If I had a nickel (or five turkish kurush if it matters) everytime I met a team who understands AGILE methodology, applies that knowledge to their own projects accordingly and uses JIRA Agile in order to improve their SCRUM performance... Well... I'd only be able to buy a couple of chewing gums. So let me start chewing one of them before we kick off this blog post.
Yummy!
I'm gonna be an honest salesman here. Greenhopper (Farewell, good old friend) JIRA Agile doesn't take you to that magical place called SCRUMLAND, where an eternal rainbow exists over clouds with anime-faced marshmellows and which is occasionally visited by a mighty unicorn with rainbow mane (and his cute piggy-guard). Some says that place definitely exits. Although, they add: "The problem is, no man-made Agile product and/or plugin can take you there."
:3 SCRUMLAND :3
Have you heard of Agile Manifesto? Which is actually created and signed by 17 awesome dudes? It's like fellowship of the ring, but instead you have computer geniuses as hobbits and SDLC as Sauron. Agile manifesto values:
"Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan"
Don't get me (and them) wrong, SDLC is cool, too! Lord of the Rings would suck without Sauron. (Well, theoretically speaking, there wouldn't be a ring anyway.)
At daily scrum meeting:
"You have my sword"
"... and my bow!"
"... and my axe!"
"... and my product backlog!"
What I notice with teams trying to adapt to SCRUM, is they are still too keen to have some of those nasty, time-consuming processes of SDLC. Regular big up-front plannings are made, project managers assign tasks to team members, upper management makes pressure on the team to over-commit (a big NO-NO) or imposed deadlines for the team (pressure-lovers, eh?). Moreover, there are teams who thinks that Agile and/or SCRUM means hanging out in one room altogether as a team and trying to develop everything faster by using an Agile tool. So sorry to say this, but without understanding the fundamentals of agile methodologies, agile tools are just softwares that look cool like Giorgio Armani boxers but only useful to create the delusion of agility.
OMG! We are, like, way too Agile!
Does JIRA Agile changes everything you know about software development? No.
Does it make you understand what SCRUM/KANBAN is? Nope.
Is it a unique product, changing the market of agile tools entirely? Errr... No again.
What is JIRA Agile, then? What does it do? Why do I offer it to customers who practice Agile?
If you use JIRA for your issue management and SCRUM or KANBAN for agile methodology, JIRA Agile is your thing. Your issues are still located in JIRA; but JIRA Agile takes and shows them with an Agile fashion. I'm going to use a couple of SCRUM terms here, so get ready:
Got too many tasks for the project? You have a product backlog to groom; insert, edit, delete, reprioritize your stories, refine them if they are too big for a story
Create Epics, link those stories to epics
Gotta make some estimations? (Enjoy your Planning Poker, sir!) Write your estimations on each stories based on story points or regular time estimation. You are free to create a numeric field called Beer Estimation and estimate your stories by litres of beers, your choice!
Arranging Sprint Planning meeetings? See up-to-date info of your stories in product backlog. Create Sprints for the period you want. Drag and drop relevant stories from the product backlog into the sprint you've created.
Start that damn sprint and kick some #ss!
Making Daily Scrum meetings? From the "work" tab of JIRA Agile, check the progress easily: What has changed since the last daily scrum? Which stories are in progress? Which stories are done? Which stories are untouched? Why? Inspect and adapt!
Working fast? When you are done with a story just drag and drop it to another status. Finished the task? Let everyone see, a big yay for the team!
Sprint Review meetings? You have awesome charts and figures to show the progress. Would you take some of that Burndown Chart? How about a delicious Sprint Report? We also have Epic and Version Reports on top of a tasty Cumulative Flow Diagram!
Curious about your performance? See your Velocity for all the sprints.
PLUS: KANBAN. Gotta love KANBAN!
Result is happy people: Product Owner, Scrum Master, Scrum Team
I wish JIRA Agile could do this, too.
If you have the proper knowledge, JIRA Agile is a great product, because it can fulfill all of your needs for projects using SCRUM.
However, while you were reading what JIRA Agile could do, if you started to sing "What is SCRUM? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more...", you need to improve your knowledge of SCRUM. The best way to do it is taking a good seminar and including a team member who is experienced with this methodology. If you don't have the time/budget for it or if you are just curious; here is a good reading for you:
Basically: AWESOME
Kenneth S. Rubin's book is the definition of happiness for the people who are interested in SCRUM. Starts from the most basic things, ends with really complex subjects, easy to read and even easier to understand.
If you want to go for agile and use SCRUM; at least be sure to include a person who knows A LOT about SCRUM; he/she can be the Scrum Master of your project(s) and coach the inexperienced SCRUM team.
I'd like to remind you that by going for Agile without the proper knowledge, you can only be as agile as a Snorlax.
7.19.21, themed by Refined
OMG! WE ARE, LIKE, WAY TOO AGILE!
If I had a nickel (or five turkish kurush if it matters) everytime I met a team who understands AGILE methodology, applies that knowledge to their own projects accordingly and uses JIRA Agile in order to improve their SCRUM performance... Well... I'd only be able to buy a couple of chewing gums. So let me start chewing one of them before we kick off this blog post.
Yummy!
I'm gonna be an honest salesman here.
Greenhopper(Farewell, good old friend) JIRA Agile doesn't take you to that magical place called SCRUMLAND, where an eternal rainbow exists over clouds with anime-faced marshmellows and which is occasionally visited by a mighty unicorn with rainbow mane (and his cute piggy-guard). Some says that place definitely exits. Although, they add: "The problem is, no man-made Agile product and/or plugin can take you there."Have you heard of Agile Manifesto? Which is actually created and signed by 17 awesome dudes? It's like fellowship of the ring, but instead you have computer geniuses as hobbits and SDLC as Sauron. Agile manifesto values:
"Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan"
Don't get me (and them) wrong, SDLC is cool, too! Lord of the Rings would suck without Sauron. (Well, theoretically speaking, there wouldn't be a ring anyway.)
At daily scrum meeting:
"You have my sword"
"... and my bow!"
"... and my axe!"
"... and my product backlog!"
What I notice with teams trying to adapt to SCRUM, is they are still too keen to have some of those nasty, time-consuming processes of SDLC. Regular big up-front plannings are made, project managers assign tasks to team members, upper management makes pressure on the team to over-commit (a big NO-NO) or imposed deadlines for the team (pressure-lovers, eh?). Moreover, there are teams who thinks that Agile and/or SCRUM means hanging out in one room altogether as a team and trying to develop everything faster by using an Agile tool. So sorry to say this, but without understanding the fundamentals of agile methodologies, agile tools are just softwares that look cool like Giorgio Armani boxers but only useful to create the delusion of agility.
OMG! We are, like, way too Agile!
Does JIRA Agile changes everything you know about software development? No.
Does it make you understand what SCRUM/KANBAN is? Nope.
Is it a unique product, changing the market of agile tools entirely? Errr... No again.
What is JIRA Agile, then? What does it do? Why do I offer it to customers who practice Agile?
If you use JIRA for your issue management and SCRUM or KANBAN for agile methodology, JIRA Agile is your thing. Your issues are still located in JIRA; but JIRA Agile takes and shows them with an Agile fashion. I'm going to use a couple of SCRUM terms here, so get ready:
Result is happy people: Product Owner, Scrum Master, Scrum Team
I wish JIRA Agile could do this, too.
If you have the proper knowledge, JIRA Agile is a great product, because it can fulfill all of your needs for projects using SCRUM.
However, while you were reading what JIRA Agile could do, if you started to sing "What is SCRUM? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more...", you need to improve your knowledge of SCRUM. The best way to do it is taking a good seminar and including a team member who is experienced with this methodology. If you don't have the time/budget for it or if you are just curious; here is a good reading for you:
Basically: AWESOME
Kenneth S. Rubin's book is the definition of happiness for the people who are interested in SCRUM. Starts from the most basic things, ends with really complex subjects, easy to read and even easier to understand.
If you want to go for agile and use SCRUM; at least be sure to include a person who knows A LOT about SCRUM; he/she can be the Scrum Master of your project(s) and coach the inexperienced SCRUM team.
I'd like to remind you that by going for Agile without the proper knowledge, you can only be as agile as a Snorlax.
Pokemon reference... too soon?
Have a good day, see you in the next blog post!
LINKS FOR IMAGES:
SCRUMLAND: http://lastminutebusinessjem.wordpress.com/
Fellowship of SCRUM: http://agilemanifesto.org/
What Does It Mean?: http://blog.aeguana.com/2012/11/18/what-does-agile-development-mean-in-practice/
Agile Snorlax - http://www.pokemon.com/