Agile – Page 2 – Maja Ferle

Scaling agile in enterprise-wide data warehousing projects

9 March, 20169 September, 2017 by Maja FerleNo Comments

Agile software development is most often associated with small companies and small development teams. The very fact that agile teams should have no more than about a dozen members sets limitations that lead us to question the possibility of doing large enterprise data warehousing projects in an agile manner. Despite the limitations, agile can nevertheless be done in large projects. It may require more organizational change than in small companies that work on smaller projects and must coordinate more than one agile development team. -- Article published in MonitorPro magazine, 03/2016, p. 22-23...

Evolving from project manager to Scrum Master

26 January, 20167 April, 2017 by Maja FerleNo Comments

For those of us who started our careers as traditional project managers, transforming into a Scrum Master role is an arduous journey. To be truly agile, we must surrender being the one who is in command and control. Our new role is to be coach and facilitator, teacher and observer. This is easier said than done. The book Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition by Lyssa Adkins is an invaluable resource in helping us to get there. The author's extensive experience and her own journey to becoming a renowned agile coach is valuable input for the reader who is thinking about their own transition. The most important take-aways from this book are that the agile coach listens, observes, doesn't solve the team's problems and for the most part doesn't even speak. When required, the coach guides the team back on track by asking powerful questions that help team members to find new directions...

Applying agile in traditional environments

31 October, 20145 December, 2018 by Maja FerleNo Comments

A large number of companies are starting to implement at least a few of their projects using agile approaches. They do so because it is becoming known that agile projects are more successful and their stakeholders more satisfied. It is risky if a company starts implementing agile before they understand exactly what it means in terms of changing their way of thinking about projects and they expect automatic success as if by magic. -- Article published in MonitorPro magazine, 05/14, p. 26-27...

The future of data warehousing is agile

24 June, 20145 December, 2018 by Maja FerleNo Comments

According to many sources, agile data warehousing is the way to go in the future. Recently, Larissa Moss spoke about this topic at the TDWI conference in Munich, Germany in her session Extreme Scoping: Agile approach for enterprise-class EDW/BI. The main point of her session was the importance of the availability of data that is clearly understood and correctly interpreted by the business users. Based on my experience building data warehouses and business intelligence solutions I couldn't agree more. Good data is what makes or breaks a BI solution, regardless of how many features and functions we adorn it with. How does agile fit in all this? It enables us to get the data in and out quickly, so that business users have time to validate the results even before the complete solution is built. This is how data warehousing should always have been done. We must make certain that the data we are using is right before we go any further. Boris Evelson, analyst...

Software Extension to the PMBOK guide

29 May, 20147 July, 2017 by Maja FerleNo Comments

PMI continues with its annual publishing of extensions to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). This year they finally published the long awaited Software Extension to the PMBOK Guide Fifth Edition. The extension includes widely accepted practices in managing software projects. The structure of the software extension is the same as the structure of the PMBOK guide. Each chapter includes extensions which are applicable to software projects. Some chapters have no extensions or very few of them, for example change management, which in software projects doesn’t differ from the widely accepted change management as described in the PMBOK. We find more extensions in the areas of risk management, communicating with stakeholders and monitoring and controlling. We know that software development presents numerous risks and that these types of projects are often not successful. We should be spending much more time and focus on risk management and relevant communication when managing IT projects. PMI does not take sides for either traditional or agile project...

Agile business intelligence

1 February, 20141 September, 2014 by Maja FerleNo Comments

As data volumes increase to the point where we call them "big data", users' appetites increase alongside. They want to be able to quickly analyze these huge volumes of data and achieve immediate business intelligence results. Agile approaches are becoming common in software development because they enable users to receive tangible results in short time intervals. Can we use such agile approaches in business intelligence as well? -- MonitorPro 01/14, p. 28-29...

Do we have a business analyst in agile?

10 October, 20125 October, 2013 by Maja FerleNo Comments

When we talk about agile projects and the most popular agile approaches such as Scrum, XP, Lean or Kanban, there is never any mention of specific team member roles that correspond to waterfall projects. For example, where are the specialists, such as system architects, database designers, or business analysts? Are they no longer relevant in agile? Or are the tasks that would have been performed by people in these roles fulfilled in some other way? Let’s focus on the role of the business analyst, a role that is vitally important in waterfall projects and as we shall see it is implicitly addressed in agile projects as well. In general, the business analyst can help agile teams by representing the customer, especially when the business domain is complex and the team is not very familiar with it. He or she can elaborate the requirements and clarify their purpose in the business environment. What the BABOK says about agile For more information about the business analyst...

Truth and myth about agile

29 August, 201224 May, 2015 by Maja FerleNo Comments

Agile is popular and the web is brimming with information about it. Due to so much information it is not easy for a newbie who wants to get involved with agile development to decide how to begin or to distinguish between truth and myth. To make it even more confusing there are conflicting facts - what someone claims is the truth, someone else declares a myth and vice versa. -- MonitorPro summer 2012, p. 22-23...

Agile risk management

14 August, 20125 October, 2013 by Maja FerleNo Comments

Contrary to traditional project management where risk management is an integral and crucial part of the project management process, there is no explicit mention of risk management in popular agile methodologies. This makes us wonder whether we manage risk on agile projects at all. It should make sense that since agile project management differs from traditional project management, agile risk management should differ from traditional risk management. There is an understanding that agile does not explicitly define risk management simply because agile manages risk implicitly. How does that make sense? There is a good explanation in the book “Becoming Agile: …in an imperfect world” by Greg Smith and Ahmed Sidky where the authors state that “a secondary definition of agile could be continuous risk management”. In fact, agile processes are intended to stay on top of risk management by making the team alert and responsive to new information and changes as the project progresses. Implicit agile risk management There are several aspects of...

Agile program and portfolio management

29 March, 20129 September, 2017 by Maja FerleNo Comments

The business environment is changing at a fast pace and projects are not always up to date with achieving business goals. Agile project management ensures quick results that satisfy stakeholder requirements in a timely manner. On top of that we should also implement agile program and portfolio management which ensures that a collection of projects follows the constant changing requirements of the business environment. -- paper presented at the International Conference on Organizational Science Development, March 21 – 23, 2012...