The ACI’s Agile Coach Competency Framework is breaking down agile coaching to 8 different competencies as well as a coaching stance. There are three different domain competencies in this framework. They include transformation mastery, business mastery and technical mastery. Technical mastery focuses on the technical aspects of the software, such as software craftsmanship and architecture. On the other hand, business mastery is referring to product innovation, process innovation and operational innovation. Transformation mastery refers to facilitation, organization change and leadership.

Teaching and mentoring are two prominent competencies that you can find within the ACI’s Agile Coach Competency Framework as well. Teaching is all about the ability to reach people. It can be about teaching a team member about agile values or how sprint planning works. On the other hand, mentoring refers to the sharing of knowledge through experience.

You can also find facilitation and professional coaching as two competencies in ACI’s Agile Coach Competency Framework. Professional coaching has the ability to help the agile team to find solutions to most of the problems that they are facing. This is accompanied with facilitation. Facilitation refers to the process of holding impartial stance. For example, agile coaching will need to facilitate the agile development team via a retro. However, it is important to remain impartial throughout the process. The objective in here is to hold the agile team and keep them sticking to the agreed guidelines.

The last competency associated with ACI’s Agile Coach Competency Framework is Agile and Lean Practitioner. This ensures that any person who wants to become an agile coach should have a deep understanding on agile and lean. Any person who wants to become an effective agile coach will be able to follow ACI’s Agile Coach Competency Framework and get the most out of it.

— Slimane Zouggari

Kano Model was developed with the objective of prioritizing customer satisfaction and customer happiness. When it comes to a software development, a massive backlog has to be completed. The product development team will have to spend a considerable amount of time in order to get the backlog items cleared. After the development of the product, the client will go through what is developed and check whether it matches with the business requirements and see whether there is any possibility to take the business to the next level with the help of it. That’s where Kano Model will come into play.

Kano Model was developed by a Japanese consultant and a researcher named Noriaki Kano. It uses techniques and ideas, which can help you to get a better understanding about the satisfaction of a customer with related to product features. The customer satisfaction level about the features will entirely depend on the level of functionality that is available. There is a possibility to classify features into four different categories. It is possible for you to go ahead and determine how the customers will feel about a feature by providing them with a questionnaire.

There are several important parameters, which will be able to determine the overall customer satisfaction levels. Performance of the system holds a prominent place out of them. The system should be a highly performing one, which caters to all customer requirements in a timely manner. On the other hand, the features that the customer must expect to get the basic requirements catered should be present as well. It is also important for the system to be attractive to the customer. Then the customer will prefer to spend more time along with the system and get work done. Last but not least, the customer is expecting the system to be indifferent.

— Slimane Zouggari

While you are working hard to implement agile within your workplace, it is important to pay extra attention towards Heart of Agile as well. It will provide you with the opportunity to get the most out of agile practices and change the world. The work that you do within the agile software development team is capable of changing the world at least to a certain extent. In the meantime, it is also important to keep in mind that great ideas fail due to misunderstanding that people have about the way how the world will react. Or else, the ideas will fail due to the presence of errors. That’s where Heart of Agile will be able to help you with.

Heart of Agile is simplifying two decades of agile practice into four different imperatives. They will be able to boost your overall effectiveness at the end of the day.

• Collaborate

This is about collaborating closely with others to come up with better ideas. Along with that, it is important to maintain smooth communications at all times for smooth transitions to take place as well.

• Deliver

This is about delivering small probes and analyzing feedback that you get on them. Then you will be able to understand how the world will work. Along with that, you will be able to expand the deliveries as you keep on learning how to predict the outcomes.

• Reflect

Heart of Agile encourages you to reflect periodically. Then you can think about the things that you have learned through collaborations and the deliveries that you have made.

• Improve

Last but not least, you will be able to improve the direction of your technical implementation, ideas and the internal processes that you follow in order to achieve something. Along with that, you will be able to release effective products to the market.

— Slimane Zouggari

Spotify model is an organizational methodology that is using guilds, chapters, squads and tribes. Squad is the underlying foundation of this framework. It is acting similar to a Scrum team. Squad will self-organize and determine the best method to work. A tribe will be made from a group of individuals who are working for a common area.

Squad in Spotify model is single project and single product focused. Product owner is responsible for managing the backlog. In the meantime, agile coach will be able to accelerate the transformation process and make it move forward in the positive direction. Tribe will be co-located along with the squad, but it is limited only to 100 individuals. Chapters will be a part of squad, where the team members are working together. Final aspect in Spotify model is the guild, which is made out of a group of individuals who share similar interests.

An agile team will tweak the formation of the team and move forward with Spotify model. It will be able to streamline the nature of work that is done.

If a client wants the development as soon as it is requested, Spotify model is the right option available to go ahead with and achieve the desired functionality.

If the team is used to traditional agile methodology, making the shift to move forward with Spotify model will be quite challenging.

Most of the multinational companies are currently using Spotify model. That’s because they want to beat the competition and deliver products quickly to customers. If a competitor is doing something, Spotify model will help to get that requirement delivered quickly to the market before competitors.

— Slimane Zouggari

Automotive SPICE in agile software development refers to a quality standard, which is providing ability for the automobile manufacturers to go ahead and assess the overall performance of the suppliers and their engineering processes. Primary objective of this is to provide ability for project management to make sure that the requirements are catered in a better way and a high-quality output is obtained at the end of the day.

The importance to maintain quality standards such as ISO and IEC 15504 have tempted the agile development teams to go ahead with SPICE. Then it is possible for them to make sure that a high-quality product is obtained at the end of the day.

Proper planning and management will be able to help the development teams to end up with a quality outcome. That’s because it will help the people who work with production to adhere to the stakeholder and system requirements. In addition to that, it is important to make sure that all the implementations and test cases are properly worked on as well.

We are living in a world where there is a strong requirement to maintain quality. You will be able to maintain quality in an effective manner with the help and support offered by SPICE.

There should be properly defined requirements to be worked with SPICE. That’s because SPICE focuses on adhering to the requirements.

It is possible to define the requirements get approval for the requirements from different entities. Then it is possible to make sure that following such requirements will give life to a quality outcome at the end of the day.

— Slimane Zouggari

What is it?

Agnostic agility in information technology is the use of best practices and procedure for the efficient working of the business. It states that one framework never works best for every client, the practitioner has to address the problems of clients to achieve a higher level of agility.

What are the 12 principles?

The twelve agnostic agile principles are the following:

• To care about the client interest first and empower them.
• I will put my all efforts, knowledge, and practical experience that fulfils the customer’s needs at best.
• I will focus on what the customer need is instead of pushing with is not needed.
• I will work best to overcome all the hurdles that come in the way.
• I will share my all experiences and knowledge to improve agile practices.
• I will give respect to structure, work according to it, and will appreciate those who help in developing the framework.
• If there will say something beyond my knowledge, I will accept it and seek help from other practitioners.
• I never hide the choices that benefit the customers and mislead someone by saying I know when I do not know.
• I will use traditional approaches as well when agility is not enough.
• I will stay from become dogmatic because it is non-agile.
• Sometimes the agility is not the end, so I will find the other ways that better the agility.
• I will share my knowledge with the community and learn from it to give the benefit to the both.

Why is it useful?

Agnostic agility is useful because it helps the clients by providing them the best agility that will help to meet all the needs and fulfils all the requirements.

What is the difference with other agile methods?

You will find many other management frameworks like a waterfall, Kanban, scrum and all these have different methodologies. Scrum is a complex and rigid framework while the other two are easy to use and implement.

— Slimane Zouggari

Do you know what the term Lego Serious Paly really is? Or how you can get started with Lego Serious play? Well, if you do not about this term and want to learn, then keep reading this article.

Lego Serious Play is a special methodology in the agile world. The Lego Group created this methodology and made it available under the open source which is a model of community-based. The goal is to be a creative thinker by using Lego bricks. Big companies use Lego Serious Play methodology to enhance their business performance through the imaginary scenarios by constructing Legos in three dimensions. Now let’s get started with this methodology.

All you need is some Lego bricks. There are multiple colors and set options to choose from.  Go to Lego meetups or organized one of your own. In these meetups, a question will be given to all attendants and each one of them will answer it by using Lego bricks. In the end, a single model will be built as a team in order to represent the understanding of the respected problem. After this action and decisions would be taken. In big organizations and companies, employs the use of Legos to represent their work with confidence and commitment.

By using Lego Serious Play one can explore connections and relationships between people and their world. Lego Serious Play guides you in an honest and freely opinion’s exchange. The tangible and physical construction will allow you to make conversation without fearing of treading upon some kind of personal feelings. This way real issues will get addressed and other people will also get a chance to see the problem with their eyes. Lego Serious play allows you to take a shortcut toward the core. Lego bricks work as a catalyst and when you will use it for metaphor’s building, the processes would be the trigger that you might not previously aware of.

Sources

1. https://www.lego.com/en-us/seriousplay
2. https://www.lego.com/
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Serious_Play

— Slimane Zouggari

Around the year 2000 a new method of getting things done fast and easy was produced it was called Agile software management(IT). This was used to make groups of individuals make fast and quick decisions while continuously learning and adapting at the same time due to this method many businesses and organizations quickly adapted this approach and implemented it within their respective regimes.

However even though this was initially a success certain problems started to boil to the surface. Many teams would get stumped on certain problems and the team management would break down this occurred due to the lack of proper management and a very strict chain of command the higher ups would let the managers make all the rulers and the workers who actually had to do the job would getting fumbled and the smooth machine of a working industry would break down for this very reason a smart individual decided that change had to be brought into the works and hence he came up with POPCORN flow.

How does it work?

Popcorn flow essentially works like a fast-acting virus where teams adapt to the nature of the business and evolve along the way the concept is a small team will evolve and adapt far quicker than a huge team. Essentially popcorn flow is based on three principles. They are that one must adapt quickly, everyone must share their opinion so that the common opinion becomes fact and then they must learn as fast as well. A typical team will look at problems, find the possible options, experiment with those options commit to one then work with it review the answers and move on two the next issue. This quick and fast-moving process is how popcorn flow works. It is a fast-adaptive method that gets things done efficiently and on time.

— Slimane Zouggari

For the knowledge of people, Programmer Anarchy is another concept that is related to Agile. It serves as a post-Agile that’s coined by Fred George. Programmer Anarchy says that the development of software is more profound and have more chance to get success when the programmer who’s doing the job is self-organized.

The concept of what to develop manager is less environment where the programmer can still survive without the aid of the manager or the head. Programmer anarchy want to changes the professionalism and involvement of the manager of the team and the programmer takes the responsibility for the fall and success of the project. The author of programmer anarchy wants the developer to be manager less with every project that they do.

When to use Programmer Anarchy?

Program anarchy is the process of developing a product such as application with manager less and instead, they are the one who stands between the clients and the work force. You use the concept of Programmer anarchy when you are on a project, which your team does not need to have a manager that will represent you. You can observe the criteria of the agile team that works hard to meet the deadline, but the difference here is there no other professions that will serve as the manager.

When not to use Programmer Anarchy?

Programmer anarchy gives many benefits for the developers. There is still the presence of commitment needed. Since that, you do not have the manager who will give you the deadline; you are the one to motivate yourself. Most of the developers that cling to the idea are more devoted to finishing the project than the average. If you do not have the gusto to bring all your effort, better stick to the agile way.

Concrete examples of Programmer Anarchy

The author says that the manager has the power to take action and direct it to whom the developer team is. Let us say that the manager want you to rewrite the agile story and repeat the process using .NET and SQL Server. As a developer, you think that it was already written well but the manager insisted that you rewrite it. The manager can be tricky at times because they really do not change the story and makes the effort of the developer go to waste.

Criticisms about Programmer Anarchy   

Shifting to programmer anarchy can be a waterfall because of the shifting of the development team and the customers. It says that agile development manager less can be difficult for the programmer to handle and take the full responsibility. They say that programmer without managers can be stressful for the part of the developer. However, many developers switch to programmer anarchy and happy with the result that they experience.

Even though that programmer anarchy limit or do not buy the idea of manager based team, they still have the presence of agile manifesto compliant. Such as interaction with the process and the tool use, the working software present in the agile thing, collaboration with the customers, and the immediate changes to the plan. Overall, there is the agile way with manager less concept.

— Slimane Zouggari