Agile Development Rhythms

One of our Growth Stage portfolio companies called VersionOne has published a great document for those considering Agile development. The Agile Checklist consists of a series of interdependent planning and delivery rhythms. While these agile rhythms have proven to be complicated at times, this checklist seeks to simplify this. While no single publication or presentation 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.

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. The strategy is often accompanied by supporting materials such as a project charter and funding approval.

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. Iterations incorporate three key meetings: Iteration Planning, Iteration Review and Retrospective.

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.

Hope you find this step-by-step guide valuable.