⊛ 【 Methodologies and agile project management

Good project management can be the watershed between failure and success for a team.

Well-structured management values results and full development, minimizing failures, delays and frustrations for all parties involved.

For this it is necessary to plan, execute and control daily activities. And then, they are divided into phases and monitored by the people, teams and objectives of each project.

Why project management?

In increasingly frequent and dynamic organizations and projects, the control and defined actions ensure that the progress of the activities takes place in a systemic way, with a progressive vision and with a focus on the customer, with behaviors aimed at reducing as much as possible the ‘usury.

In this way, the multidisciplinarity in the teams of the clubs shows that this is a surprising trend nowadays.

Therefore, process agility is essential so that the alignment between idea and execution goes hand in hand between the needs and desires of the client and the competence of the team.

Thus, agile methodologies, in their various forms, manage to optimize times, reduce costs and risks, involve teams and present good results for both the company and the customer.

Methodologies

This effort reformulates already outdated questions about repeating the process. In this sense, agile methodologies are practices that promote adaptation to different scenarios, but with a focus on quick completion and with few setbacks.

Therefore, resulting from creating software and focusing on communication and organization, the provision of value is essential for a good quality of service.

To learn more, here are some of the best-known features for optimizing phases for different types of projects, with transparency and steps that affect each other in sequence.

melee

One of the best known tools, Scrum, is related to the need for agility in software operations and development, but it can be adapted to any type of project.

Depending on the question, the method is to divide the activities into cycles or phases, called Sprints.

These sprints are considered small goals, in a shorter time. After each performance, the results are discussed and can be improved for the continuation of priorities.

In this way, the effectiveness of Scrum is determined by the increased amount of feedback and alignment, with specific questions and the possibility of sudden changes.

Kanban

Kanban is characterized by the organization and control of tasks. This technique allows for adaptability and processes highlighted in a frame divided by columns. This structure is usually formed by the steps “to do”, “to do today”, “in progress” and “finished”.

However, you can add columns based on each need, as well as sub-tasks within each specification. Therefore, these cards allow, in a more visual way, the progress of the activities, the so-called work flow.

BDD

BDD, or Behavior Driven Development, is bringing the whole team together so that everyone has the same understanding and thinking. Used in software development by the collaboration of developers.

The integration between business director, product owner and dev, including the overview of processes and features, can merge and align all parts of the development and test team, describing each system scenario, without necessarily writing in code, but with a simple and well-defined language.

crystal

The Crystal approach is based on 6 color separations, from Clear to Diamond, and in each of them the methods are different for different team sizes, skill types, software types and goals. However, the basic segments of the Crystal method are for teams to become more efficient, however, each project requires specific strategies.

With adjustments, collective work, communication and continuous feedback, the improvement of personalized techniques for each process leads to a multitude of possibilities within the Crystal Family.

These properties are seen as a strengthening of reasoning, interaction and talents within teams, directly linked to the complexity of each project. In this sense, this complexity is divided into convenience (C), low cost (D), high cost (AND) and duration of the project (L). So, the separations are done like this, in ascending order of criticality:

Clear: 1-6 people;
Yellow: 7-20 people;
Orange: 21-40 people;
Red: 40-80 people;
Brown: 80-200 people;
Diamond: +200.

Additionally, some common practices by those using this agile methodology are delivery at well-defined intervals and direct customer contact with progress management.

ASD

ASD or Adaptive Software Development is usually used for more complex software, relying on collaboration between teams and also on greater customer presence during the process, developed in small parts. This adaptive model can be divided into three phases:

Speculation: part of the planning, basic requirements and customer goal. It is important to emphasize that the whole cycle can be adaptable, as well as the whole system and its increments;
Cooperation: Like any good agile method, the collaborative and self-organized team must be confident and willing to receive constructive criticism. In this way, all necessary changes can be made quickly and performed satisfactorily;
Apprenticeship: The learning part of this model is effective for all developers to grow and understand that, because they are in an adaptive cycle, they go through all styles of progress, personally and professionally. Therefore, user and customer feedback is essential, as are technical reviews of the software and its performance.

Feature-based programming

This methodological model, Functionality-Driven Development, shows that the de-escalation of each functionality and the increment of the software must be of value to the customer’s point of view in each delivery.

Separately, FDD focuses on the needs of the product, taking into account the functional results and their regular frequency. In this case, the process can be defined in 5 basic processes, they are:

Development of a generic model;
Building the list of features;
Division of planning by functionality;
Details designed for functionality;
Development for functionality.

Furthermore, for each of these processes there are phases of input, task, check and output.

Quality management

In summary, the focus on quality within project management is timely delivery to the customer and meetings to review each phase of the projects. Then there is the analysis and evaluation of what has been developed so far, ensuring that the product is as it was designed for that moment.