The Agile Checklist
Company: VersionOne
Agile Development consists of a series of interdependent planning and delivery rhythms. These agile rhythms, while quite simple conceptually, have proven not so simple to implement. Yet this cyclical series of meetings and events delivers the reliable beat which allows teams to find their own agile rhythm.
While no single document delivers all of the ammunition agile teams need to get the rhythm, this set of agile meeting and facilitation checklists offers an easy framework to help guide software development teams through the various agile cycles.
The Agile Development Rhythms:
- Strategy - Projects and product development efforts ideally start with a vision associated with a business need or direction. This vision is then typically framed in context of a strategy and associated goals and objectives during a management team planning session.
- Release - Releases represent the large-grained delivery cycle in agile development. Releases typically range between one and six months, but may extend longer in some environments. Releases begin with a release planning meeting where product owners (or product managers, project leads, etc.) work to define and prioritize a candidate set of features that are then estimated by the team.
- Iteration - Also known as Sprints, iterations are short, fixed-length subsets of releases, generally in the 1-6 week time frame. Iterations represent the execution heartbeat of the project. During, each iteration the team’s goal is to deliver useful software.
- Daily - Every day the team is focused on completing the highest priority features in the form of working, tested software. As features are delivered within the iteration, they are reviewed and accepted, if appropriate, by the product owner. Each day a short, 15-minute standup meeting facilitates the communication of individual detailed status and any impediments or issues.
- Continuous - Agile development teams are constantly driving towards a state of continuous, adaptive planning, collaboration, design, development, testing and integration. This commitment fosters a dynamic, highly productive environment in which automation is critical and the output is always high-quality, valuable working software.