I am looking for a webinar that will teach me how to manage agile projects. For ex. how to share sprint details and duration with customers on a weekly bases, which documents to use.Also useful reports for weekly status meetings, how to collect requirements such as use cases and user stories effectively with template examples. I know Jira does a lot of work for the product team, but I am looking for templates and processes to satisfy business teams behind software implementations Saving Changes...
I doubt you'd find a single webinar covering all of what you are asking for as that would be a VERY long webinar.
Also remember that there is no "one right way" to be agile - you have to take the context of your project/product, the team and the organizational culture and constraints into consideration when making these decisions.
The Disciplined Agile framework provides a good set of options for key decisions made during the lifecycle of an agile release - you may want to investigate that...
Hi Jessica, if you have a browse within Topics within here, sub section Agile, there is a plethora of information for your perusal, good luck with your search Saving Changes...
James ShieldsIS Director - Portfolio Solutions| City and County of San Francisco, SFPDSan Francisco, Ca, United States
Jessica -- you ask a GREAT question! (of which I probably don't have a great answer).
I think there is some experimentation involved on this to find what works and what does not. Also recognize that what works for one project may not work for the next project.
Agile's emphasis is on the output, not the input and on value delivered, not process (although there has to be some process, yes?).
Kiron's recommendation is sound. Agile is about the journey of discovery and using what works at the moment as long as you are following the principles of this discipline. There is no arrival point that ends this cycle. Saving Changes...
Wade HarshmanScrum Master| GDITIndianapolis, In, United States
There's a lot to unpack; I'm not sure you can get it all in one webinar. Get plugged into some agile communities and enjoy the journey.
When you share your sprint results with customers, focus on the product increment, not the team metrics. No one outside the team should care about the team metrics. And it's not necessarily your job to communicate; your project team and customers should be able to talk to one another.
Many teams use burn-up or burn-down charts to show progress. (I prefer burn-ups, but a lot of really smart people prefer burn-downs.) You can do a web search and find many good examples to explain how these are used.
As far as documentation goes, an agile mindset will approach it with some skepticism. If it's not needed, it's waste. One of my first agile trainers would routinely "forget" to produce documentation as an experiment, to see if anyone noticed. He was able to identify and greatly reduce the amount of waste from over-documentation.
User story templates are a good way to get started, but don't get too attached to the templates. A common template is "As a [who], I need [what] so that [why]." But just try to describe the need from a certain type of user's point of view, in plain language. If the customer and the team can all understand the story, then it's sufficient, and sufficient is good enough. (Search for "INVEST" criteria for some good articles on user stories.) Saving Changes...
Mikel SteadmanPMO Leader| Development Dimensions InternationalTroy, Nh, United States
A lot to unpack, but here are my top 3.
Managing the backlog (Requests, User Stories, Prioritization)
Managing the team (Release Plan, Velocity, Burndown, and Quality)
Self-organized (team continuously reflects, adapts, and improves) Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
While I have discussed the name with him the best source I found along the years is Mike Cohn´s book "Agile estimating and planning". So, as @Kiron stated, go to Mike´s website and try to find the book. The other source you can not forget is Jim Highsmith "Agile Project Management" and all related inside his website. Forget about anything from the PMI today. I hope it will change in the future. Saving Changes...
On top of the above recommendations, the scrum.org website offers a lot of informations and useful hints. Furthermore, the book from Doug Rose ("Leading Agile Teams") is a great source for practice tipps. Saving Changes...
Thanks for your suggestions everyone. I think I’ll look into Mike Cohn and managing the team further.
To be a little more clear I’m a CSM and PMP. The organization in which I am working is a start up so that tells you a lot about the culture. They use jira and the standard artifacts and meeting associated with scrum to manage professional services projects, however, the issue I am having is that I can tell the customer feels that we’re not being transparent enough in our weekly meetings. That said, I was hoping to hear about the tools and techniques my fellow PMs are using to show their customers what the progress is on software projects. I understand I have to be comfortable with ambiguity to an extent and there isn’t supposed to be an emphasis on documentation in agile projects. I’m just wondering how you all do it in your organization. What best practices have you found effective.
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3 replies by Hong Jone Wong, Kiron Bondale, and Sergio Luis Conte
Oct 06, 2019 9:25 PM
Kiron Bondale
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Jessica -
As a CSM you'll know that one of the pillars of Scrum is transparency. Transparency begets trust amongst our stakeholders which in turn increases their likelihood to let us self-organize.
Have you explored the idea of sharing key information radiators like burndown charts and version reports (assuming you are using the latter) from Jira with them?
Do they attend your sprint reviews?
Have you ever invited them to a daily standup?
Agile provides many opportunities (contract & confidentiality permitting) for key stakeholders to get objective evidence of progress, so hopefully one of these options is workable.
Every organization runs it differently, and what works for others might still need adaptation to some workflow for it to work well in yours.
I would suggest that you find out what is really bothering the customer and what was the reason behind the customer is feeling that you are not being transparent. Then address that issue directly. Cheers!
Oct 07, 2019 7:20 AM
Sergio Luis Conte
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Then, is not a problem on tools and techniques. Is a problem related to communication. For example you can can take a 15 minutes phone call each day with your customer and they will fill everthing is ok.My recommendation, trying to put this in terms where you can find information to review and use, take a look to Solution Selling or SPIN Selling selling method.
Thanks for your suggestions everyone. I think I’ll look into Mike Cohn and managing the team further.
To be a little more clear I’m a CSM and PMP. The organization in which I am working is a start up so that tells you a lot about the culture. They use jira and the standard artifacts and meeting associated with scrum to manage professional services projects, however, the issue I am having is that I can tell the customer feels that we’re not being transparent enough in our weekly meetings. That said, I was hoping to hear about the tools and techniques my fellow PMs are using to show their customers what the progress is on software projects. I understand I have to be comfortable with ambiguity to an extent and there isn’t supposed to be an emphasis on documentation in agile projects. I’m just wondering how you all do it in your organization. What best practices have you found effective.
Jessica -
As a CSM you'll know that one of the pillars of Scrum is transparency. Transparency begets trust amongst our stakeholders which in turn increases their likelihood to let us self-organize.
Have you explored the idea of sharing key information radiators like burndown charts and version reports (assuming you are using the latter) from Jira with them?
Do they attend your sprint reviews?
Have you ever invited them to a daily standup?
Agile provides many opportunities (contract & confidentiality permitting) for key stakeholders to get objective evidence of progress, so hopefully one of these options is workable.
Kiron Saving Changes...
Hong Jone WongProduct Manager| Centre for Strategic Infocomm TechnologiesSingapore, Singapore
Oct 06, 2019 12:46 PM
Replying to Jessica Spector
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Thanks for your suggestions everyone. I think I’ll look into Mike Cohn and managing the team further.
To be a little more clear I’m a CSM and PMP. The organization in which I am working is a start up so that tells you a lot about the culture. They use jira and the standard artifacts and meeting associated with scrum to manage professional services projects, however, the issue I am having is that I can tell the customer feels that we’re not being transparent enough in our weekly meetings. That said, I was hoping to hear about the tools and techniques my fellow PMs are using to show their customers what the progress is on software projects. I understand I have to be comfortable with ambiguity to an extent and there isn’t supposed to be an emphasis on documentation in agile projects. I’m just wondering how you all do it in your organization. What best practices have you found effective.
Every organization runs it differently, and what works for others might still need adaptation to some workflow for it to work well in yours.
I would suggest that you find out what is really bothering the customer and what was the reason behind the customer is feeling that you are not being transparent. Then address that issue directly. Cheers! Saving Changes...
