After many years of application development and project methodologies, we have found that using the Agile methodology helps us streamline our project delivery process by allowing us to be much more flexible to change requests on large scale projects. What ensued was the ability to better deliver on our commitments as well as stay in front of project issues.
By using the Agile project management framework SCRUM we have seen many benefits when running large scale projects. The goals achieved are:
- Increased team communication regarding project processes
- Creation of working software quicker in the project development process
- Motivated individuals who take ownership of their tasks
- Better communication to business of issues, tasks, and deliverables
- More responsiveness to change in project requirements
- Improved project knowledge through functional sheppards
The SCRUM process is organized in iterations using the following techniques:
Daily SCRUMMeetings – Daily 15 minute stand up meetings are held so that team members can quickly communicate what they completed since the last meeting, their next tasks to be completed and what roadblocks they may have.
Sprint Planning Meeting – This kick-off meeting occurs at the beginning of each Sprint. We usually are running 2-3 week Sprint cycles. We select work to be done for the Sprint, prepare the Backlog, and decide how much work will be completed for the Sprint.
Project Deliverables – At the end of each Sprint, we demo the working products of the Sprint. This is in the form of live application demonstrations. The goal is to show the business that we have working software up front and through the entire project delivery.
Sprint Retrospective – We use retrospectives to communicate what went well and what needs improvement for the project. This if completely about continuous process improvement.
AppFoundation uses this project management methodology to better deliver on our commitments. We have found this process to be highly effective and beneficial to our clients. Lets talk more, get in touch at www.appfoundation.com to see how we can help you deliver on your commitments.
