Identify the challenges you will face when implementing an Agile approach to software development and then plan for a successful transition from waterfall or other traditional software development approaches! This is your Agile foundation training course.
Learn how to:
- Align Agile practices with PMI's A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge ® (PMBOK)
- Understand the key differences between a waterfall and an Agile approach to software development, then identify the areas you will benefit from most
- Identify and eliminate the traditional practices that undermine your project success
- Learn the 5 true measures of project success, then map each of them to Agile practices with tips on implementing them immediately
- Uncover the organizational problems that most companies never discover they have, then learn the Agile techniques that address these deficiencies
- Align waterfall's five process groups to Agile's five levels of continuous planning
- Discover how transitioning to Agile provides better tools to manage the value and quality of your project and product development efforts
- Create a customized, hybrid approach to software development that takes into account your company's unique challenges and constraints
- Uncover the pitfalls that teams will encounter in an Agile transition and understand how to overcome those challenges
- Lay the foundation upon which you can build a learning team and organization
Contrast Agile & Waterfall Development Methods
Agile software development methods represent a departure from traditional waterfall approaches in significant but meaningful 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 common sense concepts, you will be able to capitalize on them, gaining the cooperation and acceptance of stakeholders who must approve and participate
in your team's success.
Where Agile Methods Can Help the Organization
There are significant benefits available when utilizing an Agile approach that can address the risks, unknowns, and uncertainties that affect nearly all
software development projects. These complexities can best be addressed with a flexible and adaptable model that turns traditional problems into advantages
and provides the tools to change the way work is done through addressing organizational issues head on. In this course you will experience, through hands-on
exercises, just how Agile addresses these traditional project challenges and you will learn how to finally resolve these ever-present constraints. Learn to
overcome these hurdles and interweave your traditional practices with Agile practices to develop the best software for your organization and your customer.
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. Which steps should you take first? Who will need to 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 implement an Agile transition
strategy that best fits your environment.
Easy to Implement Training
Each concept and technique covered in this course is discussed not only in theory, but will also cover how the information works in practice. Each section
will encompass the most important information that you need to know in order to be prepared to put this knowledge to use, and then will be followed with
hands-on exercises to demonstrate precisely how to implement it. Each of the sections will also include a discussion around best practices for transitioning,
and implementation to help participants avoid the pitfalls commonly encountered when making the change to an Agile approach.
We will explore in detail:
- The benefits of utilizing an Agile approach for software development and how to sell these benefits to your organization
- How to address the technical, organizational, and cultural challenges within your company or organization
- How to define processes that will work in your organization
- How to assemble your first Agile team, plan for your first Agile project, and how to ensure that you maximize the opportunity for success
- The secrets for making the transition as seamless as possible in any industry, any company, and with any organizational constraints
In-Class Hands-On Practice Exercises
This class is a stimulating combination of class interaction, case studies, real-world examples, group exercises, and workshops. Each is designed to allow you
to easily grasp new concepts and techniques.
Specifically, 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 and explore those that you have yet to implement
- 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 you 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 of breed" strategies to achieve success
- Create the beginnings of your Agile transition action plan
Immediate Benefits of Participating in this Workshop
- Gain a clear understanding of the core Agile principles and how these principles are put into practice most effectively
- Build a comprehensive case for implementing an Agile approach in your unique organizational environment
- Minimize traditional project risks by utilizing the tools for a successful Agile implementation
- Identify the benefits of aggressively pursuing incremental improvement in your software development approach and then learn the tools to support this effort
- Deliver the highest value in your product by maintaining visibility into the competitive market conditions that may affect how your product is received
- Adapt to your customer's evolving understanding of their needs and wants
- Learn how to effectively eliminate the issue of 'Scope Creep'
- Discover how to deliver a quality product while reducing costs and resource requirements, achieving what has traditionally been thought of as an impossible task
- Experience the freedom of embracing change and redefining how change affects projects
- Assemble your first Agile team with a technique to maximize your success potential
- Correlate your real world environment to Agile principles and practices to gain a clear understanding of how your organization will benefit
- Gain an appreciation of the value in becoming a learning organization where adaption to changing environments and customer needs is common
- Determine the characteristics of a great Agile coach and learn how a great Agile coach can maximize the opportunity for success on your very next project
- Discover what Toyota spent hundreds of millions of dollars to learn and how it can transform your organization's efficiency
- Master the specific Agile approach that ensures incremental improvement for your team in areas of Agile process, efficiency, and cost reduction
- Get regular feedback from your customer to ensure the project stays on track
- Execute the best method for eliciting and your customer's product requirements and evolving needs
- Eliminate waste in your process by utilizing the proven "just enough, just in time" approach to planning
- Empower your team to be responsible for total project success
- Eliminate the divide between development team and customer team by creating shared goals for project success that transcend simple contractual requirements
