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Agile methodology is an innovative approach that promotes implementing incremental development. Back in the day, it was the Waterfall methodology that was used by software industries to develop a working product. Waterfall methodology is a sequential approach that requires crafting steps from start to end before beginning any application production. It follows certain steps such as gathering requirements, software design, implementation, verification, and maintenance. This method of software development is suitable for developing monolithic applications.
But as the requirements changed, so did the software development process. Customers' changing requirements paved the way for better methodology, called the agile methodology. People started preferring the agile approach because of two important reasons that affected their business growth. One is the sequential approach where changes cannot be implemented and the second is the huge time consumption while using the waterfall methodology.
As an organization, if you are wondering how to start your Agile Journey to pace with today’s dynamic business world, then you are in the right place. In this article, let’s navigate the agile journey from defining Strategic Themes to building business agility.
Agile Methodology
The Agile Methodology is a philosophy of rapidly deploying an application. It is a chain of rapid development that implements changes after every iteration is completed. These changes are done using the feedback received from the clients.
This is done in an organized way to have fewer impediments during the development process. It promotes developing small chunks of code that save time and does not affect the entire application model.
Defining Agile Journey Map
Before discussing the strategic themes, Let’s learn the steps to develop an Agile Journey Map for your organization in the coming sections of this article. The agile software development process defines an iterative approach. It promotes dividing a complex project into small chunks of processes to deliver working software to the client.
The agile journey map displays the evolution of the software development process of an organization. It records the tasks completed by the agile teams, and the practices used by them while moving to the next step and also highlights the improvements achieved by team members. The Agile journey mapping is done using a mapping tool that helps stakeholders, leaders, and other team members stay in the same loop to learn about the updates in the process.
Strategic themes in agile methodology for business agility.
In this section, let’s learn What are Strategic Themes and why they are important for achieving business agility. Business Agility is the ability that helps organizations to sustain in this digital era by developing innovative business ideas to provide for their customers. It involves developing an agile mindset and following certain agile principles, practices, and frameworks for better results.
The Strategic themes are nothing but the business objectives of an organization that helps them strive in the dynamic business environment. It serves as a communication tool for achieving business agility. So how does this work? Once the organization develops a set of strategic goals, they are set for transformation.
The strategic themes cover important factors such as enterprise vision, existing portfolio, agile teams, and other measurable goals.
The first step to begin the agile journey starts with agile leaders, business owners, executives, and portfolio stakeholders working on setting up goals for the organization with the required technical expertise.
Agile leaders must work on preparing an enterprise strategy to guide agile teams and ARTs to work for the upcoming iteration processes. The business strategy is built focusing on six important inputs such as:
Enterprise vision
Enterprise Strategy
Portfolio context
Competitive environment
Financial objectives
Distinctive competence
Based on these six factors the leaders of an organization prepare a list of strategic themes that is written in a simple business language. This includes preparing a Strategic Theme Example that defines a goal and a few key results that can be achieved following agile principles and practices.
The next step is to ensure that the agile teams are provided with the necessary guidelines and resources to start working on the PI Planning for the iteration process. At this point, agile leaders like Scrum Masters, Product Owner, Release Train Engineer, and other business leaders coach and mentor every individual in the agile teams. Together the team focuses on the following events that align with strategic themes:
Portfolio vision
Portfolio backlog
Solution vision
Lean budgets
Value Stream budgets.
The final step is to keep track of strategic theme progression. It is measured by analysing the OKRs of the company.
Read more about agile methodology: “Choosing between Lean and Agile Supply Chain Strategies: Which is Right for you?”
Conclusion
Thus, these were some important aspects of agile methodology using which organizations can start their Agile Journey today. Developing an agile mindset and learning more about agility can help organizations improve their business in this changing digital world. While preparing for agile transformation it is important to learn about the concepts, techniques, and different tools implemented for better change. It involves embracing the agile culture, agile principles, and practices discussed above in this article.
For further reading: “How to use Agile Methodology in Project Management?”
FAQs
1. What are the core principles of agile methodology?
Some of the important core principles of agile methodology are customer-centricity, continuous delivery, addressing changing requirements, and delivering working software.
2. Describe the agile development workflow.
The agile development process goes through five different processes. They are product backlog planning, development, testing, delivery, and feedback.
3. Discuss the agile software development lifecycle.
The agile software development lifecycle begins with prioritizing projects, gathering requirements, and preparing iteration, release, and production, and ends with deployment.
4. Name some important agile methodologies.
Some of the important agile methodologies are disciplined agile, scrum, kanban, extreme programming, Lean, and more.
5. Difference between agile and waterfall methodology.
The Waterfall methodology follows a sequential approach, whereas the agile methodology follows an iterative approach that helps deliver products within the given time frame.
About Advance Agility
We, at Advance Agility, are the new-age Agile Coaching, Consulting and IT services company. We enable end-to-end Digital Transformation. Agile execution is integral to our being. We are doing SAFe implementation with small, medium and large organization across the globe. Our vision is to be the leading Agile execution player globally. To keep adding value at every process stage. We are on a mission to empower our clients, move from concept to cash in the shortest sustainable lead time by adopting human centric approach to business agility. Embracing the change is in our DNA. Things that keep us apart are Quicker and Seamless execution with End-to-end gamut of services. Our Global presence and Stellar Track Record give us an edge over our competitor.
Connect with us at advanceagility.com to learn about SAFe and SAFe Implementation. We provide various SAFe certification courses along with DevOps, Scrum, Agile Coaching and more trainings. Write to us at contact@advanceagilty.com for any agile training or consulting needs. We are always looking for competent agile trainers as well. So if you are a good trainer or want to become one, do get in touch with us to that we can learn, grow and achieve together.
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