Every agile business whether an established or start-up they have to go through the basic starting phase of agile requirement discovery. This phase consists of stakeholders gathering together to have a complete understanding of the objectives and goals of the project and products. Whenever this discussion surface any risks related to projects, stakeholders ensure that they are thoroughly discussed with the team avoiding any misunderstanding and miscommunication. From this feedback of stakeholders, teams can create an early and clear vision that can help to lead the organization to collaborative goals. By keeping in mind that, “First step is the most important. It is the most crucial and most effective as it will initiate the direction you have chosen.” We will make sure that it must be error-free as most possible and ensure the correct direction. To make it more effective we will learn some tips to achieve better agile requirement discovery.
Prioritize Requirements
As every idea cannot be produced due to budget and time constraints the stakeholders must prioritize the list of required features and functionality planning according to the available time and cost. This will also help in planning the higher priority items in detail surfacing the near future risks, obstacles, and complexity.
Involve Stakeholders Regularly
Even though the product owners are the key decision-makers of the project and product goals we must know that the involvement of stakeholders will bring more clarification to the team regarding the project mainly in complex projects where product owner objectives may create a bottleneck. It’s recommended that the product owner themselves should felicitate such events where teams and stakeholders can communicate on projects and a proper question and answer session is carried out.
Using Right Amount of Planning
While planning we will never advise to start from scratch or to go on planning about every detail. Agile will always go for the mid-way in planning where there should be a balance of the right amount of planning. This planning will depend on various factors some of which will be the uncertainty and complexity of the project. To go with this mid-way planning some suggestions are to
Avoid making decisions or plans based on assumptions
Try to keep confusing or irrelevant decisions open for a time being unless it affects the cost more compared to taking the decision.
Always start from the already researched or benchmarked data instead of starting from scratch.
Take One Step at a Time
Trying to complete the complete project vision at once is the work of a stupid as we all know it’s not that easy. Completing at once will confuse and jumble the work making it time-consuming and difficult to complete and may also involve lots of defects. It’s better to take one step at a time or we can say that project vision is a cake and we should it one bite at a time. This will help in evaluating the short returns and value obtained in every bite.
Needs and Wants
While communicating with stakeholders most likely we came to know about the wants of the project instead of the needs. Even though needs and wants seem the same there is a difference. The needs of the project are things that are required to be completed to achieve the goals and make it a product. Whereas the wants of the projects are the things which will be better to have but if not it’s also considerable. There needs the practice to discuss and come out with the needs from the stakeholders than wants. This practice is needed to be taken a little deeper to come with the difficulties of the project.
Use Agile Principle of Simplicity
“Don’t go overboard with exotic or complex ways. Stick to simple solutions, unless there is good reason to do otherwise.”
It is the best and very basic tip to achieve the better agile requirement discover. Simplicity means going for the solution which is just enough to solve the problem and satisfy customer needs. In many cases, people go into such a complex solution even though they can complete it with simple ones. This digging through the deeper point of user needs will only provide us with the increased complexity and scope of the project. The main drawback of going beyond needed is that it reduces the value. So always try to go with the minimal required and simple solution for any development.
These basic tips will help you in achieving a better agile requirement discovery and ensure that your first step in project planning is in the correct direction.
About Advance Agility
We, at Advance Agility, are the new-age Agile Coaching, Consulting and IT services company. We enable end-to-end Digital Transformation. Agile execution is integral to our being. We are doing SAFe implementation with small, medium and large organization across the globe. Our vision is to be the leading Agile execution player globally. To keep adding value at every process stage. We are on a mission to empower our clients, move from concept to cash in the shortest sustainable lead time by adopting human centric approach to business agility. Embracing the change is in our DNA. Things that keep us apart are Quicker and Seamless execution with End-to-end gamut of services. Our Global presence and Stellar Track Record give us an edge over our competitor.
Connect with us at advanceagility.com to learn about SAFe and SAFe Implementation. Write to us at contact@advanceagilty.com for any agile training or consulting needs. We are always looking for competent agile trainers as well. So if you are a good trainer or want to become one, do get in touch with us to that we can learn, grow and achieve together.
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