Kano model

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

Heart of Agile (Allistair Cockburn)

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

Enterprise Agile

Enterprise agile is all about improving the way how a company is working to achieve one common objective in the long run. It has got the ability to create a strong impact on the overall success and effectiveness of an organization. We often see how the software development companies are sticking to agile methodologies because of the positive results that they can experience out of the methodology.

When implementing enterprise agile within a workplace, the very first step would be to begin with a MVP or a minimum viable product. Then it is possible to release the MVP and get feedback on it. Based on the feedback, it is possible to make appropriate changes, which will preserve the good features and save engineering time.

At the time of developing enterprise agile environment, it is important to focus on creating a single product backlog. It is the responsibility of the product manager to create this backlog and maintain it. Then you will be able to quickly spot what the high priority tasks are. Along with that, you can bring the high priority tasks down in the timeline.

It is important for a collaborative culture to be present within a company for enterprise agile to deliver the best possible results. For example, the product owner, tester and developer should get together and review the features and requirements that exist on the backlog.  Then the tester will be able to explain potential problems whereas the developer will be able to explain the implementation process.

It a large-scale agile framework is used, it will be possible to get the best out of enterprise agile. Some of the most prominent frameworks that are using in large scale enterprises out there in the world include Large Scale Scrum, Disciplined Agile Delivery and Scaled Agile Framework.

— Slimane Zouggari

Consent decision making

At the time of working to create an agile organization, it is important to pay extra attention towards consent decision making as well. Along with consent decision making, it is possible to make sure that the decisions made within the organization are more inclusive. It can also provide an ideal environment to ensure quick decision making.

Consent can be considered as a well-documented process. Hence, consent decision making will always help people to end up with better results than ordinary decision making. In here, consent will be based upon just in time decision making. This will receive quick feedbacks. As a result, it is possible to make decisions quickly. However, there are drawbacks associated with consent decision making as well. For example, it is not the most effective method when you are making massive decisions, which can create a major impact on the organization that involves the participation of numerous stakeholders. If all of them are not present in the table, consent decision making will never deliver positive results.

If you are looking forward to implement consent decision making within your agile organization, you need to have a clear understanding on how to do it. In here, a single person will present peer-reviewed solution. Then the group will ask for clarification questions. This will not be a debate or a discussion. A mood check will be used in order to determine if the group is starting out with this proposal.

Then the facilitator will call for consent. If the mood is favorable among all participants, a consent decision will be made. If there are any objections, they will be heard during the process as well. Based on the feedback received, it is possible to update the proposal and make appropriate decisions. This is done until all the objections are resolved.

— Slimane Zouggari

Competing Value Model Framework

Competing Value Model Framework, which is also known as CVM framework was developed in order to figure out the organizational effectiveness criteria. This criteria is in a position to create a differences in the internal and external flexibility, stability and culture of an organization.

In order to understand the functionality of Competing Value Model Framework, you should be aware of internal-external dimension and stability-flexibility dimension. The company will have an internal orientation, where they focus on collaboration, development, coordination and integration of activities. On the other hand, it will also have an external orientation, where they conduct market research, figure out what the competitors are doing, figuring out the latest technologies and understanding what customer requirements are.

It is important to ensure both internal and external attention to ensure success in the long run. However, an agile market will create an external orientation. On the other hand, a stable environment can result in internal focus. In here, the competing nature of the values and the way how you pick inside or outside can be done at the same time.

The second dimension is focusing on flexibility or stability. The organizations tend to organize and ensure better stability at the end of the day. Then they will have clear planning, structures, reliability and budgets. They will also be able to remain aware about the reality. Flexible organizations are equipped with the power to assume the opposite. In reality, it is never possible to predict everything or taking control over everything. However, being flexible will be able to deliver an excellent assistance for these organizations to quickly adopt according to different changing circumstances.

The effectiveness of Competing Value Model Framework is validated through lots of research activities. It is properly aligned with the other dimensions that explain how people are behaving when they organize.

— Slimane Zouggari

Scrum anti-patterns

When working on a software development project while adhering to the agile framework, it is important to have a clear understanding about Scrum anti-patterns. An anti-pattern is following a process that doesn’t adhere to the guidelines of agile methodology. When such a method is followed, it will not be possible to achieve positive results as a scrum team. The scrum team will be making the life harder when moving forward with the software development project. Due to the same reason, it is important to have a clear understanding about the Scrum anti-patterns and take appropriate measures to get rid of them.

Here are some of the most prominent Scrum anti-patterns that you can find in agile teams. When you are aware of these Scrum anti-patterns, you will be able to take appropriate measures to overcome them.

Absence of a product owner is one of the most common Scrum anti-patterns that you can find. Even if a product owner is present, he might be absent during most of the sprint. Then it will not be possible to answer the questions that the development team will come up in a timely manner. As a result, a micro-waterfall approach will be created. The development teams will never be able to release their developments in a timely manner. Due to the same reason, it is important to make sure that the product owner is present during the entire development phase.

Lack of flexibility shown by the product owner is another example for Scrum anti-patterns. In here, the product owner should be flexible to adjust the acceptance criteria, especially when the initial requirement cannot be achieved due to technical limitations. If there is no impact on the business, product owner shouldn’t worry too much about it and the product owner should change acceptance criteria.

— Slimane Zouggari

Agile Modelling

When you are following agile software development methodology, you should be aware about agile modelling. That’s because you need to make sure that your software development projects are aligned with agile modelling. Agile modelling is a methodology that the agile software development teams use. In here, they are concerned about initial requirement modelling, model storming, and iteration modelling and acceptance test driven development. Primary objective of this procedure is to make sure that the high level requirements of software development project are understood at the initial phase. Then you will be able to go ahead and gather requirements just in time to proceed with the developments.

In here, the project requirements will come from stakeholders. The stakeholders will actively participate and share their requirements. There can be two different types of requirements, which you can call as behavioural requirements and non-behavioural requirements. Behavioural requirements explain how the user will interact along with the system. On the other hand, non-behavioural requirements explain the technical features available in the system, which are linked with performance, security, dependability, reliability and interoperability.

During the agile modelling phase, it is important to understand the difference between behavioural requirements and non-behavioural requirements. Then it is possible to add them into the backlog and communicate accordingly to the development teams as high level requirements.

There can be several types of requirements that are linked with your software development project. As a result, the different modelling artefacts will treat the different requirements in different ways. Hence, it is important to have different modelling artefacts as mentioned earlier within the intellectual toolkit. Then you will be able to get the most out of it and move forward along with time. Agile modelling will also create an ideal environment for the project development teams to ensure proper elicitation of the requirements as well.

— Slimane Zouggari

Agile Metrics

Agile metrics are in a position to provide an overall assistance for the software development teams and project managers to measure the process of software development. Along with that, it is possible to use the agile metrics in order to measure work quality, productivity, and predictability. On top of everything, it can provide some useful figures about the health of the software development team as well as the end product that is being developed at the end of the day.

One of the most important functionalities of agile metrics is to ensure the value developed to clients. It is better to measure the value shared to the customer instead of measuring how much or what we are doing as an agile software development team. Then it is possible to understand the nature of impact created on the customer at the end of the day.

There can be different types of agile metrics. Lean agile metrics is the first type. It focuses on ensuring proper flow of value from the organization to customers, while removing the wasteful activities. This agile matric is focusing on cycle time and lead time. Then you can find another agile metric called Kanban metrics. This is focusing on organizing and prioritizing work and getting them done in a timely manner. A cumulative flow is a perfect metric to prove this. The third type of agile metric is scrum metrics. They are targeting the predictable delivery of a software or a functionality of software to clients. This metric would include team velocity and burndown chart.

When using agile metrics, it is important to ensure that the entire scope of the project is calculated and measured. Then it is possible to make sure that nothing is left out. If the agile metrics is not covering the entire project, it will be a bad metric.

— Slimane Zouggari

Agile Fluency Model

Agile teams have to go through four prominent zones when they keep on learning. Here is a quick overview of those four zones.

  • Focusing teams that try to enhance business value.
  • Delivering teams that try to cater to market cadence.
  • Optimizing teams that lead the market.
  • Strengthening teams that make the company strong.

When it comes to Agile Fluency Model, we pay attention towards the most fluent proficiency. It is all about exhibiting proficiency, even when working under pressure.

The Agile Fluency Model focuses to scale the team and produce business value. Then the teams can deliver market cadence. Along with that, the teams can optimize the teams and lead market innovation. Final step is strengthening the teams to ensure that organization becomes strong.

Teams are empowered to take their development efforts to the next level with the support and assistance offered by Agile Fluency Model. Then the teams can strengthen themselves and get work done in an effective manner.

Performance in the agile teams can reduce due to many different reasons. In order to improve the performance, it is possible to go ahead with Agile Fluency Model.

A proper understanding should be offered to the teams in order to get a better understanding about Agile Fluency Model. Then it is possible to take the development methodologies to the next level and get effective work done at the end of the day.

Agile teams are designed to perform. If you want to get the maximum performance, you can go ahead with Agile Fluency Model. Then it is possible to make sure that the entire team is made strong to receive excellent outcomes.

— Slimane Zouggari

SAFe Courses & Certifications

SAFe is a technique that has the ability to implement lean agile transformation into a company. If you want to introduce it, you need to have a solid understanding about the fundamentals of SAFe. That’s where you need to go ahead with one of the SAFe courses and certifications.

Numerous SAFe courses and certifications are available for you to consider. Here is a list of the courses that you can follow to

  • Implementing SAFe
  • Leading SAFe
  • SAFe for teams
  • SAFe scrum master
  • SAFe advanced scrum master
  • SAFe release train engineer
  • SAFe product owner/product manager
  • SAFe DevOps
  • Agile software engineering
  • SAFe for architects
  • Lean portfolio management
  • Agile product and solution management.

Content that you can find in all these SAFe courses are thoughtfully created to help employees with ensuring agile transformation within their workplaces. Therefore, you will be able to follow these certification courses with the peace of mind and achieve excellent results.

You should start with the beginner courses in SAFe and then move to the advanced courses. Likewise, you should also follow SAFe courses that are related to your job description. For example, if you are into DevOps, you need to follow SAFe DevOps certification course. It will help you to understand your responsibilities in leading lean agile transformation within the company.

After you obtain SAFe cortication, you will need to renew it annually. You will need to pay a renewal fee of $100 to retain the certification as well. It is totally worth because SAFe can help you to introduce much-needed agile transformation to a company and retain it and stay updated along with time.

— Slimane Zouggari