Agile Communication Techniques & Challenges
The concept of agile communication has been long deeply rooted in internet technologies. No wonder it is associated with successful agile development methodologies and building highly technological solutions really fast. As software becomes more and more complex over time, agile software development methodology is becoming more popular. The questions of the scope, implementation, main advantages, and challenges are considered here.
What is Agile?
Agile is a generic term for the collection of all technologies that follow the principles and values of the Agile Manifesto, where values, principles and other can be considered as recommendations for practical application.
Agile software development is an agile approach to software development that is often used in small teams and large organizations.
Atlassian, refers to agile as to an iterative approach to project management and software development that helps teams deliver value to customers faster and with less hassle.
Indeed, the optimal model for most modern projects is the iterative model. The essence of this model is to break the development process into iterations. At each iteration, all stages of the waterfall model are performed up to testing. Based on the testing results, the product is sent not for deployment, but again to the first stage – requirements. Here, software requirements are specified and adjusted and the next iteration is launched.
So, agile work progress is divided into iterations that are short cycles of two to three weeks. Each cycle solves a series of tasks. At the end of each iteration plan, the team reviews the results and reprioritizes for the next iteration. As a result, for each cycle, a mini-product or a separate part is created, ready for independent launch.
As a rule, in agile teams, managers, developers, designers, testers, and other participants are equal in the hierarchy and work in the same space. The entire team receives regular strategy feedback from the management, stakeholders, users, customers, sponsors, etc.
Thus, instead of betting all you have on a “big bang” launch, an agile team rather deliver work in small, but very consumable increments. Plans, requirements, documentation and results are evaluated continuously so that the teams have a natural mechanism for responding to change really quickly. That’s the agile essence.
Agile methods work in fragments. If you can’t follow all the tips at once, then the benefits of partial implementation of these techniques will still be quite obvious. That’s what makes this approach fresh and highly effective.
Agile approaches are used by developers from the leading world development companies like Google, Netflix, Spotify and other.
How Agile Software Development Works?
The truth is that Agile nowadays is one of the simplest yet most effective methodologies for delivering high quality software development services and solutions. When used correctly, Agile allows you to effectively, flexibly and error-free create and then manage software development teams, projects they do and other development aspects. However, somewhere along the way, people start overcomplicating things and that’s where agile communications are a way.
Stakeholders review the entire project to determine the amount of time and resources needed to complete the development process. At the same time, the owner evaluates the risks and prioritizes the various functions according to their importance to the company.
This is where the agile approach comes in, which is an iterative methodology that allows you to develop software focused on delivering a minimum viable product (MVP) and then incrementally change and add features based on user feedback.
Agile development describes iterative software development. Iterative software development shortens the DevOps lifecycle by completing work in short steps, commonly referred to as sprints. Sprints are usually 1 to 4 weeks long. Agile development often contrasts with traditional or waterfall development, which plans larger projects ahead and completes them on schedule. The agile software development lifecycle is the set of steps a product goes through from concept to completion: concept, inception, iteration, release, maintenance, and utilization.
Delivering production quality code for each sprint requires the Agile development team to account for the accelerated pace and change. All programming, testing, and all quality checks must be done in every sprint. If the command is not configured properly, the results may fall short of expectations. While these frustrations offer great learning opportunities, it’s helpful to learn some key lessons before you get started with a great agile communication plan to accept all challenges.
Agile Communication Challenges
While Agile approach makes a project less bulky and more transparent, and the team listening and communication really fast, it may offer serious challenges to face, as well, and it’s high time to check out which ones.
Selecting the right method/technique
By learning Scrum, Extreme Programming, Lean Programming, and Kanban, you will learn both sides of agile advantages and disadvantages, principles and best practices, and how they can help build better software. How a team’s mindset and attitude can influence the successful adoption of agile practices is the key. An important goal is to help them understand how the team’s worldview affects projects and how they feel about agile if they picked the right methodology for a particular project and c hose the techniques that better fit the process.
Communication alignment
Not everywhere within teams in the organization, there may be a great agile communicator for daily meetups, planning and so on. There should be a way to ensure the project is being implemented wisely and effectively and the developers understand that this procedure will benefit their work in the long run. In addition, the knowledge that if the meeting has to mention planning problems, then everyone will listen to opinions and work on the project will go even better.
Company culture & employee perception change
Perhaps you have implemented daily meetings and transparent communication, but you still have a lot of problems and you miss deadlines. You’ve tried various methods, but they didn’t work. Or maybe your team has decided to go waterfall in the end because choosing Scrum or Kanban looked like a waste of time as if everyone is doing what is required of them, but the benefits for the projects are not great. Changing the company culture is always painful and you don’t know how it affects the team. Introducing agile is rather about changing their mindsets.
Alignment at all organization levels
Instead of imposing a plan or rules and then evaluating how closely the team is following it, the managers should work with the members to decide the best approach to the project on all possible levels. If the project managers feel that the project is planned by all team members, they will listen to everyone, not to find out how much the plan deviates, but to understand what changes to make to the plan that the whole team was working on, etc.
Creating a sense of ownership within the team
We take ownership when we believe that taking business action is not someone else’s responsibility. Creating a sense of ownership within the teams in agile is all about taking the initiative. And that’s a matter of trust and complete freedom of action. So, the manager as an individual, and the team as a unit are accountable for the quality and timeliness of an outcome, even when they’re working with others.
Techniques to Use in Agile Communication
The reason for many project hindrances, the increase in the cost of the project, can be poor communication, delays in getting answers to questions that simply were not asked, because of poor office/team organization, etc. However, there is always space for diversity. Choosing the right software development methodology and technique largely depends on your team size, goals, and other factors. Agile communication may take place in several formats:
- strategic meeting (planning/retrospective)
- daily sync-ups (including daily meetups)
- urgent calls for clarification of work issues, etc.
You can find enough examples of how people work and meet only when there is a need for it. And with all this, they make wonderful, complex and inspiring projects. This is not only our experience, but also the experience of Git, Atlassian, and other companies.
In agile communication you may apply more specific communication techniques. Here are some of them:
Osmotic Communications
The method proceeds from the fact that communication is the main problem in the development process. Osmotic communication means that information flows into the background audibility of group members so that they pick up essential information through gradual awareness. Usually for this they at least must be seated in the same room. There is a need to pay more attention to the organization of the office space that promotes open communication.
Brainstorming
This is a great technique for problem-solving where the participants in the discussion generate the maximum number of ideas for solving the problem, including the most fantastic and stupid ones. When the concept or features of a product are not clearly defined, this is the right approach. This allows business owners to change requirements and goals as the project progresses, allowing them to seize opportunities and ultimately create a better product.
Two-Way Communication
Two-way communication is the process of sharing information back and forth between two parties. In agile projects, the focus is more on completing tasks rather than planning and documenting them. In each iteration or sprint, the team’s efforts are focused on creating and delivering working software. In other words, it may be a conversation where both the sender and receiver invite and offer feedback concerning some particular sprint, or any other project-related issue. Many companies use this agile technique to improve team productivity, and customer satisfaction and increase project agility.
Active Listening
Active listening is a method of demonstrating attention and reflecting the interlocutor’s feelings in a conversation to allow the interlocutor to express feelings and thoughts freely. It is widely used in psychology to work with clients, during psychological consultations or psychotherapy sessions, and in agile communication sessions too.
Conclusion
Software development is a rapidly evolving industry, so companies need to be flexible and proactive in all aspects of project development. Agile methodologies allow for the creation of cutting-edge solutions and the development of innovative experiences while keeping products in line with market trends and customer requirements. Companies that adopt Agile are able to adapt to market changes faster and complete more projects efficiently. Priorities and requirements focus is easily adjusted throughout the project to meet the needs of the stakeholders via effectively applied techniques and tools. Our digital product design studio applies agile as a great approach to remove any misconceptions and misunderstandings and speed up the development process through transparent communication.
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