Posted on

What Is Scaled Agile Framework? Lifecycle and Process

Enterprises are becoming more agile by shifting to agile methodologies, but usually, it is seen that larger enterprises are change-resistant due to several reasons such as deep-rooted cultural issues, and policy- and process-based barriers. Despite these reasons, some enterprises have been successful in seeking the benefits of agile development with the help of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). Let’s now try to understand this framework in more detail.

What Is a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)?

It is an extension of agile methodology that helps larger organizations overcome issues that negatively impact project success. It offers large organizations a framework for becoming more agile so that their deliverables take less time-to-market. It contains a set of principles, processes, and best practices that help enterprises to adopt agile methodologies, such as Lean, Kanban, and Scrum, to develop and deliver high-quality products and services faster. It is built on three pillars i.e. team, program, and portfolio.

Posted on

Agile and Lean Startup – Part 1

Introduction 

In the field of Software Engineering, Agile is held in high regard. Agile is treated like a panacea that is expected to solve all the issues faced by enterprises, with respect to Software Development. Agile based techniques like Scrum, Kanban have become pretty common and are widely adopted. However, there are many projects that have failed despite applying agile methods. Also, intriguing new developments are happening outside of the software industry focused on eliminating waste and applying lean beyond the definitions of agile. What is particularly interesting is companies with limited resources being remarkably successful by applying concepts from “The Lean Startup Methodology” which has gained immense popularity among the startups. Using the Lean Startup approach, companies can avoid chaos and conduct experiments to test a vision. 

Lean Methodology puts a process around the development of a product focusing on cutting waste and emphasizing constant feedback. Modern concepts such as Lean Startup, Agile Methodologies, all trace their origins to Lean Thinking, a term coined to signify widely adopted Japanese manufacturing concepts. 

Posted on

Quality Assurance Patterns and Anti-Patterns

As software development continues to evolve, the desire to scale efforts across enterprise organizations is growing, resulting in several documented and proficient methodologies for scaling Agile practices to the enterprise. This Refcard will walk through patterns and anti-patterns in quality assurance within the Lean- and Agile forward implementations of one such methodology, the Scaled Agile Framework, also known as SAFe.
Posted on

Scrum and Micro-Retrospectives

One of the twelve principles behind the Agile Manifesto says: “At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly”. Agile is all about adjustments here and there, learning, fine-tuning and responding to change. 

It’s really hard to adjust and fine-tune effectively if we don’t pause to find out where adjustments are needed. The Sprint Retrospective is the mechanism that Scrum teams usually use to fulfill this principle of inspection and adaptation. Unfortunately, the retrospective is often treated like an add-on or a luxury and performed only “if there’s time”.

Posted on

DevOps and SRE, Chapter 1: When Innovation Becomes Mainstream

Abstract

Cloud-native applications are a type of complex system that depends on the continuous effort of software professionals that combines the best of their expertise to keep them running. In other words, their reliability isn't self-sustaining, but is a result of the interactions of all the different actors engaged in their design, build, and operation.

Over the years the collection of those interactions has been evolving together with the systems they were designed to maintain, which have been also becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex. The IT service management model, once designed to maintain control and stability, is now fading and giving place to a model designed to improve velocity while maintaining stability. Although the combination of those things might seem contradictory at first, this series of articles tries to reveal the reasons why the collection of practices that today we know as DevOps and SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) are becoming the norm for modern systems.

Posted on

Compliance as Code and Applied DevOps

Use complaince as code for faster deployments.

Compliance as code is an important form of applied DevOps. This idea resonates with enterprises, who often use DevOps to deploy applications that have a specific purpose. For example, banks use DevOps to deploy applications to help improve compliance and insurance companies want applications that they can derive insights from.

You may also enjoy:  Towards Compliance as Code

It is this use of DevOps to automate the delivery of purpose-driven applications that we call applied DevOps. As enterprises picked up velocity in software delivery with faster development and faster deployments, compliance was left behind and waiting too long to incorporate compliance can undo many of the benefits of a faster delivery process. Organizations have started introducing security and compliance earlier in the software delivery process, making it part of the story from the very beginning rather than bolting it on as an afterthought at great cost.

Posted on

Toxic Team Members

Warning! Toxic Team members!


Imagine this was your Agile team: Your Product Owner has expert domain knowledge but is more focused on career progression than on developing a great product. The Business Analyst is thorough but is a poor time manager and often misses deadlines. Your lead Developer is a highly talented and creative coder, but is also a real pain to work with; he belittles others, keeps everything to himself, and believes he is too important to attend Daily Stand-ups.

Posted on

Scrum 101: Everything You Need To Know

Excuse me? Can someone tell me about Scrum?

Whether your team is wondering what Scrum is, comparing it to other methodologies, or trying to implement big changes, this article is for you! Check out the links to popular DZone articles for everything you need to know!

What Is Scrum?

  1. DZone Refcardz: Scrum, written by multiple Scrum experts at Scrum.org, This refcard is a detailed introduction to Agile's most popular framework. It explores the theory, values, roles, and events involved with Scrum.

Posted on

CALMS for DevSecOps: Part 3—How Lean Improves Performance

This is the third of my blog posts investigating DevSecOps through the CALMS lenses—we’ve looked at Culture and Automation already now it's time for:

Lean

In the previous blog post, I looked at some DevSecOps tools I particularly like and introduced you to TaskTop. TaskTop is the ultimate tool for optimizing your flow from idea to realization—a connectivity framework that takes the pain away from writing and managing integrations and visualizing your lead and cycle times. It’ll show you where your bottlenecks are.

Posted on

DevOps: Making Life on Earth Fantastic

photo: Engin Akyurt

DevOps is taking over business. Not because technology permeates business, but because it has broadened to include the entire business value stream. Different best practices throughout the enterprise are incorporating principles of DevOps to deliver better outcomes to customers.

Posted on

10 Common Scrum Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

When most people think of Agile, they think of “Scrum”.  Scrum is the most widely used, and arguably, the most abused Agile framework.  Scrum is simple in concept but can be difficult to do really well.  Here are 10 common Scrum mistakes and how to avoid them:

1. Expecting Transformation to Agile and Scrum to Be Easy

All too often, someone will pick up a book on Agile or Scrum, start chopping up requirements into user stories, begin daily stand-up meetings, develop software in 2-3 week sprints, and then call themselves Agile.  Easy, right?  They will likely see some improvement in their ability to respond to change, and may even provide working software faster – for a while.  It won’t be too long, though, until the promises of Agile become less evident, teams struggle to keep up the pace, software doesn’t always match user expectations, and then Agile is deemed a failure.  Agile transformation takes time and almost always starts out messy.  Real transformation exposes existing corporate and culture problems that must be dealt with – problems such as poor communication, lack of accountability, distrust, etc.  Effective Agile transformation is often a total culture change.  Give it time, and be ready to go through the pain and resistance to cultural changes.

Posted on

Agile Documentation: Fact or Fiction?

Documentation in an Agile environment is an interesting topic. The Agile Manifesto places more value on working software than on comprehensive documentation, and one of the Agile principles states, “Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential." But does this mean we shouldn’t write documentation when we use an Agile framework? Not at all. I use these three key practices to create effective Agile documentation.

Minimize Artifacts

First, minimize documentation to just what’s needed to get the job done. While software solutions must be maintained and need supporting documentation (either as commented code or external documentation), there is a tendency to create documents simply because “we’ve always written them," whether they are ever read or not. Creating unneeded documents expends valuable time and is counter to delivering the highest value first. Documentation effort should be treated like a requirement if it’s not part of your Definition of Done; it should be estimated and prioritized along with other work. This means weighing the cost of documentation against the anticipated benefit.

Posted on

Agile Adolescence: The Gawky Teenage Years

As an Agile Coach, it’s exciting to watch a team of young agilists start their Agile journey. Some start with unbridled enthusiasm, others with fear and trepidation. They then crawl from Agile infants to toddlers learning how to communicate and play well with others, then move into Agile childhood where they begin to develop competencies and enjoy success. And then… [long pause] …they become Agile teenagers – yikes!

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve raised one teenager and have another now, and I love them even during their teenage years. There are great times at that age, and there are, well, less than great times too. Those growing in their agility go through stages similar to what my kids did. Some move through the teenage years with grace and style, some with a rebellious attitude, and unfortunately some stay in Agile adolescence way longer than they should. Being an Agile teenager is normal for a while, but just as we don’t want our children living in our basement, playing video games and eating Cheetos well into their 30’s, at some point every Agile teenager needs to grow into adulthood.

Posted on

Managers and Agile: Where Do I Fit In?

Agile is about self-organizing teams, isn’t it? As a Manager, what does that mean for me? Should I fear for my job? As a Manager or Director, Agile transformation can be disconcerting because you want to trust your teams and let them be self-organizing, but at the end of the day, it’s still your organization and your responsibility.

Let’s start with a proper view of the term “self-organizing”. Many leaders and teams incorrectly think that self-organizing teams don’t need leadership. Agile is about flexibility, not anarchy. Esther Derby explains it well: “Self-organizing is a characteristic of a team, not something that is done once and for all. Self-organizing teams experiment, create new approaches and adapt to meet new challenges within the boundaries of the organization.” Mike Cohn says: “Self-organizing encourages teams to fully own the problems they encounter.” Empowerment is the key to self-organizing. Management must empower Agile teams to experiment, fail and learn, which in turn gives team members higher personal investment in outcomes. Agile pays people to think, rather than to blindly follow instructions.

Posted on

Lean Software Development: Eliminating Waste in Software Engineering

According to the latest estimates, seventeen percent of organizations adopt Lean. This framework remains one of the five most widely used Agile frameworks. The application of Lean principles to software development was initially introduced by Mary and Tom Poppendieck in their book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit. It includes the 7 basic principles:

  • Eliminate waste
  • Amplify learning and create knowledge
  • Decide as late as possible
  • Deliver as fast as possible
  • Empower the team
  • Build integrity/quality in

  • See the whole

Posted on

Keep CALMS and DevOps: L is for Lean

Often the adoption of DevOps goes hand-in-hand with the application of Lean practices. Lean practices are focused on value creation for the end customer with minimal waste and processes. When thinking of Lean practices, small nimble startups come to mind, but consider the behemoth Amazon.

Image: CNET/James Martin