Contrast Agile & Waterfall Development Methods
Agile software development methods represent a departure from traditional waterfall approaches in significant ways. Yet there are long standing and highly successful approaches from industry that historically support concepts of agility going back at least thirty years. Capturing a clear understanding of these concepts, you will be able to capitalize on them to gain the cooperation and acceptance of stakeholders who must approve and participate.

Where Agile Methods Can Help the Organization
There are significant benefits available with Agile methods that can address the high risks, unknowns, and uncertainties that beset contemporary projects. These complexities can best be addressed with a flexible and adaptable model that faces the problems and provides the tools to change the way work is done and address the issues head on. In this course, you will experience several case study scenarios that typify the attributes of most projects in your organization, each providing a recognition point as we explore and discuss the hurdles to Agile. Learn to overcome these hurdles and interweave your traditional practices with Agility to develop the best software for your organization.

Plan your Agile Transition Strategy
After considering all of the ways in which the Agile methods will affect your organization and considering the benefits and challenges associated with each, you will be ready to plan your Agile adoption strategy. What will you do first? Who should be involved? How will you capitalize on the benefits you will experience? In this course you will gain all the tools, skills, and knowledge to return to your office and successfully integrate an Agile transition strategy that best fits your environment.

Case Studies:
Each concept and technique covered in this course is illustrated using ten different Case Studies that are designed to mirror the attributes of many different types of organizations. Their purpose is to provide you with touchstones that bear some resemblance to your organization to help you in applying the lessons of this training course. While it is likely that one of the case study organizations will be remarkably like yours, it is unlikely that the other two share no attributes with yours. For each dimension of Agility, we will discuss the unique needs and situations of each of the three Case Study organizations, and determine how to make the transition from traditional to Agile.

Specifically, we will explore:

• How to sell the benefits to your organization
  
• How to address the challenges within your organization
  
• How to define processes that will work in your organization
  
• Who needs to be trained in new ways of working

In-Class Exercises:
During this class, you will:

• Explore the problems your organization is currently experiencing with software projects
  
• Solidify and strengthen any Agile concepts that your organization has already accepted
  
• Implement strategies for how you can build collaborative, self-directed teams
  
• Discover how you can institute incremental planning and adaptation on your projects
  
• Harvest methods to move your projects to a more customer-centric, change-tolerant requirements process
  
• Enlighten your organization on how you can make quality the job of each and every team member
  
• Prioritize the Agile changes you can make, identifying the “best bang-for-the-buck” strategies to achieve success
  
• Create the beginnings of your Agile transition action plan

Immediate Benefits of Participating in this Workshop

1. Grasp the Agile Manifesto Principles to truly understand the philosophy and balance required for “True” Agility
   
2. Show solid evidence on how Agility can improve your software projects
   
3. Correlate Agile principles with how projects can be improved in your organization
   
4. Reduce project risks using key Agile practices
   
5. Appreciate the value of becoming a learning organization and become adaptive on projects
   
6. Accept that change is good because it is a symptom of becoming a learning organization
   
7. Value regular and continuous collaboration among all team members — including the business
   
8. Identify all of the people who should be treated as members of the team
   
9. Focus primarily on your customers and their needs
   
10. Empower your customer to have a central role in project success
    
11. Mentor your project teams to self-manage
    
12. Find a good coach for your agile teams
    
13. Execute the best method for collecting your customer’s requirements and needs
    
14. Adapt to your customer’s evolving understanding of their needs
    
15. Get regular feedback from your customer to ensure the project stays on track
    
16. Deliver high value and customer satisfaction in your customer’s eyes
    
17. Control schedule and costs by effectively time-boxing your projects
    
18. Adapt your plans smoothly to changing project realities
    
19. Eliminate waste by doing just enough and just in time
    
20. Capture the concepts behind Toyota’s TPS and execute lean projects, delivering high value fast