How to apply agile methodologies to your project

Applying agile methodologies to your project is essential to carry out the digital transformation of a company. The iterative approach of agile methodologies allows teams to evolve towards a final goal while making work more flexible and adapting to new circumstances that may arise during project development.

DoneTonic aspires to be your agile project manager to achieve success in the digital transformation of your company.

What are agile methodologies?

Before knowing how to apply agile methodologies to your project, it is essential to know what they are: agile methodologies are those that allow you to adapt the ways of working to the evolution of the project. They focus on achieving an efficient and flexible team that plans the workflow and is able to adapt to changes that arise.

The objective of applying agile methodologies in project development is to improve quality, increase commitment, speed up production cycles and increase productivity by better allocating resources. It also achieves an involvement of the most interested parties, the customers, with whom the achievements and the evolution of the project are shared.

In summary, applying agile methodologies allows you toorganize the tasks that are part of a project, always know its evolution, as well as a manage the resources that develop them. It improves productivity and customer satisfaction by reducing money and time.

-> Discover how to manage your project tasks with DoneTonic.

There are two agile methodologies that we can not overlook: SCRUM and Kanban, both incorporated in DoneTonic, allowing teams to choose which of the two will develop their projects.

SCRUM

SCRUM is a framework in which a series of best practices are applied to make collaborative work a success. The SCRUM methodology is based on three pillars: transparency, inspection and adaptation.

DoneTonic allows you to generate an entire SCRUM workflow, starting by defining the Product Backlog, creating the PBI (Product Backlog Item), assigning them tasks, adding them to the sprints and scheduling the reviews and retrospectives. All with simple and intuitive steps within the application.

-> Learn how to set up a SCRUM workflow with DoneTonic..

Kanban

A Kanban board is a form of visual project management that allows you to manage your team’s work, through cards and columns, as development progresses. The goal of the Kanban methodology is to detect bottlenecks so that you can proactively address them, and thus move forward with the workflow.

Why use agile methodologies in projects?

With DoneTonic you can generate the projects you need to manage your products, you only need to choose if it is a SCRUM project or a Kanban project to start adding PBI or tasks.

-> We show you how to create a project with DoneTonic..

Applying agile methodologies to projects brings several benefits to the company, some of the most notable could be

Greater efficiency to deliver projects.

Perhaps the biggest benefit for a company when using agile methodologies in projects is to increase the efficiency of the team. Working to deadlines and with the involvement of the client and the whole team, it is easier to reduce the time to deliver a better version of the product.

Agile methodologies facilitate the fulfillment of partial deliveries.

Create viable first products

Agile methodologies are based on developing a minimum viable product in the shortest possible time so that the customer can test it. Once this minimum product is approved, the rest of the development is done around it.

Making the final product what the customer has asked for

Agile methodologies, as contemplated in the previous point, favor partial deliveries and communication with the customer, this allows the final product to be adjusted to what the customer needs and not to what he asked for in the first moment. This is a great advantage compared to traditional development, where they only met once to present the requirements to the client and the work team. Partial and on-time deliveries allow you to finish defining the requirements as the development progresses.

Discover errors and reduce risks

When agile methodologies are applied to projects, it is possible to detect errors that are being made during the development of a project and thus provide solutions. During the retrospective the team will detect the errors and will be able to correct them.

How to apply agile methodologies to your projects

When converting a company into an agile organization, it is necessary to know the company at its starting point. Once we know where we come from, to become an agile company, several keys must be taken into account:

• Identify the business objectives: it is necessary to have a clear vision of what is going to be achieved and what benefits will come from becoming an agile organization.
• Assess how this transformation will impact customers: as we have seen above, applying agile methodologies to projects includes customer involvement.
• Determine your company’s available resources: assess whether your company has resources capable of adapting to the new methodologies, and whether they are also capable of adapting to the new technologies that the change may entail.
• Choose the software that will best help you in the transformation: an agile project management software will allow you to control the processes that occur during the development of a product. Efficient management of tasks and resources is essential for the success of agile methodologies.

Agile Concepts

At DoneTonic we have a complete dictionary of SCRUM glossary, but in addition to these concepts, there are more you should know if you are going to work with agile methodologies.

SCRUM Agile Methodology Concepts

• Product Backlog: the Product Backlog is an ordered list that contains everything that could be necessary for the good development of the product and is the only source of requirements to make changes in the product. -> Learn how to configure your backlog with DoneTonic..
• Sprint Backlog: the Sprint Backlog is the subset of Product Backlog items chosen to be covered during the sprint. These items are made up of smaller technical tasks that achieve a product increment. These items are known as PBI (Product Backlog Items). -> Aprende how to generate PBIs with DoneTonic..
• Sprint: thanks to the sprint, it is possible to know the transparency, the state of the project development, the shortcomings of the Scrum Team in order to remedy them and the feedback with the customer. Each sprint should last a minimum of two weeks, the most usual, and a maximum of one month in order not to lose the focus of the project. -> Create new sprints with DoneTonic
• Sprint Planning: is a meeting in which the entire Scrum Team participates and where the sprint goal is defined.
• Daily: is the daily meeting with the Team, where the status of each task is detailed to the Scrum Master. They should have a maximum duration of 15 minutes and it is advisable that they are always held in the same place and at the same time to speed up the process.
• Sprint Review: eit is a meeting in which all the work done by the Development Team is reviewed and serves to inspect the product increment.
• Sprint Retrospective: this is another meeting that aims to improve the way in which the Scrum Team has worked during the sprint. It is the moment to detect the errors that have occurred during the sprint to avoid problems in the future.
• Product Owner: the Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product developed by the team, thus providing value to the business.
• Scrum Master: his main function is to establish Scrum as defined in the the Scrum guide.

Agile Kanban Methodology Concepts

• Kanban boards: the Kanban board is a visual project management tool used to map and visualize work flow, limit work in progress and maximize efficiency.
• Kanban methodology: it would be defined as an inventory and parts flow management and control system that uses cards to name tasks.