deliver to customers will be based on assumptions thus leading to lot of chaos.
Happy teams with great collaboration and bonding take up challenging conversations who aim to succeed as a team and also ready to fail as a team, as failures are all lessons learnt, isn’t?
To conclude
It’s always what best works for the team. If waterfall way of working is a conscious decision by the team and if it works, then it works. All the practices mentioned above are very familiar and nothing new. But not having a tab of them will lead us to call ourselves as agile way of working but in actuals trapped in waterfall model.
Happy learning. Cheers!
