Agile | Tackling the Implementation Challenges

Agile is an incremental and iterative approach to project management and software development that helps teams deliver quality software, quicker and without any hassles. But the number of companies that are truly agile in every possible sense is less. Many are stumbling their way through and some are using agile just on paper.

The way we see it, with the proper initiatives and right time frame, every organization can switch to agile. Sure there will be hiccups, but they can be solved with a positive mindset and approach. Issues like chaos in communication, skeptical employees, possible burnouts, etc should not deter you and your teams from the agile methodology. Here’s how you can tackle these challenges.

Blurry Communication Channels

Established and effective communication channels act as a good foundation for agile. Agile facilitates conversations among teams right from the product ideation stage. And when such channels are not made available or are underutilized, it defeats the purpose.

One may say that teams are not always co-located and hinder any transformation, but given the recent shift in the global working environment, there are always numerous ways to communicate with your team. Here’s how we manage our remote teams and work on agile integrations:

• Deciding on the right tech stack in consultation with all team members
• Taking advantage of any overlaps in time zones and scheduling meetings accordingly
• Making sure that higher management is easily accessible to every employee
• Ensuring swift communication channels among designers, developers, and QA engineers, and encouraging continuous dialogue.

Anxiety Due To Flexible Budgets And Timelines

Not having a detailed plan, budget and fixed timeline can be a deterrent for some managers and employees. You need to assure your employees that shifting to agile does not mean throwing planning out of the window. If anything, a smooth agile methodology can not function without a plan.

Agile highlights the scope of the project, overall architecture of the project, design and development requirements. However, there is a lot of flexibility in it as opposed to other methodologies like the waterfall. You need to convey that there will be adequate planning for sprint cycles, a broad timeline, and of course financial aspects. The myth that agile means going rogue needs to end.

Resistance Towards Change

Every new process, technology, or software faces resistance initially, agile adoption is no exception here. But there are several ways that this transition can be a little less of a roller coaster ride.

Management needs to ensure that everyone knows the true benefits of agile methodology and completely understand the reasons behind the shift. They should lead by example and start having open dialogues, feedback cycles, and regular meetings (especially in the initial phase to ensure that everyone is going in the right and same direction).

Along with proper training sessions, encourage employees to explore on their own so that learning is peer focused as well. Give them the resources and time that they need to adapt to these changes and closely monitor everyone’s progress. All this will take time but a complete agile adoption within your organizations will reap many benefits in the long run.

All this said and done, there are many roles and responsibilities in this process and they need to be carried by the following stakeholders diligently -

Users

Agile is a customer-driven approach hence knowing your users is imperative. Observations and research need to showcase your user’s pain points. You can then build your product around these problems.

Product Owners

Product owners are the bridge between the customers’ needs and how their teams deliver the same. Product owners describe the customer’s pain points in the most simple, straightforward way. They also need to determine the ways to eliminate the same.

They may have done a lot of previous research or experienced the issues first hand or with people around them. Therefore they have first-hand information on the same. User stories, description of the ideal user(s), their journey in different scenarios, the importance of the idea, and how to go about it, all this is most likely to be available already. With the help of research and feasibility reports, idea validation will be done.

Design And Development Teams

Agile being a continuous, integrative approach needs all your teams to be in sync. Your team will need to deliver a functional prototype, so it will be a diverse team with a range of skill sets. Your database, user journey, product working, etc will be designed and developed in smaller chunks. To avoid any inconsistencies, teams need to collaborate from time to time. And in case there is any mismatch, it can be corrected in the early stages. Thus saving you a lot of time and effort in later stages.

The shift to Agile in itself is a challenge but according to the core belief of small incremental changes of Agile, it won’t be.

About Us

We specialize in delivering end-to-end software design & development services using agile practices. We have hands-on experience with automation testing in agile development environments too. So get in touch with us for any conversation about agile and its successful implementation, we will be happy to talk to you about it.