Agile Quick Hit

2 thoughts on “Agile Quick Hit”

1. So basicly its
   1. Kickoff*
   {loop of timebox i.e 6 weeks}
   2. iteration (timeboxed i.e. 1 week)
   2.1 Start with a planning of the milestone/epic you picked
   2.2 End with a demo
   {loop}
   3. End Retrospective
   Some questions
   – *The Kick-Off Ceremony is included in the timebox of the 6 weeks ?
   If not how long did it take your two teams on avarage ?
   – Why don’t you have a retrospective at the end of an iteration ?
   – Is the scope fixed ?
   – How you decide when the milestones are done ?
   – How you hande upcoming changes ?

   Reply

   1. Jos,
      Thank you for your comments.
      We didn’t include the Kick-Off ceremony as part of the timebox. For our first project our kick-off lasted two days, 1 for solution build of the project, and 2nd for internal project requirement definition. For the second project the kick-off lasted two days as well but this was for going through the project requirements as defined by the client, formulating any questions for the client, and breaking down our Epic Milestones. In both cases for us this happened after the SOW was fingerprinted and while we were waiting for the final signatures. Generally I would say that the kick-off can happen at the same time as the Rapid-Start happens or the initial day of the project.
      Scope is Fixed and in order for the process to be successful the requirements have to be defined before development starts. In handling upcoming changes, we worked with the client and defined priority of the scope changes. If they were show stoppers and changed the timeline of the deliverable then a CR was issued or we descoped other requirements. For most cases however we identified the changes as “Phase 2” items as the client didn’t identify the changes as show stoppers.
      As for the retrospective, with Quick Hit iterations you don’t have time for all of the ceremonies of standard SCRUM. Through constant collaboration of the team we identified area’s of improvement and implemented at that point where possible. For example, we decided to bring in Iteration Milestones as we saw the Epic Milestones could be broken down into smaller related Milestones but were not identifiable as tasks. This happened during Iteration 1 of one of the projects.
      Please I encourage discussion / questions such as these. This process is new and I believe can grow into a usable Agile process. I’ve been working on defining the process for the past year through a few projects and feel that I’ve got a solid start to it and it’s now time to bring it out for more input.

      Reply