What is the Agile method all about?

An Agile methodology is an approach to project management adopted in software development. This method refers to methodologies concerning ideas, requirements, and solutions centered on collaboration between self-organizing and cross-functional teams. This approach supports teams taking into consideration the unexpected turns that software building can take. The value of the Agile approach focuses on providing a faster response, agility, and faster experience to sudden changes. A recipe designed to build the ideal Agile team.

How does an Agile team work?

Agile was developed as an approach to conventional project management. Instead of focusing on one big goal that leads to a final product, Agile breaks up that goal into several independent products that can be developed and released more efficiently and thus, more quickly. Agile focuses on two project management styles, specifically, Kanban and Scrum. When it comes to Agile workflow elements, there are some defining specs:

Daily standups

Members and leaders review the achievements, highs, needed improvements of the previous day, and what each member/team is working on at the moment.

Sprints

A sprint is all about planning all stages of a product, from development to evaluation. It’s commonly divided into five events: sprint, sprint planning, daily stand-ups, sprint review, and sprint retrospective.

Reviews and assessments

Most companies see regular reviews as a must and this is especially common with an agile team. Even though an Agile team is all about managing themselves, there are still steps to make sure all stages of the work are being reached within the standard and quality expected. Assessments, are a key part, allowing members and managers to understand, evaluate, and set with detail the work or the best route to take.

Scrum Roles

As said previously, frameworks such as scrum help teams to follow agile principles, providing needed support to optimize work. These frameworks serve ultimately as the team’s guide, a compass to true north. Yet, the makings of an ideal team rely on its arrangement, from the number of team members to their role and a scrum team focuses on three:

Product Owner

The product owner plays a key role considering that he has the idea of the final product and how it should turn out for the specific project at hand. Passing important information, amendments, or adjustments. He is the one with the hands on the steering wheel that defines the route, team goals, tasks and has the final word on any changes.

Scrum Master

Besides having a Zen master like title, the scrum master also plays an important role. These individuals are the all-wise keepers of the scrum board. They are the second in command and mentor junior members in ways only masters can. Besides checking the daily work, they provide feedback to the team and make sure procedures are correctly applied. In sum, this experienced leader performs like a star player since it’s he who provides guidance and support to all. He is the bridge between the product owner and the team, accountable for performance.

Team members

The team members are the builders of the product, the backbone of any project, a skilled workforce of developers, designers, content experts and many more that are in charge of delivering all projects with the utmost quality and within the set deadlines. The right team members are all about supporting one and another, always aware of needed improvement while communicating with the scrum master, constantly brainstorming thanks to the different experiences they bring to the table. No skilled scrum master or product owner can deliver an amazing product without the right team members. Success starts with them.

Ultimately, an Agile team introduces benefits when it comes to improving development and high-quality software. A methodology focused on self-organizing cross-functional teams with autonomy, technical expertise and higher performance.

Agile is supposed to be different and ever-changing depending on each team and its circumstances. To start building one, you need to get support from the management team by showing a plan to reach. Then, there are some strategies you can adopt in order to create an awesome team. In this article, we’ll point out some tips to build an effective Agile Team.

Be patient
An efficient agile team is not always consistent. Things don’t always work out right at the first try and team members need to get used to a specific workflow and the group dynamic. This process might take some time, s you need to be patient to overcome workflow obstacles.

Good communication
The way to know if an agile team is on the right track is with a good communication system. Agile teams organize themselves to present their software to customers, so they can collect feedback as soon as possible and apply it to their work. Agile teams adopt a philosophy of transparency and view obstacles as opportunities to continuously learn and ultimately improve.

Be open to change
Change it’s just around the corner. It can happen anytime, mostly in agile teams. Although agile teams rely on plans and organization, they need to have the ability to respond to change.

Focus on results
Instead of obsessing over processes and procedures, agile takes emphasis on the results and outcomes.

Give voice to every team member
The concept of a team has to be taken seriously: everyone is accountable for the final product. Identify the goals of the team and adjust your goals to it. Stay realistic: the bigger the goal the more risks you take when it comes to reaching it.

There isn’t a perfect formula for a perfect agile team.
Either you implement scrum or decide for Kanban, invest in building an independent team able to adapt quickly to changes and work well as a group.