Category Archives: agile

Popcorn flow

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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

Management 3.0

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When Agile software management (IT) took off, it was a success why? Because it grouped individual thinkers into teams. These teams learned as they worked and evolved according to the needs of the customers. Agile systems became famous and was taken on by many organizations.

Management 3.0 is a workshop under the umbrella term of Agile which helps individuals to understand what leadership is and how to manage a proper cohesive team under this specific software management. It is based on principles and ideas so that the working man can get a fair transparent salary and actually be proud of what they are doing.

How does it work

Essentially Management 3.0 makes workers happy makes them care about the work they are doing and when they feel a sense of pride in their work they will want to better it and perfect there work in turn they will make the customer happy. Management 3.0 is a workshop where it teaches individuals to be happy about their job to benefit the customer. This work shop not only teaches the workers how to be better at their jobs but also makes the leader a better boss. When a leader becomes efficient at their job they will have all the time in the world to have fun since the people working for the leader will know how to act efficiently without the constant input from the boss. The Management 3.0 workshop instils in a leader a sense of management and how they can delegate tasks to make everyone’s lives easier. It is a method to make the leader or the boss motivate the team so that they can perform at optimum capacity. This creates an atmosphere were competence is valued and the ultimate performing team can learn as they work which will bring success instead of failure.

— Slimane Zouggari

The new new product development game

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Those who are working in agile community they have had come across this new new product development game a lot of times. This white paper was published in 1986 and it is still valid and it does helps the businesses. Having a look, we see that there are six key principles of this paper which are connected to each other.

When we see the traditional approach while developing a product then it will move like a relay- race as the baton is passed from group to group. Now, when we see the new new product development game then it will be like rugby, where the team is having the ball and they pass it to each other and take it to the desired place. The most used framework scrum is also inspired by it.

Six key Principles

Let us take a look on the key principles of new new product development game:

  1. People are quite possessive about the business or work plan in the traditional approach, and they control and monitor day to day activities for others. But, this new new product development approach themselves. While talking about scrum, the race is an agreement between the development team and management. Product owner and the others will decide how to work and where the flexibility is needed.
  2. Project teams which are self-organizing if exhibit these three conditions will be ideal. The conditions are autonomy, self-transcendence and cross fertilization.
  3. Overlapping the development phases, that will enable the team to absorb the noise or vibration generated throughout the development process.
  4. Multi-learning, now this is said that it is a two-dimensional learning i.e. 1) Multi-learning across multiple functions. 2) across multiple levels. Are we clear with the vision? Is the right product selected or being built? In scrum there is a learning opportunity as the team working on the product interacts with each other and learn from the market trends.
  5. If we say that a person has both “control through peer pressure” and “self-control” then we can say that he is having subtle control. The sprint goal should be inspected by the development team so that they can adapt the sprint backlog in accordance.
  6. The transfer of learning should be done on organizational level, spring and scrum should make it sure that the team members share knowledge with each other.

— Slimane Zouggari

Lean Business Case

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Lean case is the pathway that works with Lean business plan. Every Business needs some essential things for the success and growth of business so the lean plan contains these essentials such as Strategy, marketing tactics, offering tactics, financial tactics, forecasts of sales, metrics, schedule, costs, expenses, milestones, assumptions and cash. It is not documented and already decided plan, it is a streamlined plan which is being updated with time for forwarding business. So, it could be presented to the lenders and the investors for the establishment of business any further.

Principles of Lean Business Case

It can take time for the management practices to update anything like technologies, environment and development that are continuously evolving. Think about this for a while that the senior people of the organization do not want any changes in the rules and plans of the business then that kind of their behavior is harmful for the success of the business. So, that’s why the old business personalities will not be able run their businesses effectively anymore.

Let’s discuss main principles of the Lean Case;

  1. Strategic:

Add new strategies in your business on the demands of market and environment. This obviously will be useful and supporting for the success of your business.

  1. Hypotheses:

You should make hypotheses, do experiment according to the market demand and repeat them until you do not get the desire results. Sometimes you will experience that the results will remain same because some facts do not change.

  1. Little Bets:

By using cheap lean experiment and quick strategies, make small gambles to decrease the cost of loss and to increase the rate of success. It is the best way to get success that you have a lot of ideas.

  1. Focus on outcomes:

Always focusing on the upcoming goals or outcomes, and not restricting the outputs and plan should be directional. Use different and new methodologies which are evolving for your business model.

— Slimane Zouggari

ATDD

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Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD)

If you are working in scrum and you are taking a user story, you want to know that all the requirements are met. Now the team will have to write the test cases to meet all the acceptance criterions.

Whenever the development is going to start, right after then these tests are written and executed instantly, in this way these test cases may face failure. Now the developers have to write the code in order to pass the test cases, and then the tests cases are done again, this time they pass without any hassle.

How does it work

ATDD is known as a practice in which the team that is working together about the test case, collaborates with each other and after distilling it into acceptable test and executes it right before the development. This is said to be the best way as it provides with surety that everybody in the team knows that what are they going to build and from the very start they know that what are they going to get in the end.

Now, it is clear that how much it has importance in agile development process, we can say that it is the core part of the agile development.

When the team members with different views and perspectives get to collaborate with each other on how to implement the functionality then with this practice the desired results can be achieved.

Let us understand it better by knowing the main motive of these discussions, to make it simple they need to discuss these three things about the customers:

  1. What is the main issue we are going to solve?
  2. How are we going to solve this issue?
  3. What about THIS and THAT

They are going to find answers for these questions by keeping the customer’s perspective in mind.

— Slimane Zouggari

Johari Window

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The Johari window is a technique that was introduced by the psychologist named Joseph Luft. It is used by a person to better understand himself and his relationship with other people. The Johari window uses a four room technique to execute this exercise. The Johari window is separated into four parts;

  1. The Arena,
  2. Façade,
  3. Blind Spot
  4. And Unknown.

The person and his peers select adjectives that are related to his personality; The Arena is what the person and the peers perceive him to be, the Façade is what the person the person selects. The Blind Spot is selected by the peers only and it shows that what others think of the person, not the person himself. The Unknown is what the person does not think of himself and those traits and characteristics are there in him but do not show up that often.

How is it used in Risk Management?

The Johari window can be applied in other than finding the personality of a person. The relation of the Johari window with the risk management is that the Unknown unknowns can be applied in the Managements to determine that what the team or the production is lacking or what risks it brings with it. Once the Unknown Unknowns are found, they become Known Unknowns and they are easier to handle in an agile manner. When there are situations when one is not prepared for Unknown Unknowns, the risk are very high and one cannot expect the results that is why it very important to keep the Unknown Unknowns in check and plan out the rest according to that. Unless we know what is coming or what is unknown to us, any project or development or any event it may be, it always involves risks and the only way to tackle that risk is to find out the Unknown and make it known.

— Slimane Zouggari

Business agility

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Business agility is referred to the capability of a company or organization that it can sense any kind of changes externally or internally and after doing that the response in accordance so that they can deliver the best to the customers.

We cannot say that it is a general framework or it is some kind of methodology, but it is a description that how the organization is operating through representing the type of growth approach; we can say that it is similar to the agile approach as said by the members of the software development community.

How does it work

Business agility is used and is appropriate for all the organizations that are undergoing through any rapid and uncertainty changes. As the teams learn through collaborating, interacting and communicating with each other same as the agile development. Business agility helps them to adapt both process and product so that they will be able to work effectively on the same. Any practice within the organization for the betterment of the organization; that will make sure the organization will deliver the expected product to the customers.

In software development the contribution of business agility is that it provides it with the means with which the organization is positioned to get the understanding of all the benefits of the agile approach.

It also allows the company to respond to the changes without losing vision or momentum. Balance, flexibility and adaptability are the three essential qualities for the agility of long term business. It is clear that business agility has an imperative role in the success and prosperity of long term business.

If the company is capable of changing with the environment and market then we can say that it will gain long term success by adapting then changes and managing the competition in the market.

— Slimane Zouggari

Feature Branching

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What is Feature Branching?

Feature Branching is the idea that the feature developments should only take place in the allocated branch and not in the main branch so that the code-base of the main branch is not disturbed, and the developers can work on a specific story in the dedicated branch.

The reason this is so is that when codes are being entered into the master branch, it might disturb it and it might result in the whole master branch to suffer. To prevent any unwanted broken codes from tainting the master branch, the feature branching is used. The Feature branching allows multiple developers to work on a feature in the Feature Branch and they can run different tests without getting hindered by the changes being done by other developers and vice versa.

Why is it bad?

The reason Feature Branching is considered to be bad is not because of what it is but because of how it is used. Feature Branching gives the developers different dedicated branches to work on, but it hinders the progress when the features and changes are not integrated into the master branch by a developer.

Another reason it is considered to be bad is because if there are two developers working on two dedicated branches, when they merge the code and it works then that is good but one cannot know if the feature coded in the dedicated branch will work individually and independently which may waste time and slow down the development altogether.

The real reason of the Feature Branching being bad is itself; when there are two developers working on two dedicated branches, one cannot know what the other developer has done and they possibly cannot predict how the work done in their dedicated branches will impact the work done in the other dedicated branches which altogether jeopardizes the whole point of using the Feature Branching.

— Slimane Zouggari

Dunbar number

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The Dunbar Number is something which an anthropologist named Robin Dunbar came up with after extensive research on Apes and Monkeys. This number essentially stipulates how many people can an average human being maintain a stable relationship with other human beings. Dunbar theorized that an average human being can maintain relationships with a maximum of 160 people. Dunbar furnished his results after comparing the size of the brain of primates with the size of their social circle and through this he came up with his final result.

Dunbar actually gave a limit of 120 relationships to 250 however the figure of 150 is taken as an average. Researchers believe that if a person where to actually exceed this limit then the overall status would begin to crack, and the relationships would start becoming unstable. Every human being has a different Dunbar number. In social relationships were the Dunbar number exceeds its limits yet still is working somehow this would only happen if it were subjected to certain strict conditions and rules to keep all the relationships healthy.

How does it relate to scaling Agile?

Agile is a technique used in software development were the sole focus is on team cohesion and the continuation of learning. Agile was developed for software management so that teams could quickly come up with ideas for future work and quickly come up with various solutions. The idea is that when a set number of teams are tasked with situations they can easily manoeuvre in and out of the various hurdles they face.

Agile scaling is a term used nowadays to focus upon the smaller teams within the technique and how a team that consists of different people can coexist and work together in such high-tension environments. Agile scaling combined with Dunbar number is very important since the Dunbar number sets the average amount of people one person can have a stable relationship with and this is very important for Agile software management (IT) as if a team is set up with people which exceed the maximum limits set by the Dunbar number the team cohesion will be affected and the whole purpose of Agile will collapse on itself.

— Slimane Zouggari

Blind men and the elephant

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Blind men and the Elephant is the story of six blind men who are trying to describe picture by touching. They found a picture and these sightless people did not know about it so they were doing effort to recognise and comprehend the picture. Someone is telling after touching its ears that it is fan, second one tells his tail, a rope. Same like this the other four persons describe this object with the help of their own perception.

Moral

By this story we get a simple theory about things or situations and anything else that we cannot understand just by observing. We can get the idea by questioning and discussion.

Transposition to Software Development:

They should have guessed the tail as a tail, if the blind people knew about the picture that it is an elephant. Same like this, you can find different stories in the field of business and software development. If they are developing or producing something and they do not know about that what they are producing and what is its purpose even the owner of the product does not know about the real purpose of the product as well then it will become useless and time wasting. Anyone do not want to go in such situation so they should avoid it. The team must be raising the questions and they should be arguing about the product. By this they can get the main purpose of making the product clearly and so that they will be able to produce the required product efficiently.

No doubt, people have a tendency that they can represent their experiences as this is the whole truth but which is not; they do not like to listen or consider the experiences of other people. They should consider the experiences of other people and the experiences they have in software development to get the project done in the best way.

— Slimane Zouggari