Agile twist-n-turns - "easy process difficult to execute".

This  blog  is a series of posts on the common and difficult challenges many professionals face while implementing  Agile . Agile is easy on process but many of us underestimate the difficulty of making it work. There is a  possibility that one or many of the team members can come back to SM(Scrum Master) or to the management suggesting to go back to waterfall. Instead of passing the buck to the management(it is the management that wants us to do Agile) try to have a meaningful conversation with the team to understand why they think agile is not working.  On a lighter note SM can always say OK, let's go back to writing a 100-page spec document and many more meetings to review them 🤣 Some of the most common reasons are:  1) Lack of appropriate training of Agile methodology 2) Lack of hands-on training on tools JIRA, scrum boards, etc.  3) Moving away from comfort zone(the waterfall)  4) Pressure from management to deliver  5) Skillset gap...

This  blog is a series of posts on the common and difficult challenges many professionals face while implementing Agile . Agile is easy on process but many of us underestimate the difficulty of making it work Many times user stories are not validated before the sprint complete date. Following are the main reasons 1) There is a "mini-waterfall" within the sprint:  Developers and tester work in silos and a couple of days before the sprint complete starts the interaction. The interaction is transactional like a hand-off process to initiate validation. This is the same as a waterfall!  2) No one understands the ask clearly: The acceptance criteria are ambiguous(Product owner), the design approach is not clear (Developer) and the test criteria is now known (Tester)  3) User story size: The user story is too big and is not broken into the right size to make it testable within the sprint.   Recommendations for Scrum master:  1) Watch the interaction in daily...

This blog is a series of posts on the common and difficult challenges many professionals face while implementing Agile. Agile is easy on process but many of us underestimate the difficulty of making it work.  The team fit is an important aspect to understand, although scrum masters may not have the entire control over the selection of the team, having a good understanding of the team will help mitigate issues during execution.  Technical fitment should not be the only criterion for team selection, team member's ability to work with others is equally important.  Team member/s      - who are flexible enough to adapt      - who are open to receiving ideas       - who can ask for help when they need       - who are open to help others It is up to the scrum master to resolve such issues when they arise.  Recommended actions:      -  Don't ignore interpersonal conflicts    ...