A programmer’s job may be a dream for many.

Burnout is way too common when it comes to programmers. About 83% of software engineers reported burnout. Among these, 55% said that they felt burnt out to a great extent.

You can then segregate your tasks into these four quadrants and take them up based on the chart below.

And if you’re a freelance developer or a remote worker, you should invest in the right furniture as well. The reason here is that a lot of remote workers (nearly 59%) tend to work from home.

The post 7 Ways to Prevent Daily Burnout as a Programmer appeared first on Simple Programmer.

After the software crisis, experts found the need to manage the software development process in a more organized manner. Their main focus was to develop a systematic structure to streamline the process and increase the success rate of the development. Because the industry is so dynamic, there is a constant need to update our development process into new and improved versions.

Therefore, we have numerous methodologies to develop software, thereby allowing greater efficiency. These methodologies include the waterfall model, the agile model, and others. According to many developers, the agile model is the most reliable and popular software development model.

Developers without a well-founded pattern for their development process have to spend many hours to create a successful tool. They require a proper framework to manage their tasks, finance, and resources. Therefore, experts in the field highly suggest that you follow the software development life cycle (SDL). In this post I offer you a comprehensive guide on how to develop effective software through a reliable process.

What Is SDL?

Software Development Life Cycle is a standard procedure to go through detailed steps and devise effective software through the process. Many developer teams follow this method to meet customers’ needs in a given time frame, while reducing the costs and resources.

As I will show you later in this post, the life cycle includes six to eight steps—though, depending on the project, developers might add, remove, and combine the steps. The ultimate goal of these steps is to keep you highly focused throughout the development process, enabling you to evaluate and enhance the quality of the software.

Because this process generates valuable outcomes, many developers spend hours on it so that their tool smoothly runs according to the expectations. In addition to all the above benefits, the software development life cycle includes tests to identify inefficiencies, reduce costs, and fix errors.

How SDL Works

Software development life cycle is a way to improve quality, while reducing production time. SDL offers a plan that helps you evaluate the project and achieve your goals. Besides, it defines the requirements of your project. When you understand the necessities of your project, you can anticipate mistakes and find the best possible solution.

The underlying reasons to focus on SDL are to test how operational your project development process is, how the action plan works, and how you can improve cooperation among co-workers within the team.

After you complete the development process, you run through the SDL procedure and identify potential problems. Once you figure out the issues, you find solutions and implement them. As this is a repetitive process, you must repeat the life cycle until the tool aligns with expectations. Many developing teams do not realize that with additional effort, they can save a lot of money, time, and resources.

Before you implement any software development life cycle models to develop and analyze your software, you need to determine whether the tool is the right one for your project or not. While you pick a process, consider the size of your team, their capabilities and experience, the size and the complexity of the project, and how your team will use it.

Phases of SDL

To make the development process efficient, smooth, and productive, there are specific steps to follow—the phases of the software development life cycle. They are as follows.

Planning

The first phase of SDL involves brainstorming or planning. Start the process with an idea, and discuss with the team the methods to implement those ideas. Carefully evaluate the project, considering various terms, including assigning members to teams, designing a leadership plan, scheduling a plan according to goals, and assessing labor and material costs. Explain all the essential elements of the process to your team so they focus on a similar goal and avoid confusion.

Requirements Definition

During this phase, you must define what the project is about and how to make the development process more viable. Other than developing a catchy design and clean code, finding an actionable solution requires your team to have a better and comprehensive understanding of the project.

Design and Prototyping

Once your team members develop a thorough understanding of what they are developing, it is time to create the design. The engineers and designers will define the workflow and process to provide solutions, utilizing database structure and design. In this phase, the main focus of the team is to design a prototype for the following step.

Development

The development process includes coding and converting the prototype into the final software. This is the longest process in the software development life cycle. A single developer can write a small project; however, for larger projects, you should break down the coding process and divide the writing tasks between different developers or teams.

You can track your developers’ changes by source code or access code. This phase also includes documentation, which is a quick guide explaining why the developer used a specific piece of code. Documentation can be a video guide, a written guide, or a comment on the source code.

Testing

Once your team completes the development process, they begin testing. The quality assurance team will conduct tests, including system integration, functionality, and interoperability. Furthermore, they ensure the code is clean through user acceptance testing. Their main purpose is to meet business goals.

Deployment

This process involves the actual installation and implementation of the data and other components of the project. The time and effort required to complete this phase depend on the complexity of the tool.

Operations and Maintenance

Once you implement the software in the market, you must update the tool and run maintenance on a timely basis. This is the final phase of the software development life cycle, and it involves satisfying end-users by adding new capabilities and improving performance through regular upgrades.

Different Models of SDL

Numerous models are available to help you with the software development life cycle, and each one includes different steps for the success of the software development process. Below, I will explain some of the popular models with their respective pros and cons.

Waterfall

The waterfall is the first model used for software development. This model consists of different phases, including requirements gathering, designing, building, testing, development, and maintenance. Simple and easy to use, waterfall enables you to generate specific outputs for each phase along with reviews.

Another reason to choose this sequential life cycle model is that it is suitable for small projects with clear instructions. Such a model is adaptable but costly. In this model, you can evaluate the feasibility and continuity of the software.

Agile

The agile model solves numerous problems that traditional models fail to solve. It includes different incremental and iterative process models focusing on customer satisfaction and process adaptability. The main purpose of using this tool is to develop software based on customers’ needs.

If your team is highly skilled and you want to avoid documentation to speed up their development process, the best choice would be agile models. These tools are flexible and adaptable but require a lot of experience to understand because breaking the product into different small sections to deliver specific features is a demanding task.

DevOps

Similar to the agile model, DevOps will enhance the usability and relevance of the software by combining different tools and practices. The main feature of DevOps is that it speeds up the software development process so you can survive in the competitive market.

This model includes phases where you can gather and evaluate the feedback from end-users. One drawback to using DevOps is that it does not enhance your communication and collaboration process, so you have to spend additional money including similar tools in the process.

Spiral Model

This model is a combination of the sequential linear development model and the iterative development process model. The spiral model is one of the most flexible. While using the spiral model, you must go through the process again and again until you find the desired result. Every repetition will improve your tool further.

There are four phases for the spiral model including identification of the requirements, designing the baseline, producing the actual software, and analyzing the risk. The spiral model enables operation teams with developers to combine the workflow, saving time and reducing inefficiencies.

Scrum Methodology

Scrum is an evolution of the agile management system. After adaptation, you can increase the productivity of your software development process. It enables you to produce better quality products and develop better team dynamics by keeping the information and requirements transparent.

The scrum process involves analyzing and organizing the backlog and sprinting the planning. Scrum is a simple and easy-to-understand framework that enables you to manage complex tasks and bring transparency to the software development process.

An Effective SDL Helps You Meet Your Objectives

You can achieve your business goals and future growth by thoroughly implementing the required phases of the software development life cycle.

By utilizing the software development life cycle, you have an opportunity to develop the workflow. You can then choose the degree of details your developing team should know—without providing all the information. You can further enhance the working process with the help of a project management tool. Remember that SDL models are not permanent. You can change the process as the team grows, circumstances change, and the business expands.

Keep in mind that an effective software development life cycle determines the purpose of the tool so you can start the development process. The process you choose to develop the software will help you meet your strategies and objectives. Moreover, SDL helps identify the best ways to efficiently utilize resources within a certain timeframe and determine the most favorable solutions.

The post How To Develop an Effective Software Development Life Cycle appeared first on Simple Programmer.

This practice follows a cycle that revolves around planning, implementing, and evaluating ideas, thereby changing the model according to customers’ needs. The agile model is different from the waterfall model, as development and testing activities operate in parallel.

Through agile management, teams can break up projects into different stages to concentrate on iterating and improving each stage individually. Agile methodology offers numerous tools, enabling developers to collaborate within their teams and deliver value to customers.

In this post I’ll give you some concrete tips on how to create an effective agile communication plan, which will allow you to make faster and better decisions, ultimately increasing your productivity and effectiveness.

Values of Agile Methodology

In general, we can detect four distinct core values in the agile methodology, as follows.

Individuals and Interactions

Traditionally, software teams focus on choosing the best processes and tools before developing software. However, according to the agile manifesto, people working with the process are as important as these things.

To succeed in developing robust software, you must include the right people in your software team. There is no use in having the best tools if your team isn’t capable of working with them. On the other hand, these individuals’ internal communication skills are the essence of developing better software. When teams interact with each other effectively, they can solve numerous problems through collaboration.

Working Software

Previously, developers believed that creating a project required extensive documentation for every work area. The process was structured and mapped out before any development. The completion of the product depended on the plans and documentation. However, this limited the designing and development operations. Teams were bound to follow the plan, and there was less scope to implement any update or change that could simplify the interface and enhance the quality of the outcome.

In contrast, agile plans support the concept of completing projects according to customers’ requirements. This approach involves a document-as-you-go technique that enables a development team to implement new innovative ideas and work according to the client’s changing requirements. Agile methodology offers flexible and adaptable planning for every stage until you reach the final product.

Customer Collaboration

Agile principles emphasize keeping customers in the loop through the development process—a stark contrast to traditional methods. Previous methodologies only involved customers before and after development. This created errors and delayed the process because of communication barriers.

The traditional approach did not guarantee a proper check and balance. On the other hand, an agile communication plan maintains connection at every stage of development to ensure proper services to customers. These principles focus on customer satisfaction and providing relevant results.

Responding To Change

Agile values are different from the management methodology because values do not encourage elaborate planning before starting the project. In fact, they are against sticking to the initial plans.

According to agile methodology, the circumstances can change at any time during the development process. Even the customers can ask for additional features or change the ones they don’t want. Therefore, project teams should be adaptable and ensure complete customer satisfaction.

The Project Charter and How To Monitor Daily Progress

The project charter enables the team to officially start the development process. The charter is a document that directs the team in a similar direction through reference sources and authorizes the project. Furthermore, this document provides a sense of purpose from the project’s start till the final product.

The project charter is essential, as it provides a complete picture that indicates the project’s future. A project charter includes the project manager’s name and defines his or her authority. This document allows the project manager to accomplish the objectives by utilizing organizational resources.

The agile methodology requires dividing the project into different stages. Thus, different team members are responsible for performing various activities. However, communicating the progress of the development process can be challenging. That’s why managers should monitor the daily progress of the employees. Here are some effective methods to follow to monitor daily progress:

• Sprint Planning Meetings. Sprint planning meetings enable the team to focus on similar goals. This technique brings new ideas to the table to create a productive project. Furthermore, managers can get employees on the same page and streamline the process.
• Stand-up Meetings. Stand-up meetings help to encourage the teams and build their psychological identity. They get the opportunity to communicate with their colleagues regularly and share new and innovative ideas. Teams can improve their collaboration skills and attain valuable knowledge about the project.
• Demo Meetings. Through demo meetings, teams can motivate each other and show progress in developing better software. This enables teams to focus on providing the clients a proper presentation to convey knowledge about the project.
• Retrospective Meetings. Retrospective meetings facilitate transparency within the teams. The individuals receive specific time and platforms to share their queries and find solutions to specific problems. These meetings help in clearing the confusion, answering questions, and solving complaints effectively.

Principles To Follow for Effective Agile Communication

The agile communication strategy engages and connects the team. For better and instant changes, teams should collaborate and exchange information quickly. However, the increasing number of channels promoting suitable communication can be intimidating for the team.

Most developers work remotely, using several ways to communicate. For instance, they need to connect through cell phones, emails, cloud collaboration, and many other tools. The agile communications plan enables employees to access channels, arrange them with priority, and organize communication. Thus, team members can exchange data and communicate efficiently in real-time. This offers instant decision-making and reduces errors.

Here are the core principles to follow for effective agile communication:

• Enhance the Reporting. Agile communication offers collaboration through proper channels so each employee can share their work and make their efforts count. Therefore, it enables individuals to share their completed tasks through the proper channel. As agile methodology depends on the effectiveness of the product, it requires proper demonstration and progress.
• Increase Visibility. Through proper communication, the project managers can increase the transparency and visibility of the project. When management tracks all individuals’ activities, they can promote project goals effectively and encourage the team.
• Make sure everyone on the team is accountable. Agile communication ensures that every individual is delegated responsibilities according to their function. Your team members have to play their role to promote effective agile communication. Furthermore, it enables the managers to visualize the contribution of each employee toward the project.

Think of it like this: Good communication ensures product quality, and agile planning ensures good communication.

Agile Communication Means Enhanced Productivity

Software development is not one person’s job. As a result, it requires collaboration and communication. Through proper communication, you can equip your team with valuable tools and provide proper resources.

At the same time, with proper channels, employees can stay up-to-date on progress and changes to the product. Similarly, teams can solve customer queries and other issues collectively. Good communication encourages employees and promotes collaboration among different groups.

While utilizing the agile communication approach, your best practice should be funnelling the conversation within teams. Therefore employees can communicate with the help of proper channels and promote transparency. Agile communication enables the development teams to make faster and better decisions from the start to the end of the project.

The post Tips To Create an Effective Agile Communication Plan appeared first on Simple Programmer.

The agile development process has become increasingly popular as a way to approach software as a series of iterative problems that need solving. The test, learn, and adapt model of agile has resulted in much more learning by doing, which has reduced the use of broad framework concepts like the Unified Modeling Language (UML).

The UML—which involves the process of creating and visualizing entire systems and how they interact with each other—is considered to be antiquated. But disregarding fundamental concepts like UML has its consequences.

In this article, I’ll analyze how the UML can still play a vital role in the development process, and how it can make us better coders and thinkers. However, before we delve into any of that, let’s first look into what exactly the Unified Modeling Language is.

What is the UML?

The UML was originally created in 1994 as a way to standardize the disparate notational system in software design. It is basically a uniform modeling language comprising an integrated set of diagrams that are created to assist software and system developers in visualizing, specifying, documenting, and constructing software system artifacts and non-software systems and business modeling.

The Unified Modeling Language is a compilation of the best practices in engineering that have been very successful in the modeling of complex systems.

The UML is indeed an integral component of developing the software development process and object-oriented software. It mainly utilizes graphical notations for the expression of software project design. Using the UML helps project work teams in communicating, exploring potential designs, and validating the software’s architectural design.

Uses of the UML: Different Kinds of Applications

The Unified Modeling Language has scores of different applications. You can use it to develop diagrams and provide programmers with expressive and ready-to-use modeling examples that basically depict the structure and behavior of a system.

A few of the UML tools deliver program code from the Unified Modeling Language. You can use the UML to model a particular system not dependent on a platform language.

Moreover, the UML boasts applications that extend beyond the development of software, like process flow in manufacturing. This addresses problems that agile cannot, and allows you to see your development needs in the context of the entire business. This upfront or “waterfall” process allows you to think of entire systems at once, and gives you the flexibility to see how different systems interact with each other.

Benefits of the UML

Using the UML today has several benefits, and finding ways to incorporate it into your development process can improve your thought process and lead to greater organizational efficiency.  Here are some of the ways using UML diagrams can help.

Bring New Developers or Team Members up to Speed Quickly

Before developers begin to code, Unified Modeling Language diagrams can assist every individual team member working on the project to get on the same proverbial page. Thanks to the simplicity of these diagrams, you can also bring new team members up to speed very swiftly.

Besides, by comprehending the system they are trying to build, developers can delegate their work, figure out potential issues before the actual work begins, and then efficiently work toward a common objective.

Tailor the Elements in a UML Diagram

What makes the Unified Modeling Language much-needed and well-suited for the development of software is its high flexibility. You have the freedom to tailor your modeling interactions and elements in a Unified Modeling Language diagram, especially to suit the technologies or domain you are using.

Plan out New Features Before Programming

The Unified Modeling Language assists in planning new features prior to any programming. This allows you to identify issues or potential problem areas before development starts.  This can lower overhead during any program’s implementation.

In addition, a Unified Modeling Language model diagram is quite simple to change, whereas reprogramming a certain code section can be time-consuming and tedious.

Communicate With Technical and Non-Technical Audiences More Easily

One of the biggest advantages of the Unified Modeling Language is that it allows easy communication with both technical and non-technical audiences.

For instance, if you are considering using UML to explain different software design models, it would be safe to assume that a majority of software professionals will be familiar with UML diagrams to some extent.  This  allows easy communication back and forth.

Furthermore, you just have to know 20 percent of the Unified Modeling Language to describe 80 percent of your modeling requirements. There is no need for you to comprehend or know the complete notation to communicate effectively with the help of a UML diagram.

Types of UML Diagrams

UML diagrams can even be incorporated into your agile development. By having a better understanding of the different types of UML diagrams and their uses, you can start creating your own based on your specific requirements.

Structural Diagrams

These diagrams display things and elements in the modeled system. To put it more technically, they show a system’s different objects.

• Class diagram – These are the crux of nearly every object-oriented method, and that includes the UML as well. Class diagrams depict a system’s static structure.
• Component diagram – These diagrams describe physical software component organization, including executables, run time code, and source code.
• Deployment diagram – Deployment diagrams show a system’s physical resources, including components, nodes, and connections.
• Composite structure diagram – These diagrams depict a class’s internal part.
• Object diagram – An object diagram illustrates a system’s static structure at a certain time. You can use them for testing of class diagrams.

Behavioral Diagrams

These diagrams show how the system behaves and interacts with itself and other entities (users, other systems). They show how data moves through the system, how objects communicate with each other, how the passage of time affects the system, or what events cause the system to change internal states.

Sequence diagrams – These diagrams illustrate interactions between different classes in regard to message exchanges over the passage of time.

This sequence diagram shows the interaction with customers at an ATM. it visualises how the systems interact and in what order, allowing you to gain a better understanding of how to optimally set up development flow.

Activity diagram – These depict a system’s dynamic nature by modeling the control flow from one activity to another. An activity represents an operation on some particular class that leads to a change in the system’s state. Generally, you can use activity diagrams to model internal operation and business processes or workflows.

Use case diagram – These diagrams model a system’s functionality using use cases and actors.

Use case diagrams help you to better track and visualize how actors will move through a given system. It’s a great low-tech way of identifying potential problems and where the system may break down.

The UML is Dead. Long Live the UML

Our development techniques need to adapt with the times. And while agile has undeniable benefits in how it addresses and solves problems, and may be more suited to current software needs,  it is important we don’t forget the fundamentals of development in the process.

Techniques like the UML can sharpen our processes, allowing us to become not just better developers, but better thinkers. Finding ways to incorporate practices like the UML into current development models can allow you to have a strong foundational framework, while staying nimble and innovative.

The post The UML in the Age of Agile: Why It’s Still Relevant appeared first on Simple Programmer.

So, I prepared a talk and thought, why not make a blog post out of this? And here is the result. 

If you prefer to watch the talk I gave that inspired this post, you can check it out here:

You will learn what DevOps actually means and how you can implement its practices in your daily working routine. Doing so will save your code from the apocalypse, which means not using any of this can cause you to lose your code, get lots of stress at work, and in the worst case, even lose your job. Shall we?

What Is DevOps?

There is no perfect definition for DevOps, but the following quote fits pretty well. DevOps is:

a set of practices that combines software development (Dev) and information-technology operations (Ops) which is intended to reduce the time between committing a change to a system and the change being placed into normal production, while ensuring high quality.

So, we have the development of software on one side and operating or running it on the other. The important factor is that lots of these practices can be automated, hence shortening the software development lifecycle.

Emotions or Motivation?

Before we get into the details of the DevOps practices and how they will benefit you, let’s talk about how DevOps might make you feel—and maybe how it will motivate you.

If you’re not implementing these practices at all, you might get into trouble. There are lots of tools that come with DevOps that will help you a lot when building your application. But if you’re not using any of these tools and practices, then—and believe me, I’ve been there—you might end up looking like this:

No DevOps at all. And ain’t that funny.

But when you do get started with the tools and concepts, the life of a developer gets easier!

You see, you might be more relaxed. Working on a project is fun. Maybe you can also grab a cup of coffee and just chill a little.

This is the most realistic scenario, or at least the most realistic goal.

Of course there’s also the dream where DevOps does everything for us. Everything is automated, you don’t have to do much anymore, and you can just chill on the beach.

But this is a utopia. We are not there yet. Our goal—your goal—should be the second picture.

Theory of DevOps

The theory of every software development life cycle is this: You want to turn coffee into profit.

The interesting part is the area in between. How do you get from coffee to profit?

Currently, that’s magic.

But guess what: It’s the kind of magic you can actually learn—and you don’t even need a magic wand. Keep reading, and by the end of this post, you’ll know how this magic works.

DevOps Magic and Its Benefits

Alright, now what is this DevOps magic?

As you can see here, the process of developing software is not a clean line that moves you from point A to point Z. It’s a recurring process of six stages.

We start on the top left, with planning. You get your tasks and feature requests, and you might have an idea for what your project is all about. Then you should start planning this project. Again, it’s not planning the whole way from start to finish; you iterate through several steps during the development. There are great tools and concepts for that.

Next is the build phase. Now we’re talking about coding. You start your integrated development environment (IDE) and implement the features you planned in the phase before. In this step there are tools to make sure your code is safe, and you can go back if anything goes terribly wrong.

Continuous Integration is a great way to deploy your code automatically. Continuous integration and deploy somewhat go together. We will get to the details later. Just remember, it’s a great way to deploy the code of your whole team.

Apart from that, there are a few great platforms to deploy your code to. If you want to make a web application and use a service where this app is running, pay attention during the deployment part.

Now when your application is running, you might want to monitor it. Is the server always running? Do any errors occur? This is the operate phase. You can use available tools to do that or simply implement a small solution by yourself.

Finally you need feedback. Is your app doing what it’s supposed to do? Is it fun using it? All that can also be done, of course, with tools like bug trackers, and then you use the feedback to go back to the planning step.

All these steps are surrounded by communication. By far the most important part. You have to communicate with your team. The great thing is that you don’t have to leave your home to do that.

In the picture above you can see that there are lots of tools you can use in your software development life cycle. Don’t worry, there is no need to know every single one. I will give some hints as to which tool might be a good choice, though.

You might have heard of git and GitHub, Google Drive, Slack, and so on. Lots of options for you.

One more thing before we get into the details. Why should you bother? Why use even more tools? What are the benefits?

Benefits

Well, it starts with your code. It’s a lot easier to work together with your team using certain tools. The code quality of your team will improve.

You will need less time to develop. Deployment, in particular, can be a pain. You’re much more organized so that you know what to do next and then, simply, do that instead of wondering how to get to a specific goal.

When you use certain practices and tools, you will find bugs that you otherwise wouldn’t have found at all. And finding bugs is always good for profit!

Alright, with these in mind, let’s take a closer look at the details of each phase, thus saving your code from the apocalypse.

Communication

The one thing you will have to do all the time while working on your project is communicate.

Whether it’s about planning, fixing bugs, or monitoring your application, you really should talk to your team about all these aspects—and sometimes to your clients as well. And sometimes even to yourself …

Since it’s not possible to sit in the same office all the time, it’s great to still have a tool where you’re at least available most of the time or where you can check if anything interesting has happened.

Of course, there’s email, but there are definitely better solutions.

That’s where Slack comes in. In essence, Slack is a chat client. You can download and install Slack or use the web client.

Then you can create your own workspace for free and invite all your team members.

After that, you have your own little workspace for your project where you can create different channels for planning, talking about bugs, random chatter, and so on.

Additionally, you can integrate several services with Slack. For instance, if you’re deploying your application, you can automatically send a message into your Slack workspace where everyone can see whether the deployment succeeded or failed. That way you don’t have to watch the deployment process by yourself.

And Slack provides several more features like file transfer and video calls.

I’m not getting paid to say this (as with all the tools I recommend here), but Slack is really a great tool to help you during development.

You can start using Slack absolutely free. So I recommend you go to slack.com and register your workspace right now.

Plan

Planning is a topic you shouldn’t underestimate. It can make or break your project. This is particularly the case if you think you will implement some features on the side that might be put into your project management method of choice.

Have you ever heard of the waterfall model or the spiral model? These are more or less outdated, but it’s still interesting to know how software was developed in the past and … well, sometimes still today. But there are definitely better solutions nowadays.

As you can see below, the waterfall model provides several steps. Every single step should be finalized before you move to the next one.

Can you imagine having all the requirements ready and never talking about them anymore because they should be clear to everyone? Of course, this almost never really works. Same for the design or even the implementations. The waterfall model is highly unrealistic in the real world.

Sure, there has to be a concept, a document, with ideally all the features the application should have. But to expect that there won’t be any changes will get you into trouble. What are you going to say if the customer wants to change something or did not really know what a certain part of the software should look like? “Time’s up, we have to start from scratch again, and it’ll cost another fortune?” I bet you’ll never see that customer again.

The spiral model was definitely better and very similar to the agile processes that are mostly used nowadays.

It’s all about iterations here. You manage your project in a way that you’ll go through each step many times. Again, it’s good to have a rough concept for the software, but details are discussed and implemented in the corresponding iteration. That’s also a great way to handle any change requests. You don’t have to start all over again.

So today, people use a similar approach, so-called agile development processes.

Here’s a quote from Wikipedia that describes agile software development pretty well: “It advocates adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, and continual improvement, and it encourages rapid and flexible response to change.”

So, being agile means that you’re able to react quickly to certain events like change requests or bugs.

Instead of planning the whole development process from A to Z like in the waterfall model, you look at your project on a weekly basis or maybe every two weeks.

Of course you have the big picture in mind, but it’s important to always look at the next cycle, the next iteration, or as they call it in Scrum—one of the software development frameworks mentioned here—the next Sprint.

These software development frameworks—Scrum or Kanban—help you keep using agile development processes. Let’s take a closer look at both of them, starting with Scrum.

Scrum

This is the scrum framework. It looks complicated, but don’t worry; there’s no need to examine every single detail. This paragraph should just give you an overview of how things work and how Scrum can improve your development cycle.

As you can see, on the far left you’ve got your product backlog. In essence these are all the tasks, all the features, simply everything your final product should have when it’s done. These tasks or features are given by the so called product owner. She’s talking to the customer or the stakeholders or simply has her own ideas for the project.

But instead of climbing this whole mountain of things to do at once, you want to move one step after another. That’s what the sprint planning is for. Again, a sprint is one iteration and is usually set for one or two weeks.

In the sprint planning meeting—which might rather be a sprint planning day—you plan all the tasks for the next sprint. The result of this meeting is the sprint backlog: all the tasks that you and your team commit doing in this iteration.

In a perfect world you really have to confirm the tasks that wander into this backlog, because you’ll have to do it, and only you can estimate the time it takes to finish them. At least in theory. But nothing happens if you cannot meet the deadline. Sometimes, problems occur or estimations have been wrong. Usually that’s no big deal. That’s what reviews, retrospectives, and new sprint plannings are for.

During a sprint, there are the daily scrums. This should be a daily meeting that is really short. Every team member is just telling in short, with no detail, what she was working on, what she is working on at the moment, and if there are any problems. If there are problems, then you’ll talk about them after the daily scrum. It really is just for checking the current state of development.

This daily scrum is held by the so-called scrum master. This person asks everybody for their current situation and, if necessary, assigns new tasks. If there are any issues or a team member needs support, the scrum master is the person to contact.

At the end of a sprint comes the review, which is in essence a user acceptance test. This means you show your results to the client or stakeholders or any person that has the right to see the results. Hopefully, these people accept your implementations.

After the sprint, you reflect on what went well and what did not in the sprint retrospective. It’s the perfect meeting to give feedback and suggest any improvements.

That’s it! The next iteration starts.

Again, this was really just a short overview. But it should give you an overall idea how this software development framework works.

Kanban

What’s Kanban? Actually kanban is a scheduling system for lean and just-in-time manufacturing. It was developed by an industrial engineer at Toyota to improve manufacturing efficiency. By the way, the Japanese word “kanban” means “visual signal.” Often times your actual work as a developer is invisible. Using Kanban makes it visible, and you can show it to others, and keep everyone on the same page.

Kanban was brought to the software development world by David Anderson with the kanban board.

A kanban board is what you see above. It’s an example of the tool Trello. The board consists of columns and cards and wants to help your development team get stuff done! A card represents a task and a column a category or the current state of this task.

You can totally combine a kanban board with Scrum. As you can see, there is a column for ToDo cards, one for cards or tasks that you’re currently doing, and one column for finished tasks. 

You could also add a backlog column. In that case you could add all your product backlog tasks into that column. Then, for the upcoming sprint, you move the tasks your team wants to do in the ToDo column. As soon as someone grabs a task from there, it will be moved to the Doing column, and so on. You get the idea.

Another great thing about Trello or a digital kanban board in general is that you can add more information to a card. You can add a description to your card, assign team members, and add a checklist, and you could also add images or write comments. This is very useful if you want to track any bugs in your application—add a screen shot with a description and the debugging can start.

It’s a simple but very efficient project management solution. Of course, there are big tools like asana, monday.com, Basecamp, and more. But a kanban board like Trello can absolutely be sufficient. Again, it’s just a recommendation from my experience.

Build

Now here’s where the actual work is happening.

I cannot really help you with the IDE you are using to write your actual code. There are lots and lots of choices.

I do recommend Visual Studio Code, though, with several extensions if that suits your needs. It’s definitely my favorite IDE for projects in .NET, JavaScript, and TypeScript. You can also use it for Java or Python projects with certain extensions, for instance.

But that’s not what the “Build” part is all about. It is more about managing your code. And for that, you definitely need source control. Now what is source control all about? 

Source control means that you’re tracking and managing changes to code. But not only the code you are writing. It’s about the code of your whole team.

When you’re working on a project all by yourself, you might think you don’t really need source control. You might think you can manage your changes by backing up some files and that’s it. But I really recommend using source control even if you’re working as a one-man army. And even more if you’re working on a team, of course.

There are many benefits of using source control, like having a history of your changes, merging code changes of your team members, and creating feature branches.

Let’s elaborate on all that by the example of the source control system Git.

Source Control With Git

The source control or version control system that fits for most projects is Git.

Git was originally developed by Linus Torvalds, the guy who also created the Linux kernel. It will definitely help you to track and manage changes to your code, in particular when you’re working in a team.

So what does tracking and managing your code changes actually mean?

For starters, if you or one of your team members messed up, you can simply go back to a version of your application that worked. There have been times where people would copy and paste files from one machine to another and hope that everything worked. Believe me, I have been there. It was not a great time. Remember the shocked cat from before?

But not today. Today you have a so-called repository. Everybody in your team commits and pushes their code changes to this repository.

The screen shot you see above is a Git client, in this case called Fork. In essence, you see the Git repository here. You can see the whole history of commits. On the left you can also see that we’re looking at the master branch—let’s say it’s the main version of your code. We’re going to talk about branches in a minute.

When you commit your changes and you haven’t changed the same code someone else has changed, Git will automatically merge your code changes with the changes of your co-workers by itself. Isn’t that great? And it doesn’t even have to be different files. 

Let’s say you and a co-worker are working on the same file but on different functions. Git will manage to merge your changes. No need to copy and paste that stuff anymore. (If you’re new to this, then this might be life-changing!)

If, however, you and one or more of your teammates have made changes to the same code, then you might get a merge conflict.

This means there are already committed changes to the same lines of code you wanted to change. In the screen shot, you can see that Git doesn’t know which version of the code it should choose. Their version or ours?

In this case, you have to resolve this conflict by yourself by either choosing one side, selecting both, or quickly fixing the conflict manually in the editor. There are tools that will help you to resolve conflicts.

Most IDEs, for instance, already manage to do that. So one of the tools might be Visual Studio Code itself. Other tools that are specifically made for Git are TortoiseGit or GitKraken. You have also already seen Fork and Sourcetree. Most Git clients are available for free or at least have a free trial version.

If you’re not a big fan of clients with a graphical user interface, you can also stick to the Git bash, a terminal, or the command prompt—depending on your operating system.

But to make this work, you first have to download Git for your operating system.

After you have downloaded Git, you can either create a repository on your machine or on a server or use one of the free services online and just clone the online created repository to your local machine.

Cloning means that you basically download the repository and that your changes will then be tracked. This way, you can commit and push them—meaning upload—again. We’ll look into these online services in the Continuous Integration section further below.

Whatever you choose, every team member can then use this repository and push changes to it. It’s a wonderful centralized solution.

But that’s not all! Another great thing about Git is the ability to create branches.

Now what are branches, sometimes also called feature branches?

You can grab the current code base and create a copy of the current state. Then make changes to the code and push your changes without touching the copied code base, often referred to as the master branch.

Let’s repeat this because it’s important: You make a copy of the master branch and change your code without touching the master branch. This is great if you want to create a new feature and push your changes for this feature without the risk of destroying the working code base. That way, your code is safe in the repository and not lying around on your hard disk.

You see those colorful lines in the screen shot? These are different branches. Hero_images and google_verification are features that have been developed in their own branch, and after they were tested successfully, they have been merged back with the master branch, and your changes become part of the main code base.

If you don’t work that way, something like the following might happen:

These images have been taken from the trailer of the Sonic movie. Paramount published a trailer for this movie, and the community was not happy with it. You could say the first version represents code changes directly in the master branch without reviewing or testing them.

The second version was using a feature branch that has been tested and then merged into the master branch. Much better, don’t you think?

Containers

One more thing that will help you save your code from the apocalypse is Docker, or containers in general.

Let’s have a look at this quote from Wikipedia:

Docker can package an application and its dependencies in a virtual container that can run on any Linux server. This helps provide flexibility and portability enabling the application to be run in various locations, whether on-premises, in a public cloud, or in a private cloud. Docker […] allow[s] containers to run within a single Linux instance, avoiding the overhead of starting and maintaining virtual machines.

Put simply, with Docker, you can fire up a kind of virtual machine that grabs everything you need (libraries, etc.) to run your application and just, well, run it. 

That way, you can test your application real quick every single time you make changes and tell for sure that your application not only runs on your machine but also on a completely fresh system. Maybe you want to have a look into that eventually. It might increase your productivity even more.

Continuous Integration

Continuous Integration is big and really useful. But what is it all about anyway?

I think this short description taken from GitLab describes it pretty well.

Continuous Integration is the practice of integrating code into a shared repository and building/testing each change automatically, as early as possible—usually several times a day.

I already referred to this in the Source Control With Git section. Every day you and your teammates work on a project, you might want to commit and push your changes to the code base several times a day.

Without a repository and without continuous integration, you would have to merge the whole code manually—again, several times a day. That would be really time consuming. So you would rather merge your code only once a day, once a week, or even just once a month. This causes lots of problems or at least annoying tasks.

With continuous integration and source control, this stuff is history.

You got your repository, you check your code in, and you don’t have to bother with this administrative work anymore.

Continuous Integration

This image shows what the usual process of developing your software can look like. In the quote from GitLab, they mentioned tests—more precisely it’s about automated tests.

You build your application; after pushing your changes, automated tests will be run; and if they succeed, your app will be deployed to your server, to the cloud, you name it.

Automated tests seem to be the operative element here, so let’s take a closer look

Automated Tests

The most known automated tests are unit tests and integration tests—together with test-driven development, but that’s another kind of development practice, which is outside the present scope.

Take unit tests for instance. As the name already implies, you want to test single units with these tests. Imagine you have a calculator, and you just want to test whether the addition or subtraction works. Then you write tests for only that part.

After you’ve done these tests, you might want to test whether all these units also work together. Is it possible to subtract and add numbers in one calculation? That would be an integration test.

Another example is to write unit tests for back end code but also write integration tests to see if the front end properly works together with the back end.

If you only use unit tests and leave the integration tests, something like that can happen:

You see, the sliding doors and the swing shopping gate work perfectly, but not together. Somebody definitely forgot to do some integration tests here.

As always, there are a bunch of testing frameworks you can use. Above is an example of the Microsoft Testing Framework. In Visual Studio you can see which test failed and which test was successful. If a test fails, you can also have a deeper look and find out what went wrong. Is it your implementation of the unit, or did you write a wrong test?

If you’re in the Java world, JUnit with Eclipse looks quite similar. Test results are on the left side, details or implementations on the right. You can also see that test implementations have their own annotations. So, there are specific rules on how to write your test and how to work with a particular testing framework.

Whatever you’re writing your software with, there will be a testing framework. Just look around. Angular on the front end already has its own test files, for instance.

Automated tests fit perfectly into the continuous integration process, but you don’t have to use them. Just remember, the idea behind continuous integration is that you write your code, push it to your source control repository, your app will be built or compiled on a server, the tests will be run, and after all tests have passed, your application will be deployed.

Continuous Integration Services

There are several services you can use for continuous integration. Some can do more, some less. Jenkins is one of the leading automation servers, for instance. But for your case, other solutions might be better.

In my experience, Jenkins and Hudson do a great job on continuous integration, and you can add more features through extensions. But there are also other platforms that provide complete DevOps solutions.

GitLab, Bitbucket or Azure DevOps (which even uses the DevOps term) want to be all-in-one solutions—and in my experience, they really are. Not only do you get continuous integration, you also get a repository, issue boards, ticketing, deployment solutions, notifications, lots of integration options with other tools, and so on.

Don’t get me wrong. The other services can do this, too, but you might have more work setting things up.

In the end, it’s for you to decide which service, tool, or platform you want to use. The best way to decide is to simply try them out and find the one that you like the most and that fits your requirements.

Continuous Integration Configuration

But let’s have a look at how you make continuous integration work on the example of GitLab.

The first thing you need is a configurations file. In the case of GitLab, it’s a yml file, called .gitlab-ci.yml.

You see that it’s just put into the root directory of your project.

This yml file consists of a script. You can define stages and then add commands for every stage or commands for the moment before or after a certain stage.

In these examples you see deployment scripts for a .NET Core back end and an Angular front end.

In essence, you just enter the commands you would also run when you want to build your application locally on your development machine. And then you add commands to publish the compiled application.

For example, in the .NET Core case, we run the dotnet build and the dotnet publish commands to publish the debug and release version. Regarding Angular, we call npm install to install all dependencies and then run ng build with specific configurations. Both applications, the back end service and the Angular front end, are deployed to Internet Information Services on a Windows Server.

One beautiful advantage of this is that you build the code every time like it’s the first time. Ideally, in case of an error, you never hear the phrase “but it’s running on my machine” again.

As mentioned earlier, there are ways to integrate a DevOps platform like GitLab with other tools like Slack. As soon as code was pushed or a build and deployment process has been finished, a message will be sent to a Slack channel. It will also add the commit message and the result of the deployment.

From there I can click on “Compare changes” or on the pipeline number of the deployment process.

“Compare changes” brings me to the actual commit where I can, well, compare the code changes. In this example you see the changed file with all the differences to the previous version of this file, like the added condition in line 290.

Clicking on the pipeline brings me to the result of the yml script. You see the commands like dotnet publish and the results of these commands. If anything went wrong, you would see the concrete error here, hopefully with hints on how to fix it. If everything went well, you see the “Job succeeded” statement.

That’s how continuous integration works. The code will be integrated in a shared repository; it will be built and tested automatically, several times a day.

We can even go a bit further with continuous deployment or delivery.

Continuous delivery adds that the software can be released to production at any time, often by automatically pushing changes to a staging system.

Continuous deployment goes even further and pushes changes to production automatically.

In essence, this means that you would not only build and test your code, but you would also deploy it to your running production server for that application. No need for manually moving your test or staging version to your production server. DevOps can do all this for you automatically.

Remember the cat on the beach? That’s how we’re getting there.

Deploy

We already talked about deployment while covering continuous integration.

Deployment is the process that moves your code to a server or platform where people can actually use it.

There are several ways to do this. You can rent your own dedicated server or a virtual machine or you use one of the many available platforms like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, or Google Cloud.

The big advantage of these three is that you don’t need to host and configure your own server. You just pay for what you actually need. You need a database and a little webspace for your web application? Great, just add these, decide how much memory and what processor you want, and you’re done.

Another great thing about these platforms is the option of scaling. If you need more power only for a short period of time, you can add more memory or anything else just for that period. If your application or user count grows, you can also scale for a longer-term.

When you have to rely on a server you manage by yourself, you might have to buy another one additionally or even migrate your application completely.

With GitLab and Bitbucket, you have great DevOps solutions, but you might have to get a server yourself, where your application will then be deployed to.

Of course, services like Microsoft Azure cost money. But, there are free options available, too. In this case, you can test the service for 12 months. You can test and deploy apps to virtual machines and use SQL databases, for instance. 

Mobile apps are also no problem at all, and another great advantage, with a service like Azure, you are able to gain insights from your user data and maybe improve your application and user experience based on that data.

Amazon Web Services is quite similar. There are also free options available, but they are separated in tiers. Some services are free forever, some you can test for 12 months, and others have a more limited trial time like 30 days. But again, you can add just the service you need.

The Google Cloud platform takes a different approach. Here you get a budget of 300 USD, which you can use to build and access anything you want. It’s great that you can also use special Google services and APIs like Firebase or the Google Maps API.

It’s important to note that you won’t get charged any fees automatically after your free trials ends. You have to upgrade to a paid plan by yourself first. This is really nice and customer friendly.

Bitbucket and GitLab look a bit different. There are free plans available as well, and I think, in most cases they are totally sufficient if you’re just starting out.

There’s a typical pricing model for Bitbucket. There are certain features available for free for a small team, including unlimited private repositories, a Trello integration, and continuous integration. If your team grows or you need more features, you have to upgrade to a paid plan.

Again, GitLab is quite similar. In the free plan, you already get unlimited repositories, continuous integration, and lots of integration options, too. It seems that it’s not limited to the size of your team.

With the paid plans, you simply get more and more features.

In the end it is up to you. What do you need? I recommend you compare the services, maybe start with a free plan, maybe even a service with limited features just to get the hang of it, and then switch to something bigger when you need it and when you’re more familiar with all the different features these platforms and services have to offer.

Operate

The next phase in the DevOps circle would be operating. Or in other words, monitoring your servers, logging information and occurring errors, and sending notifications if necessary.

Again, there are a bunch of services available that can help you with all that. Nagios, Loggly, dynatrace, and splunk might be some services you want to have a look at.

Nagios is all about monitoring. It can monitor your Windows or Linux system, any kind of server, your applications, and so on, and it will log the results of monitoring all this.

And, of course, there is a free trial available.

Here’s a structure of what working with Nagios might look like.

You have your objects on the left. These are usually any kind of servers. Nagios can then check whether everything is up and running and working as it’s supposed to work. It can also track performance data.

Then we have the status column on the right. This simply means that Nagios is able to send notification to you whenever and wherever you want them. So if, for instance, an error occurs, you can tell Nagios to send an email or SMS, or you can simply log it into a database or web application where you can check for these errors by yourself.

Again, everything is done automatically, and you don’t have to watch your servers the whole time by yourself.

Dynatrace is taking a different approach. They advertise their services with an AI-powered, all-in-one plattform. Instead of just monitoring and delivering data, they want to also provide interpretations and “answers” to your data. A free trial is also available here.

But for me the big question is, do you really need a service like this? Mostly, this kind of monitoring is necessary for medium to large companies. In most cases, you can try doing some logging and sending notifications by yourself but still automated.

Why not just write a logging service in your back end by yourself? You could write any information you want into a database or even a text file, and if any errors occur or exceptions are thrown, just send an email to yourself or to the development team with certain information like the date and time, the user triggering the error, and the request data.

You can then have a deeper look into the log, try to reproduce the error, fix it, and you’re done.

Feedback

We are slowly coming to an end of the DevOps circle with the last phase, feedback.

Feedback comes in different ways. We have automated status updates, IT service management (ITSM), customer relationship management (CRM) and bug tracking.

Put simply, we can say that ITSM focuses more on feedback for IT departments, whereas CRM focuses on the customer. Issue tracking can be a part of IT service management. But let’s have a look at some of these services first.

Feedback Services

We have services and platforms for IT service management, customer relationship management, and issue tracking here.

Some services are more relevant for customer relationship management. This means they focus on storing information about customers and providing them feedback, and hopefully, they result in increased profit. Because when you’re able to track customer information and give them the right feedback, your customers might be happier, buy more often, and recommend your services.

But I want to focus on IT service management or, more precisely, issue or bug tracking. Mantis, Bugzilla, Jira, and Trello are web applications that provide the option to write tickets and bug reports. Mantis and Bugzilla focus more on tracking bugs.

The purpose of an issue tracker like Mantis is to provide the option to add a description of issues in your application to said tracker. So as soon as an error occurs, you or a tester of your application adds a new issue with a title, a description of what happened, and maybe also what consequences this issue had. Did the app crash, did this bug just result in a strange UI behaviour, or anything else?

With Mantis or Bugzilla, you have a tracker that enables your whole team to collaborate and watch all bugs in your application.

As almost always, you can start a free trial or even have a sneak peek at the service. Because the official tracker of Mantis itself is open to everyone.

As you can see, we have a list of several issues. Some are unassigned, some are resolved, you can see a timeline of issues that have been created, edited, or commented on, and you can also view all the issues in detail.

Then you see properties like the severity, status, or the category of every issue. Of course you also see the date of the last update and the summary of what this issue is all about.

That way you hopefully get your bugs organized, and it will help you to make your software better. Additionally, with enabled notification, your team will know what’s going on all the time.

For instance, if a team member fixes a bug, the reporter of this bug can get a notification and already test the fix. Because thanks to continuous integration and delivery, the code with the fixed bug is already published and deployed to your test system, right? Great stuff!

Jira

Jira is just another example of that kind of software. But where Mantis focuses on bugs alone, Jira is usually also used for feature requests or any kind of tickets in general. But the core functionality is the same. Create tickets, track them, update them, finish them, and send notifications.

GitLab Issue Board

GitLab provides an issue tracking feature as well. You can even decide for yourself if you want to see the tickets or issues as a list or as a board. You can also add categories, severities, different colors, and so on. And this looks really similar to Trello.

And where do we find Trello again? In the planning phase, so right in the beginning of our DevOps circle. Issue trackers like Mantis might look different, but actually you could totally use the software you’re using to plan your development lifecycle to also track your issues.

If you’re using a DevOps solutions platform like GitLab, you don’t even need an additional tool.

You see where I’m going with this? We’ve come full circle. Giving and providing feedback results in planning your next iteration.

Save Your Code, Be a Happy Cat

So we’ve come full circle now. We went from planning to building, then to continuous integration and deployment, and then we entered the Ops part of DevOps where it’s about operating and feedback. Based on that feedback, we are able to plan the next step of development. All this is surrounded by real-time communication.

You’ve seen lots and lots of tools that can help you in every single stage of DevOps. What you use is totally up to you. Choose a tool for every single step, do things by yourself like logging exceptions and sending emails to your team, or grab one of the big DevOps platforms and do everything with one single service.

Just remember to implement DevOps in your software development life cycle. You don’t want to look like the shocked cat in the beginning, do you?

Try out different tools, and then find a way that suits you best. There are so many solutions out there that I think there is a right way for every team, every company, and every kind of software you want to build.

I hope you learned something and you got some new insights. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

The post DevOps – Saving Your Code From The Apocalypse appeared first on Simple Programmer.

Agile methodology is the most sought after software development model today. It promotes continuous iterations in development and testing. Agile is about going fast, releasing often, and working toward the real needs of the users.When it comes to businesses where the requirements are unpredictable, agile should be the go-to methodology. The core values of agile development are: 

• individuals and interactions over processes and tools 
• working software over comprehensive documentation 
• customer collaboration over contract negotiation 
• responding to change over following a plan 

The key to the agile plan is that it offers flexibility for changes to the product as it continues to develop.

In this article, I will show you how to implement agile and what the key points to remember are while opting for agile. 

How to Implement Agile? 

Before we see how to implement agile, let’s take a look at the most important agile development principles. 

Generally speaking, the aim of agile is to deliver a quick and valuable software that leads to satisfying customers. This methodology works for changing requirements even when those crop up late in the development process. This way, it harnesses change for a competitive advantage. 

At the same time, agile helps in delivering quality software in a short period of time, making it easier for teams to work together. Agile develops products while motivating individuals, as it provides the right environment and inspires trust. 

One-to-one conversation is required to communicate and collaborate within the development team. Efficient and effective communication is required to evaluate the progress of the software under development. 

Agile processes maintain a constant pace to promote sustainable development, focusing on technical excellence and good design with attention to details. As a result, agile becomes essential as it maximizes the amount of work completed by the group.

Finally, agile uses the best architectures, requirements, and design of self-motivated teams and helps in becoming more productive—which can be seen in the entire software development lifecycle. 

In order to implement agile, the first step is to define a clear business vision and need for implementing agile. It will help you understand the roadmap of complete project management. 

Defining a clear vision includes the following steps: 

• Establishing the need for the project 
• Allocating a name and category to the project
• Listing key benefits of using the product and identifying the compelling reason for buying and using it
• Recognizing a competitive alternative product 
• Drafting the final statement of product delivery 

Agile implementation helps in delivering better products, which maps to the business goals for better ROI. 

Defining a business vision is the place where you get buy-in on your project, so as many key stakeholders as possible should be present, including relevant executives, managers, and directors, as well as all product owners.

The process of defining the vision should have a strategy of what happens before the project starts. It should also include meetings, and updates, and overall, the mission itself should be valid. 

Critical Points of Successful Implementations for Agile Framework 

You can apply agile to almost any project, but the application of such methods requires selecting the right product to ensure maximum benefit. 

It is always advisable to use and apply the following agile methodologies to a project where it becomes difficult to get good results and where it is a tedious job to maintain control of the project. 

Team Considerations 

Agile produces excellent software delivery where the team handles experimental projects with a high number of changes and multidisciplinary teams. However, the role of the team in agile projects is different from its role in conventional teams. 

Whereas the project manager plays a crucial role in classic project management, in agile they are the facilitator of the entire process. They work to ensure a seamless flow of information and define clear roles to implement methods correctly. 

At the same time, the team should keep a multidisciplinary approach and be self-organized and managed to face the various challenges in implementing agile in project development. 

Agile requires managing team tension. It takes a self-motivated, result-focused, self-managed, and skilled team, which works to improve productivity and increase effort and workload. 

Agile Limitations to Consider

The limitations of using agile should be taken into consideration. It would be a great help if you first defined the scope, deadline, cost, and quality factors of a project before thinking to use agile. The reason is that the entire software has many iterations that are required to fit into a time box to manage the effort and time limit of what is being done. 

Operating limitations in agile are essential in maintaining the entire development in a stipulated period. Agile methodologies work like a race where you need to develop quickly in a time-efficient manner where teams are deeply involved. 

Project Management Considerations

To analyze productivity in project management, it is important to use metrics like speed, flow, and response toward compliance to improve teamwork. Agile delivers quickly, but with this, it is essential to ensure it works fine and meets client requirements. 

As the focus is on enhancing delivery speeds, managing estimates, and having a self-managed team, it becomes essential to incorporate quality validations, measurements, and deliverables. 

Scrum methods begin a series of roles, meetings, and stages that should be preserved, experienced, and maintained for these methods to work per expectations. You will become more comfortable using such practices, as the method is scalable, meaning you can expand the size of the project. 

Imagine you are conducting interviews and reviews to understand what works and what doesn’t. It is essential to review the delivery to adapt the new method to your requirements and culture. 

The level of effort required to implement agile is of utmost importance. It no longer requires estimations for the whole project, as it works on various quick iterations. The focus is always on the task at hand or the next sprint. 

Agile offers flexibility in terms of project delivery timelines where each time-consuming module is converted into more manageable tasks. 

Sometimes, however, organizations find it difficult to adapt to the changing environment, as agile methodology demands change in the outlook of people as well. As a result, maximizing visibility is vital to ensure the successful implementation of agile methodology. 

Furthermore, remember that you should have a test management tool to support agile, which can help you with its implementation at your organization. Having a tool helps in sharing information, tracking, and measuring progress. An efficient and effective tool is important to maintain control over project progress, cost and revenue, and efforts. 

The right project management tools always help you in allowing the right tool to improve performance and to deliver high-value products. 

Agile: Efficient and Effective Software Development

Now you have a clear understanding of agile project management and powerful ways to use it for software development management. 

Implementation of agile methodology helps in efficient and effective software development. With the help of proper management along with it, you can keep agile implementation on track. 

The post A Programmer’s Guide to Agile Implementation appeared first on Simple Programmer.

The way we communicate is the single most important skillset employers look for when hiring. It has a significant impact on cost, productivity, team morale, and employee retention in the workplace. A study conducted by The Economist shows that problems in communication often delay project completion, lead to low morale and missed goals, and can result in a loss of sales.

With that in mind, it becomes all the more important to identify these gaps in communication when working with agile teams that have different roles, such as project managers, developers, testers, business analysts, scrum masters, and architects. Each role has different responsibilities, and these individuals develop their own mental models and patterns of communication. 

The same problems we have had with communication the past several decades exist even now. For example, have you ever been in any of the following situations:

• You find a bug, but the developer does not listen to what you have to say and ignores you?
• You are handling a remote team located outside the country and find it hard to collaborate, although you give them all the resources they need for proper communication and status updates?
• Your stakeholders ask you about the status of the project in spite of you reporting the status periodically?

If you answered YES to any of the above questions, then you are not alone. These are common, recurring problems in agile teams. The good news is we have ways to mitigate these problems beforehand so you can take corrective measures in the workplace. 

Different Communication Patterns

The key to improving communication in agile teams is to recognize these five communication patterns.

Non-verbal Communication

Body language and tone of voice are important parts of our daily communication. In 1971, Albert Mehrabian, a researcher on non-verbal communication came up with the “7%-38%-55%” rule, which became popular worldwide and still remains relevant. 

He found that words account for 7%, tone of voice accounts for 38%, and body language accounts for 55% of our daily communication. This means an astounding 93% of our daily communication is non-verbal, and it significantly affects our behavior in the workplace.

This being said, it is important to pay attention to non-verbal cues among people in teams, especially when it comes to developer and tester communication. There are knowledge gaps in the way they communicate with each other, but the problems often initially stem from bad body language and tone of voice.

For example, there are situations when developers assume the testers have the same level of technical expertise as they do while explaining changes in code during code reviews. When the tester asks a question that is quite obvious to the developer, the developer may frown, raise his eyebrows, or shake his head indicating his belief in the question being simple or invalid, causing immediate friction between them.

This leads to the tester not asking the developer future questions out of fear of being belittled or reprimanded for not having the same level of technical expertise. This is also one of the major reasons why some developers do not get along with testers.

We need to pay close attention to these non-verbal cues, as they become disruptive in the long run. Some ways to improve non-verbal communication would be to:

• give people the chance to express their opinions.
• show interest in the discussion.
• maintain proper eye contact and body posture when a person is speaking to you.
• be engaging.
• pay attention to gestures performed with your hands, face, and body.
• respect other people’s personal space.
• be mindful of your tone of voice; especially in a public setting with a lot of people.

Another important part of non-verbal communication is active listening. Being a good listener is an art. Quite often, we fail to hear people out by not giving them the opportunity to speak or by interrupting them midway in between a conversation. 

For example, say there is a task to compare data between two files. We could convene a meeting and talk about different solutions to this problem. These could range from creating a utility to perform this task, or importing the data into a database and then using different SQL commands to do the necessary validation. This task could take hours or days to initially perform.

During this discussion, if one of the developers has a simpler solution to this problem, where he/she could use a data comparison utility and could perform this task in minutes, imagine the amount of time and effort this could save! 

However, if this person did not get a chance to share their thoughts and was constantly interrupted, then ideas like this will never come out in the open. As a result, teams may become a lot less productive.

So, let’s make sure we listen to different conversations. As Winston Churchill purportedly once said, “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

Intercultural Communication

In the current era where agile teams are diverse with people from different regions, cultures, and backgrounds, it becomes all the more important to recognize differences in intercultural communication among individuals and teams. This is especially true with verbal, as well as written, communication. 

When it comes to verbal communication, different people use different phrases and words when communicating in teams. Some phrases we use in one region may be totally foreign to people from other regions. 

For example, when we say “Let’s pull the plug on that project,” a person who comes from a different cultural background may not understand the meaning of this phrase, and this could be open to different interpretations. 

Similarly, when working with remote teams and setting deadlines on tasks, people from certain regions may agree to them, although they know the deadline is unrealistic.

This is again due to the cultural difference where people in some regions are afraid to ask questions or push back on deadlines. During these situations, it helps to reiterate your point, request the other person to summarize their understanding of the conversation, and ask them if there are any questions. Doing this small extra step goes a long way in mitigating problems in advance.

As for written communication, it is a big part of team communication as well. Email is on the top of that list. Research shows that globally a staggering 269 billion emails are sent each day. It’s estimated that by the end of 2021, over 319 billion emails will be sent each day, and there will be 4.1 billion email users—that’s over half the entire world’s population. 

This being the case, quite often people from different regions use different words and phrases when typing documents and emails. This often causes misinterpretation of what is being said.

For example, a person from a different country may use a sentence such as “I have intimated to the team to add the requirement in the story” instead of saying “I have informed the team to add the requirement to the story.” 

Similarly, not mentioning time zones is a huge cause of confusion when trying to schedule meetings or set deadlines for tasks. When we mention a time, say 9 pm, it is crucial to mention whether it is 9 pm CST, PST, or EST, and it becomes all the more important when working with distributed teams in different countries. 

In his book When Cultures Collide, Richard Lewis puts forth the Lewis Model, classifying people from different regions into three types: linear-active, multi-active, and reactive.

Based on this classification, people react, behave, and think differently depending on where they are from.

Recognizing these differences will help individuals better collaborate with each other and work as one single unit. In addition, some simple social skills will help developers and testers to adapt to any environment.

Setting Expectations, Goals, and Deadlines

When working on a story, the whole team needs to know what the requirements are, who will be developing and testing it, how much effort is needed to complete the story, when the story needs to be completed, and what feature it maps toward to get better visibility on why they are developing it in the first place. Without all of this information, there will be a lot of misinterpretation and gaps in expected outcomes.

Having unclear goals is also one of the common problems in agile teams, leading them to feel stressed and unmotivated. To mitigate these problems, we need to set clear expectations on the goals and outcomes of a particular task. During this entire process, it is important to motivate and develop the person to reach their peak potential. This constant engagement with the team members is crucial and can make a huge difference.

Effective Feedback Loops

Communicating timely feedback is crucial to the success of agile teams. This applies for individual and team feedback. Improving individual feedback can be achieved in the following two ways:

1. Proactive feedback. This is when an individual proactively requests feedback from a trusted peer or colleague on how he/she performed a particular task. It could be as simple as you asking questions such as “Did I do this right?” or “Could I have done something better?”
2. Reactive feedback. This is when a peer or colleague gives you feedback based on something you did. It could be feedback such as “It was great what you told us, but next time we only need to hear X,Y, and Z” or “This approach seems to work better, what do you think?”

To improve team feedback, we need to ensure we have retrospective meetings as part of our sprints to discuss what worked and what did not. 

Problems faced by teams should be discussed openly, and we need to collectively come up with solutions to them. For each solution discussed, an individual from the team needs to be assigned to the task to follow up on those items. This helps to give the teams a feeling of empowerment and helps them work as one single unit.

Use of Safety Language

In an agile environment, teams sit together, collaborate with each other, and work on multiple tasks, usually all at once. This is the reality. 

In such environments, there are situations where we are forced to commit to timelines with little time to think, where we need to stop our current task and work on other tasks which are a higher priority to the team and other stakeholders, or where we may be in meetings and assigned a task based on the discussion that we know may not be completed on time due to other priorities.

During these instances, it helps to use safety language to ensure we don’t succumb to pressure and to ensure we continue to be productive.

This is a concept where we phrase our sentences carefully when replying to people without being exact. We use phrases like these:

• “Could I do this after I complete this task?”
• “It might not work under these circumstances.”
• “You may be right.”
• “I might disagree with that.”
• “My experience has been…”

So, the next time your project manager asks you for a timeline for the completion of a particular task, pause and use safety language to prevent digging yourself into a hole. A few seconds’ worth of carefully selected words can prevent a lot of problems later.

Become an Effective Communicator

The same problems in communication that have existed for the past several decades still hold true in current agile environments. It is about time we recognize the communication patterns highlighted in this article and start taking corrective measures. 

This will help teams collaborate better and work as one single unit. As a result, there will be an increase in productivity, team morale, and job satisfaction. As Tony Robbins once said, “To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.”

The post 5 Patterns for Effective Communication in Agile Teams appeared first on Simple Programmer.

Whether you’re an individual freelancer or an agency, offering competitive timescales is essential if you’re going to win development projects.

The trouble is, competitive timescales can be hard to deliver. When one team member is distracted or unproductive for just 20 minutes a day, that adds up to a full day of wasted time across the month—and that could be the difference between hitting and missing a deadline.

The good news is that there are some outstanding apps that’ll give you a helping hand when it comes to improving productivity.

AutoHotkey

You’ve probably heard those statistics about how long we spend stuck in traffic—or how much of our life we spend in bed—but few of us think about how much time we spend repeating and checking the same fundamental pieces of code.

AutoHotkey is a free, open-source scripting language for Windows that lets programmers create “hotkeys.” A hotkey is a key or combination of keys that provide quick access to a particular function.

For instance, Ctrl + C is a hotkey you can use if you want to copy something to the clipboard. AutoHotkey offers a scripting language that lets you create your own hotkeys, letting you lay down potentially complex code with a couple of key presses.

Whether you’re tired of checking over the simple code you create or you’re interested in creating scripts that’ll complete forms, auto-click, apply macros and so forth, AutoHotkey’s got you covered.

It may only save a few seconds each time, but those seconds add up, as does the time spent finding bugs that turn out to be simple mistyping errors!

Clockify

Poor productivity is a problem, but it’s one that you’re going to struggle to tackle unless you can pinpoint exactly what’s causing it, especially when you’re working with a remote developer team. This is where Clockify comes in.

Clockify is a time tracker and timesheet app that lets you and your team record exactly where time is being spent.

After implementing it and spending a few days building your data, you can start looking into the reports it produces—ranging from timesheets to project tracking—all neatly arranged in workspaces for different tasks and team members.

It’s not uncommon for people to vastly overestimate how productive they are each day. Having Clockify’s simple data charting feature let you know exactly where time is being spent means you can set expectations and make adjustments to your working practices as required and anticipate exactly when your project will be delivered.

RescueTime

RescueTime is similar to Clockify. It paints an accurate picture of how you spend your time and helps you become more aware of potential areas of improvement.

Unlike Clockify, RescueTime actually gives you some built-in controls that allow you to steer users in the most productive directions.

If you’d like to block or limit certain websites or applications, you can do so. Or if you’d like to set reminders that tell you when you’ve hit certain times on different activities, you can do that too.

Again, RescueTime gives you the opportunity to visualize exactly how you and your team are working, allowing you to adjust expectations or activities based on how close that deadline is.

Planio

Having a good project management tool that you can use to track the different elements of your overall task is an absolutely essential part of effective teamwork. Without this central project “hub,” you’ll often be left with an enormous virtual mess that involves spreadsheets, emails, group chats and a dozen different versions of the same document.

Rather than give you a prescriptive way of doing things, Planio lets you create a project management space that’s suited to your needs. You can create tasks and workflows, compile useful knowledge, communicate with one another, host your source code and files, and even talk to one another in real time.

Effective project managers realize that teams can waste enormous amounts of time simply trying to gather the information they need to work on your project.

Planio gives you one virtual space that’s neat and organized, removing all hurdles that usually stand in the way of productivity.

Surfshark

Surfshark is a virtual private network (VPN), one that’s packed full of functionality that developers need.

A VPN offers an anonymous and secure way of accessing the open internet. Rather than connecting directly to the website or application you need, connecting through a VPN effectively covers your footprints so your data can’t be intercepted or collected to be reused for marketing or other more sinister activities.

Want to make sure you’re working within the nondisclosure agreement and tight security that many clients require? Would you like to work around content blocking? Or perhaps you simply want to work out how long it’s going to take to connect to specific online resources from locations around the globe?

If the answer to any of these is “yes,” you’re going to need a good VPN.

The trouble is, VPNs are not created equal, and drops in security or connect speed can be devastating for productivity. The good news is, Surfshark’s service employs the highest levels of encryption—ensuring all your sensitive data is kept secure.

What’s more, their intelligent routing of traffic across over 800 servers in 50+ countries means you’ll never experience any reduction in speed.

myNoise.net

When you’re coding, your ears can be a hindrance. Talking colleagues, external noises, and other people’s music can be challenging for anyone. But if you happen to be easily distracted or more introverted than other people in your office, noise can have a catastrophic impact on productivity.

If noise can be a problem for you, you’ll be delighted to discover myNoise.net—a huge selection of background noises and interactive soundscapes that are designed to take your ears to a huge range of more productive places, albeit virtually.

It’s not just distracting colleagues that myNoise works on though. If your room is too quiet, you can choose from a range of background soundscapes that will liven things up. If you need to calm down and refocus, you can find sounds to suit.

There are even sounds that will help you to relax your baby to sleep if working revolves around family life. Noise doesn’t have to hinder productivity. In fact, with a tool like myNoise, noise can become a productivity ally.

Cold Turkey

Social media has changed our world, but it’s fair to say that it’s also had a lasting impact on productivity for millions—if not billions—of people. Tim Ferriss, author of the go-to productivity book The 4-Hour Workweek, even goes as far as saying social media distractions can make him “reactive” and “miserable.”

Cold Turkey is the “nuclear option” when it comes to blocking websites and online applications reclaiming your productivity.

In fact, it can be used to block any number of resources you find yourself distracted by, from social media websites and apps, to the entire internet or files on your computer (if you just can’t stay away from the shows you’ve downloaded from Netflix!).

Cold Turkey is virtually impossible to cheat too. So if your productivity is impacted because you just can’t help switching off your blocker to sneak a glance at what’s happening on Twitter, then prepare for a shock. Because when you create a block, there’s an option for no turning back!

Smartsheet

Smartsheet isn’t likely to be a must-have if you’re an individual freelancer. But if you’re a company looking at increasing productivity across your business, then it’s an incredibly powerful tool that allows you to plan, manage, automate, and report around every part of your workflow.

At first glance, Smartsheet looks like a spreadsheet. In this spreadsheet-style space, you can map out your processes to start building data around how your workflows perform in reality before integrating the system with a huge range of third-party applications.

With the data you amass, you can begin to manage your teams accordingly and break down any walls that you discover between departments and areas of the business.

Smartsheet is a really serious tool that’s used by companies that are working with processes across the globe. As such, it offers real-time reporting on workflows in all locations. If you need a business-wide view of productivity that’s going to inform you about high-value decisions, you’re going to need a tool like Smartsheet on your side.

No Magic Bullet

Realistically, there’s no single way that you’re going to be able to maximize productivity—whether for yourself or for a full team.

Rather than focusing on this idea of a “magic bullet” that’ll cure all your productivity issues, it’s useful to consider the attitude James Clear encourages in his self and business help book Atomic Habits; that is, to make small but meaningful changes to the habits that you and your team have developed. These tools will help you do exactly that.

Performance in the workplace is a complex area. But if you can start by removing the hurdles that your team currently faces, then work on analyzing where any hidden productivity hurdles can be found and you’re well on your way to unlocking the potential that you need to excel in your chosen industry.

The post 8 Productivity Apps that Every Developer Should Have appeared first on Simple Programmer.

Expertise and strategy play an imperative role in the adoption of a development and operations (DevOps) strategy when developing software. This is because in order to achieve test automation objectives, a group of dedicated testers is required.

Automating testing is a difficult technical activity, and it has the ability to ruin the overall DevOps strategy for your project if it is not implemented effectively.

Just understanding the app’s foundation is not sufficient. The team needs to use Agile methodologies for planning and development. Collaboration plays an imperative role if you want your test automation strategy to function in the context of a DevOps setup.

With that in mind, here are four useful tips through which we can automate testing in a DevOps setup.

1. Have Complete Know-How of the User Environment of Your App

Knowing the different parts of an app is not the solution to understanding the exact requirements of test automation. In order to attain complete knowledge of the test automation requirements, it is important to understand all the factors within the user environment for the app.

For instance, if the application is for financial purposes, then security is paramount and the automation testing will focus on security testing. The development team must work collaboratively and assist the testing team to consider all the important aspects when testing the application.

As a result of the continuous support in the form of timely deliverables from the development team, testing teams will be able to create a better automation strategy and flawlessly team up with the development function.

In the example of a financial app, the automation tests will focus only on the security testing efforts while the development team will arrange for effective testing by keeping the testing team in the loop for any developments in the code.

2. Syndicating Technical and Management Experience

In a DevOps setup, the test automation and the development engineers work together to create test scripts and enlarge the scope of their test coverage. These codes and scripts are created to support continuous development and integration activities.

However, the systematic combination of technical and management experience is also important in developing the app. Technical skills allow the developers to make sure there are no glitches and the user experience is excellent.

This setup also has an effect on the management experience. Imagine an environment where everything flows smoothly and where everybody knows what they are supposed to do, who they are supposed to report and deliver to, and what teams they are supposed to interact with. Such a setup is a surefire way to success for any company.

3. Create a Team of Testers to Handle the Test Automation Only

It is very important to understand that different types of testing require different types of expertise. For a manual tester, automation testing is quite the challenge. Therefore, it is ineffective to assign test automation tasks to groups of testers who perform other types of testing.

Automation requires expertise and a strong understanding of planning and implementation. Therefore, it is advisable to create a distinct team that holds expertise and experience in test automation in the DevOps environment.

Automation is not limited to executing tests; it encompasses ranking and planning the tests. A dedicated and experienced team can create value for the entire automation procedure and guarantee tangible outcomes.

4. Encourage the Cultural Shift

DevOps doesn’t restrict itself to technical application and the implementation of development and testing activities. It is a cultural transformation where a DevOps-conducive environment is important to guarantee that the plan is closely monitored and collaborative.

In any organization, a healthy DevOps culture can help the company grow in many organizational values. Not only that, the company can enjoy greater return on investment (ROI), higher client retention, and greater market size.

Operations and developers are required to work together to decrease inadequacies and speed up development activities. A DevOps-favorable environment has to be created to attain the projected test automation objectives.

The aim is to write code that assists in the creation of robust apps within smaller development cycles. Speed and quality can be guaranteed only when the DevOps culture is accepted during the system development instead of being solely task-specific.

Embrace the Transition to DevOps

Like most changes, integrating automation testing into a DevOps setup is something many enterprises will have to get used to.

To do so, you must have a complete understanding of the user-environment of your app and be able to amalgamate technical and managerial experience. It’s also best to establish a separate team solely for automation testing and encourage the cultural shift that will inevitably come with establishing a DevOps setup that also enlists a test automation strategy. Moreover, it is essential to have DevOps now that everything is speeding up with the era of IoT and the increasing demand of digital transformation.

Who wants to stick to legacy technologies or resources? It is high time for advancement for greater ROI, customer retention, and market value.

The post How Can We Automate Testing in a DevOps Setup appeared first on Simple Programmer.

It is important to note that Agile can be applied to many types of projects and teams by not restricting its usage to only engineers or software development projects. The Agile framework is widely accessible across the globe in all different types of organizations due to its effective and fast results.

We will be looking at some of the best practices for the Agile team member known as the “scrum master,” who can help any organization drive toward success. Here are a few of the pitfalls, with possible remedies, to help illustrate the role of a scrum master. But let’s start with a few basic terms.

What Is a Scrum Master?

The software delivery process runs through an Agile methodology called “scrum.” Scrum is an iterative software development model that allows us to handle complexity in software development. It is widely recognized among engineering teams in different sectors, from manufacturing to operations and education and in all kinds of different businesses.

In scrum methodology, there are sprints, which are fixed terms of almost two weeks in length. In each sprint, a team works on the software development process, and at the end of each sprint, the whole team then plans the next step. Here’s an illustration:

Scrum Framework Image Via Smartsheet.com

Agile and scrum both follow a similar process of software development, with one major difference: Agile is built on a set of principles, whereas scrum follows specific guidelines and rules. Both are meant to implement Agile philosophy.

Here are the quick differences between Agile and scrum:

Image Source: Guru99

Scrum is the latest hip buzzword in project management and is now embraced by many companies and organizations around the world. Some project leaders still fail to realize the potential of scrum, which can cause the company or team to face a huge loss. This can be easily avoided by utilizing the scrum master techniques.

Being a scrum master is a tough job, and some developers don’t understand what it is. Generally, scrum masters are misrecognized as the project managers or the project head. But this is not the reality. The scrum master is the person on the team who takes care of the team members’ suggestions and, at the same time, maintains the project work effectively.

Mistake No. 1: Behaving Like a Project Manager

Companies that adopt Agile methodology follow daily scrums. This means the projects need to follow up daily for effective and faster deployment. Here, the scrum master often acts as the project manager or the project head by keeping an eagle eye on the other team members.

The Agile framework should not inspire a command and control mentality, where a leader assigns tasks and dictates efforts. Scrum teams are considered to be self-organizing, as the scrum master is the servant leader, and teams learn to perform better by delivering greater value more efficiently.

How to handle it: Instead of dominating daily meetings with the team members, the scrum master should also ask for the members’ opinions and work accordingly. Rather than giving the everyday tasks, the scrum master should ideally make team members ask themselves “What should be finished next?”

Mistake No. 2: Making Decisions All Alone

This can be a serious issue, as coming up with a unilateral solution can have a misguided impact on all, and such situations can make team members furious and lose focus on the project. The scrum master needs to consider everyone’s opinions rather than just going with self-made decisions.

The scrum team needs to give input as well as the master so they can perform better together. Everyone’s suggestions and opinions should be kept in mind to make the best decision.

How to handle it: It is the sole responsibility of the master to ask for each and every team member’s individual opinion. The scrum master does not know everything, and the opinions given by all can sometimes result in a better solution than what was decided earlier. The team members’ opinions matter as much as the scrum master’s.

Mistake No. 3: Frequently Checking Up on Team Members

The scrum master often commits a sin by checking up on team members too frequently. Doing so degrades the scrum master’s image in the eyes of the members, which ultimately makes him a bad leader. One should definitely avoid this, as it can lead members to become angry and ruin relations with the scrum master.

Frequent follow-ups can cause a situation of distrust among the scrum team. No individual likes to be analyzed every minute while getting their work done.

How to handle it: The team members are not only the scrum master’s workers but also their partners. So, scrum masters should trust the team members the way anybody would their close partners. This will give them more space to work freely and represent themselves more prominently in their respective work. Allowing team members to be responsible for themselves leads to productivity, but at the same time, scrum masters should encourage them to have a chat, if required, in a timely manner about the project.

Mistake No. 4: Assuming Agile to Be Easy

It is evident that Agile methodology provides faster ways to identify errors and solve them as soon as possible. Transition to Agile takes time for any organization.

In the initial stages, there will always be fear of messing up. Adapting to Agile is definitely time-consuming, but once you figure it out, it becomes much more familiar, and products can be delivered faster.

How to handle it: Things will be more difficult in the beginning when the scrum master tries their hand at Agile methodology. With time, it will seem natural and improve communication, time management, and much more.

Mistake No. 5: Not Handling Changes Quickly

Implementing sprints can take a little more time, but it is estimated that no event should take more than 15 minutes. The daily scrum should not exceed 15 minutes in general, but often the team members will start to discuss their technical difficulties, which will cause it to exceed the allotted time.

Not quickly recognizing changes when they happen can lead to trouble, as this can stress the client and shake their confidence in the organization. Getting regular updates helps to improve the overall product development.

How to handle it: The way to have a time-bound sprint is to make the team members stand during the meeting for 15 minutes, which will eventually make them tired, and they will finish up the meeting faster. Also, scrum masters should get accustomed to the recurring changes, as it is essential to roll with the changes quickly to stay up to date with the project.

Mistake No. 6: Not Communicating Directly

Often, the scrum members might feel a bit anxious talking to the product owner. They think it better to communicate through email for answers. Such communication does not help to resolve a problem but often creates a new one because of the miscommunication.

The scrum master should not act as an intermediator; and hence the team members should be given authority to freely ask the product owner questions directly  in order to resolve the doubts.

How to handle it: Email communication can seem to be a better alternative, but sometimes it can lead to miscommunication or conveyance of incomplete details. It is a better choice to have face-to-face communication with the product owner, which is more effective. This can also help boost the team members’ confidence when it comes to speaking with people. Direct communication helps to solve the query immediately and saves time.

Before You Go

We have seen some of the hurdles faced by the scrum master along with the most suitable remedies to work them out. These problems can be overcome by implementing scrum using skill, expertise, and experience. Hence, considering every minor issue that needs to be resolved by the scrum master doesn’t only help the scrum team to grow but also finds the right balance between preventing and fighting a fire, as indicated by Barry Overeem in his paper.

The scrum master is often defined as the one who removes obstacles. One should never wait until the daily scrum raises an impediment; the scrum master should utilize a sprint goal and try to implement transparent decisions.

A scrum master is also expected to keep track of fixed obstacles, understand the organization by creatively removing the barriers, and collaborate with the product owner to stop spending time and effort in the wrong way. Therefore, implementing all these defined remedies can help to achieve the best possible outcome for your organization.

So, it’s always a better option to follow the proper guidance. Keep Learning!

The post 6 Mistakes Scrum Masters Should Avoid, and Their Remedies appeared first on Simple Programmer.