Delivering a project and presenting to a multi-level audience

Source: http://www.pgi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/presentation_podium_0.jpg

You have spent months on developing your product and now it is finally time to present your project! You must convince your audience on how your product is revolutionary and unique. You need to persuade people to buy your product.

I believe a steady dose of information about the product to the audience is a good way to start presenting your project. Meaning, you release information over time and try to build hype with the audience whilst your product is still under development. You would emphasize the key points about your product and how your product is revolutionary and unique. A good example of this would be the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset that is still under development. This unique product was able to raise money whilst still under development. “Launched through Kickstarter in 2012, Oculus VR raised nearly US $2.5 million toward the development of their prototype VR headset, the Oculus Rift” (Avila & Bailey, 2014, p. 103). The thought of playing HD video games via virtual reality is a very exciting and unique idea and that is why people decided to support this product.

Once you are done marketing your product, there would come a time when you need to present the product. First of all, you do not need to list out all the requirements, user stories, all that technical jargon to the audience. What the audience cares about is the benefits of the product and more specifically, how it will benefit them. So when presenting the product, speak in a manner that describes what the product has to offer the audience if they were to buy/use your product.

By this time, you should know what the customer wants in your product based on the user stories you collected and implemented in the development of the product. This is a perfect time for a little “Show and Tell”. Basically present the product and show how you implemented the features the customer asked for in the product. Again when presenting, do not use all that technical jargon, stick to simple terminology that the customer can understand.

Also one aspect people tend to look over is making your presentation lively! Constantly talking to the audience will make them lose interest in the presentation, instead talk WITH the audience. Meaning, involve them in the presentation of your product. Maybe ask an unbiased audience member to come up to the stage and try a certain feature of the product. Say couple of jokes here and there when presenting to keep their attention glued to the presentation. Lastly believe in your product. Be excited about your product, especially when you talk. The excitement will carry from you to the audience and this should automatically make the presentation more lively!

Just look at the excitement on his face about his product!
Source: http://www.livemint.com/rf/Image-621×414/LiveMint/Period1/2011/10/06/Photos/712a723e-a107-44a5-83f2-07efd93bac48.jpg

Works Cited:

Secondary: Avila, L., & Bailey, M. (2014). Virtual Reality for the Masses. IEEE computer graphics and applications, (5), 103-104.

Primary: Robertson, K. (n.d.). 7 Tips for Creating an Unforgettable Sales Presentation. Retrieved November 21, 2014, from http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/salesselling/a/presentationkr.htm

Handing off a project to a client; what are the risks and challenges?

Source: http://foleywrites.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/handing-off-keys.jpg

There comes a time when every thing must come to an end. This applies to life, work, relationships(hopefully not), etc. The same concept goes with the project that you may have been working on. Eventually the project will reach the end stage and it must be handed off to a client or to a company. There are certain steps that you must take to ensure the project is handed off as gracefully as possible.

You have to picture the end product. Throughout the development, you may get so lost in developing the product that you forget to view the product as an “end-product”. Near the end of the development cycle, you should start seeing the product form the user’s point of view. This helps you determine if you may have missed some user requirements or if some of the instructions about the product aren’t clear, the list goes on and on. It is also beneficial to run a trial run to see if the product is market-ready. A lot of companies release betas or trial runs of their product to help figure out the bugs their product may have. But however many times you may test a product, it will never be bug-free. If you were to completely eradicate all the bugs, the product would never be ready by the deadline. According to Gold & Wolfe (2012), “a conscientious publisher needs some type of standard or decision rule regarding when such testing should end” (p. 502).

You have to make the delivery date clear for the project.  If the team is not on track to deliver the product in a timely manner, you have to let the clients know. Constantly updating the clients on the progression of the product is an even better idea when nearing the end of the development cycle and this helps create a better reputation of your company. Not delivering your product in a timely manner without any updates to the client is the worse way to hand off the product because it will tarnish your company’s reputation.

Once you believe the product is ready, create a clear documentation of the product, listing its features, requirements, etc. Then get this document signed off by the stakeholders. This document is the proof of the completion of the product and every function and non-functioning features should be listed in this document and once this document is signed, it is signifying that the client is happy with the product and your work is done as a product developer.

All the hard work you spent on the product has finally paid off. It is released into the market and you can take a deep breath and marvel at your achievement. Now it is the people’s responsibility to make this product work and your work is done, as far as this product is concerned. But before you begin celebrating, do a self-evaluation. “What did you learn from it? What were you good at? What were you less good at? What skills did you feel yourself developing? What skills do you still need to develop?”(Peters, 2008, p. 6). This helps you open the first chapter for your next project so you can learn from the previous mistakes and make an even better product!

Works Cited:

Secondary: Gold, S. C., & Wolfe, J. (2012). The Validity and Effectiveness of a Business Game Beta Test. Simulation & Gaming, 43(4), 481-505. doi:10.1177/1046878111431868

Primary: Peters, T. (2008). The wow project. IEEE Engineering Management Review, 36(2), 70-76.

What five technical skills are employers seeking? What five soft skills put you on top

Source: http://www.quantumlearn.com/Portals/32497/images/Interpersonal-Team-Skills.jpg

When it comes to getting hired, employers seek out employees with two kinds of skill sets: technical skills and soft skills. Technical skills are skills or abilities that a person learns via education, work experience, getting a degree in a specific field, etc. Some examples may include having proficiency in a certain language, coding programs, machine operation, and much more. These skills are the ones listed on your resume that draw attention from potential employees. Soft skills are “people skills”. These skills show how you interact with others, these are basically known as social skills. Flaherty (2014) says some examples of social skills include smiling or being nice, being sincere, having a pleasant demeanor when presenting yourself whilst still maintaining a serious work ethic. So in the next couple of paragraphs, we will explore the top five technical skills pertaining to the field of IT and the top five soft skills.

One of the top technical skills a person could have in the field of IT is programming/application development. These people are the most sought-after people in the field of IT for obvious reasons and they also have one of the lowest employment rates at 1.8% according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The second technical skill that looks good on a resume is help desk/technical support. The people with this skill set help increase the technology infrastructure. A help desk person communicates with the customer about potential problems a customer might be running into. Third technical skill set employers seek out is network administration. This person is responsible for maintaining the computer hardware and software systems that make up the computer network. Fourth technical skill that looks good on a resume is mobile applications and device management. With mobile devices becoming so common amongst people, it is no surprise that mobile application is another sought-after skill. The fifth technical skill is project management. This skill is a highly sought-after skill because it demonstrates a person’s leadership. A project manager watches over the entire project and is responsible for talking to developers about technology and he needs to be able to prioritize needs so the project stays on track  and doesn’t fail.

Soft skills can be applied to any field so that is why we are not going to limit them to the field of IT. One of the top soft skills is communication. This skill comes in use when presenting a project, interacting with customers, etc. This skill is a must for help desk listed above. Second soft skill to have is teamwork and collaboration. Employers want people who play well with others and this skill is especially useful when it comes to IT jobs because a lot of these jobs develop projects using Agile methodology. Third soft skill that employers seek is adaptability. We live in such a fast-paced environment that adaptability is a must for any job. Fourth soft skill to have on your resume is problem solving. With any job, problems will arise and you need to be able to deal with them in a profession manner. The last soft skill to have is conflict resolution. The ability to persuade, negotiate,  solve conflicts amongst others is crucial if you want to move up in the job industry. You need to be able to negotiate in such a way that it is a win-win situation for both the company and the customers.

Works Cited:

Secondary: Brandel, M. (2013, September 23). 8 hot IT skills for 2014. Retrieved November 10, 2014.

Buhl, L. (n.d.). Six Soft Skills Everyone Needs. Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://career-advice.monster.com/career-development/getting-promoted/six-soft-skills-everyone-needs-hot-jobs/article.aspx

Doyle, A. (n.d.). Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills. Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://jobsearch.about.com/od/skills/qt/hard-soft-skills.htm

Primary: Flaherty, K. (2014). Soft Skills: The Critical Accompaniment to Technical Skills. AMWA Journal: American Medical Writers Association Journal, 29(2), 70-72.

Social Media and Branding

We live in an age where social media has taken over the internet. Anything posted online has the potential to spread like wildfire, putting your name out in millions of people’s homes and thus advertising yourself. A lot of people and companies have taken advantage of this technology to grow their business. There are certain given guidelines one must follow in order to be successful in this kind of business.

The first step is to create a consistent profile, meaning that the avatar pic, colors, background pic, logo, etc are all the same across all forms of social media. You have to establish a brand of yourself and in order to do that, consistency is key. For example, you would never see the store Target deviate from their colors red and white. Red and white is Target’s identity and you are basically doing the same thing, you are trying to establish an identity. Also if you are using social media that require constant updates/posts from you, try to choose a time at which your followers are most active. This ensures that your update/post gets to the most number of people possible at a given time. So you would need to do a bit of research to see when your target audience is most active. Also post consistently on your social media as this is the only way of ensuring your growth. But in order to ensure this growth, you also have to stand out from the rest of the millions of people who are doing the same exact thing. You must create a unique identity and a perfect example of this unique identity is the Youtube channel “HodgeTwins”.

The “HodgeTwins” is a popular fitness channel amongst youths. This channel gives out dieting/fitness advice for people thriving to live a healthy lifestyle. When they first started back four years ago, they had no exposure and they had to accumulate the fan base they have today through the use of regular posting of videos and interacting with their followers. They had a very unique personality that made them stand out from the rest of the thousands of fitness youtubers. Today they have four very successful Youtube channels amongst the fitness community. After gaining exposure through the use of Youtube, they took to Twitter. They used Twitter to advertise themselves even more, gaining a loyal fan base. Then they started their own company selling clothing apparel with their unique and funny but vulgar sayings printed on them. After the success they have had with their company, they are moving on to selling gym supplements, exciting a lot of their fans. They used Youtube and twitter as a pedestal to start their own company. The amount of success has been very generous for their company which allowed them to quit their day jobs a while back.

There are thousands of other examples as well that used Youtube and Twitter as a pedestal to start their own companies. For example, Rooster Teeth (a gaming channel), PewDiePie(one of the most famous youtuber), Mike Chang (that fitness guy you always see on the side of your Youtube screen), etc.

So why is social media branding useful? Elimeliah and La Cruz-Smith (2013) say that social media allows companies to directly interact with their customers on a more personal level compared to traditional advertising. This helps create a solid fan base which the company can expand upon. Interacting with their followers on such a personal level allows the company to absorb all the positive feedback and tweak their future products in such a way that meet the requirements of their potential buyers.

Works Cited:

Secondary: Elimeliah, C. A., & La Cruz-Smith, J. C. (2013). U.S. Patent Application 13/841,486.

Primary: Gilbert, S. (2014, July 2). 7 Rules for Social Media Branding. Retrieved November 2, 2014, from http://www.business2community.com/branding/7-rules-social-media-branding-0925893

PERSONAL BRANDING FOR YOUR JOB SEARCH. (n.d.). Retrieved November 2, 2014.

LinkedIn profiles: how to use them, how to market yourself, and how to network

We live in a generation where social media surrounds us. Whether it be Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Each of these have their own pros and cons but one of the most popular form of social media for professional connections in the job industry is LinkedIn. According to Wilson (2009) many mistake LinkedIn as an “upmarket” version of Facebook. It is comparable to Facebook but with more of a professional twist on it. LinkedIn is used by companies looking for potential employees and the people seeking jobs. According to Marshall (2011) “34% of the current membership identifies themselves as entry level, 23% are senior level, 17% manager level, 6% director and around 6% are top (executive) level management (3%each for vice president and Clevels)”(p.5). These job-seekers can browse through the company’s requirements and decide if they fit the criteria. If they do, they can message the company via LinkedIn but in order to get to this step, you must first learn how to set up your LinkedIn profile.

The more connections a profile has, the higher the change of the profile getting looked at by a potential employer. Source : http://alleecreative.com/blog/2014/04/09/4-ways-to-improve-linkedin-company-page/

The first thing a potential job-seeker should focus on is their profile picture because that is the first thing that a potential employer gets a view of. Upload a professional headshot and write a convincing headline right under your name. Use this headline space to draw in the potential employer by stating your careers/positions. Use the LinkedIn interface to list out all achievements and be sure to go into detail about them. Try to elaborate it as much as you can whilst making use of the 1000 character limit. Elaborate on anything that you weren’t able to fit on your resume. You basically are marketing yourself. Make wise use of the character limits to list out your past projects, experience, etc. You have to try to sell yourself to the employer and thus it is very rewarding to have past job experience/projects in the field you are applying for.

After setting up your profile, you want to network with professional companies out there on LinkedIn. You should connect with existing professional and personal contacts, whether it be your previous co-workers, your manager, your classmates, friends, etc. Always take a look at invitations from people you do not know, they could be potential employers who are hiring in your area. Do not just reject the invitation because you do not know them in person. If you are sending an invitation to a potential employer, try not to use the default LinkedIn message that says “Hi ______, I’d like to connect with you on LinkedIn”. Instead take the time to write them a message explaining your purpose for sending them the invitation. By adding these employers, you can grow your connection network by taking a look at the employer’s connections and then sending them an invitation. It may be hard to get connections when you first start out on LinkedIn, but eventually once the connections start adding up, your profession network grows rapidly.

Works Cited:

Secondary: Marshall, R. (2011). CE’S growing Linkedin presence. Chemical Engineering, 118(13), 5.

Primary: Shin, L. (2014, June 26). How To Use LinkedIn: 5 Smart Steps To Career Success. Retrieved October 14, 2014, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2014/06/26/how-to-use-linkedin-5-smart-steps-to-career-success/

Third source: Wilson, J. J. (2009). Social networking: the business case. Engineering & Technology (17509637), 4(10), 54-56. doi:10.1049/et.2009.1010

Agile tasks lists, what does “done” mean in Agile?

Agile task list comes after specifying the requirements for the product backlog. In a nutshell, agile task list is basically a detailed description of what the team needs to accomplish next.

The first important step for formulating an agile task list is calculating the Sprint team’s budget and based off of that will be the number of hours the team members will be able to work. The next step to accomplish is to break the requirements into tasks by going through each product backlog item. These tasks may include documentation, user acceptance testing, design-development, unit testing, etc. Some of the tasks, i.e design development, may even be broken into more tasks because design development is too vague of a concept. The Team must include ALL the tasks that are required of the product backlog item. Then as a team, agree upon the definition of “done” so everyone is aware of their assigned tasks and responsibilities of the listed tasks. Instead of describing what you are going to do about the tasks, describe what you are going to deliver.

The next thing the Sprint team must do together is estimate the tasks in hours. “Every task has to be estimated in terms of time and cost” (Heredia, Garcia-Guzman, Amescua-Seco, & Velasco-Diego, 2014). Collaborate as a group and identify any missed tasks or a much simpler solution than listed in the task-list. General rule of thumb is that the tasks cannot take longer than a day. If they DO take longer than a day, then break that task down into even more tasks. According to Mhanic and Zabkar (2008) each task should roughly take 4 to 16 hours to finish (p.23). So that is why the team must break each task into the simplest task possible. For example, the design development example in the previous paragraph was way to vague and would obviously take longer than a day so that is why it must be broken down into much simpler and un-vague tasks. Assigning a day to each task helps the team stay on track and helps produce an accurate delivery date of the product.

The next step is to add up all the selected tasks and see if it fits the team’s budget. If it doesn’t fit the team budget, remove the low-prioritized tasks (the product items are listed with the highest priority item on top in the backlog). The remaining tasks listed are the Sprint backlog and the team must focus on accomplishing the listed tasks without going over the delivery date of the product.

An example of a task-list. Notice how the user stories are broken down into simpler tasks.
Source http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/uploads/blog/SprintBacklog.jpg

Works Cited:

Secondary: Heredia, A., Garcia-Guzman, J., Amescua-Seco, A., & Velasco-Diego, M. (2014). Agile practices adapted to mass-market application development. Journal Of Software: Evolution & Process, 26(9), 818-828. doi:10.1002/smr.1671

Mahnic, V., & Zabkar, N. (2008, January). Measurement repository for Scrum-based software development process. In Proc. of the 2nd WSEAS International Conference on Computer Engineering and Applications (CEA’08) (pp. 23-28).

Primary: Waters, K. (2007, October 11). Step 4: Sprint Planning (Tasks). Retrieved October 6, 2014.

Image: http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/uploads/blog/SprintBacklog.jpg

What is an Agile Sprint Retrospective?

Sprint retrospective plays an important part during the Sprint cycle.  Sprint  retrospective is the last thing done in a sprint cycle.  A lot of teams do it immediately after the sprint review. The sprint retrospective consists of the team meeting together to reflect on how they are doing and how can they improve even further. This retrospective usually consists of the entire team, even the product owner and the Scrum Master. Usually an hour is sufficient for this meeting, but sometimes the meeting can extend beyond the hour timeframe depending on the issues/discussions that are brought up. For example, there may be a debate on which route to take to benefit the team as a whole and this may go beyond the hour timeframe. For my current Agile group, an hour is sufficient enough to finish the designated tasks for the week. Depending on the complexity of the project, the meeting time may vary.

A simple table using during a sprint retrospective.
Source: http://blogs.versionone.com/agile_management/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2012/08/part-1-table2.jpg

The recommended way to go about conducting this sprint retrospective is to use start-stop-continue meeting  format not only because it is the simplest but also the most effective. Basically the start-stop-continue meeting format focuses on what the team should “start” doing to help make itself better, what the team should “stop” doing, and what the team should “continue” to keep doing.  These three simple matters of subject should be able to cover any issues that are present amongst the team members and explore any potential probable approaches to help bettering the team in helping it progress forward.

This format of the meeting can be conducted in several different forms. For example, the Scrum Master can just tell the team members to shout out ideas on what it should “start” doing or the Scrum Master may ask every team-member individually. Also, the Scrum Master may choose to focus on what the team should “stop” doing because not a lot of attention had been paid previously on that topic.

After this list has been brainstormed and written on some form of a list, the team-members will vote on what items the team should focus on for the next sprint. Mahnic and Zabkar described the process that follows the end of Sprint as “after the Sprint review and prior to the next Sprint planning meeting, the Scrum Master also holds a Sprint retrospective meeting in order to ensure continuous improvement.”(p.24). During the meeting, the team-members are encouraged not to hold back any thoughts, ideas, or concerns they may have and are encouraged to speak their mind and voice their opinions on the team’s progress thus far.

Works Cited:

Secondary: Keith, C. (2008, February). An Agile Retrospective. In Game Developer Conference.

Primary: Mahnic, V., & Zabkar, N. (2008, January). Measurement repository for Scrum-based software development process. In Proc. of the 2nd WSEAS International Conference on Computer Engineering and Applications (CEA’08) (pp. 23-28).
Chicago

Topics in Scrum. (n.d.). Retrieved September 29, 2014.

The Agile Team and what is a Backlog?

Agile Team consists of several different members who are assigned tasks within the group to complete. The team size can vary depending on the size of the projects. Big projects will require a team with more members than a small project, which obviously will require less members. These are known as large Agile teams and small Agile teams respectively.

Small agile teams are usually composed of less than twenty people. These agile teams are a complete team, meaning they do not require the expertise of anyone from outside the team. They have enough expertise to get the job done themselves. The team consists of a leader, called the Scrum Master. This Scrum Master oversees the team and makes sure the team has all the resources it needs and doesn’t run into any problems. Of course, no team can be complete without team members. The team members consist of programmer and developers who are responsible for the creation and delivery of the project. There is also a product owner within the team who prioritizes the work item lists in a product backlog which is used to help make decisions and provide information in a timely manner. Then there is a stakeholder who basically funds the whole project.

A diagram of a small Agile Team. Image source: http://www.ambysoft.com/essays/agileRoles.html

Agile Teams are considered large when the size of the team gets to be more than twenty members. This team of twenty or more people is then divided into smaller teams responsible for a subsystem of the project. Each sub-team can be considered as a small Agile team. This team consists of an Architecture owner and this person is responsible for facilitating the evolution of architectural design. If sometimes the teams get too large in size, then the team requires an Integrator who is responsible for building the entire system from its various different teams. For example, once the team gets too big, there are complications because there would be too many teams working towards the same project and the Integrator builds this team system in an organized and clear manner.  Since the project is so big and there are different teams, each sub-team has its own Scrum Master who overlooks his/her team. To ensure the project as a whole goes smoothly, these Scrums of sub-teams have weekly meetings, called scrum of scrums, where they discuss their issues and progress they faced in their sub-teams. There is also an architecture team within the group. This team consists of the architectural members from each sub-team. Each sub-team has one architectural member whose is to help reduce the coupling between subsystems so each sub-team doesn’t have to meet as often. There is also a product ownership team which consists of product owners from each sub-team and they are responsible for coordinating the requirements across the sub-teams.

A diagram for a large Agile team. Image source: http://www.ambysoft.com/essays/agileRoles.html

In the article Self-Organizing Roles on Agile Software Development Teams by Hoda, Noble, & Marshall (2013), they found six key team members that help make agile a self-organized team. One of them is a mentor, who basically guides everyone. Second is a coordinator who acts as a representative of the team to manage customer expectations. Third is a translator who translates customer talk into technical talk for the team. The fourth key member is a champion who basically tries to get support for the self-organized agile team. Fifth is promoter who basically promotes the agile team to the customer. Sixth is a terminator who terminates team members that threaten the proper functioning and productivity of the agile team. The Scrum Teams use a product backlog to outline every single requirement for the project. It breaks the big picture into small pictures so the picture becomes more understandable. Ambler (2008) describes the backlog as “a prioritized stack of requirements maintained by the “product owner” who is responsible for working closely with the team to represent the overall stakeholder community” in his article “Scaling Scrum” There are two types of backlogs a Scrum team may use, one is manual agile and the other is an agile tool. A manual agile is created manually on some form of physical manifestation such as a white board, post-it notes, etc. This kind of backlog is usually done if the team is in a confined proximity. However, if the teams are dispersed, they may want to use an agile tool that helps keep the sub-team in constant communication. There are several agile tools at disposal on the internet to the Scrum team. A basic Scrum backlog comprises these four items: 1. Features. 2. Bugs. 3. Technical work. 4. Knowledge acquisition. These backlogs also consist of user stories, something a user desires, which are ordered by priority. The user stories with the highest priority are looked at first and so on.

Works Cited:

Basic overview of Scrum and Scrum Team(Secondary): Ambler, S. W. (2008). Scaling Scrum. Dr. Dobb’s Journal: The World Of Software Development, 33(5), 52-54. Explanation of key members of a self-organizing agile team: Hoda, R., Noble, J., & Marshall, S. (2013). Self-Organizing Roles on Agile Software Development Teams. IEEE Transactions On Software Engineering, 39(3), 422-444. doi:10.1109/TSE.2012.30

Explains small agile teams vs large agile teams(Primary): Roles on Agile Teams: From Small to Large Teams. (n.d.). Retrieved September 20, 2014.

Explains the Scrum backlog: Scrum Methodology. (n.d.). Retrieved September 20, 2014.

Explains the key members in the agile team: Topics in Scrum. (n.d.). Retrieved September 20, 2014.

What is Agile and what are user stories?

Agile is another alternative approach to project management. They are used to help businesses respond to unpredictability. In Agile methodology, requirements and solutions to software development methods are evolved through collaboration between cross-functional teams, that is members of different expertise working towards the same goal. Agile methodology involves frequently delivering small increments of working software which in turn promotes continuous improvements and up-to-date software. This means that the customer will receive the most recent software. The customer is the priority in Agile methodology. Each development cycle/iteration of the product is called “Sprint”. After the first Sprint, the product is shippable and each consecutive Sprint improves upon the product even more.

A product backlog is used to manage the timelines and priorities of the project. The requirements in this product backlog are called User Stories and are focused on what the customer/user needs. The product is built off of these User Stories because the customer is the priority in the development of this project. Then a Sprint team is formed to help develop the project. The Sprint team consists of Scrum Master and Scrum Team. Scrum Master makes sure everything goes smoothly and according to plan and that the project is meeting its deadlines. Then the high-priority User Stories are moved from the product backlog to the Spring backlog. The Sprint backlog highlights progress so far and how much is left of the project and is used by the Sprint Team. The product is then finished, released and reviewed by the customer. After receiving customer feedback, the product enters its second Sprint cycle and the whole process starts over again.

Agile is different from other methodologies in a sense that Agile requires you to first define requirements and then test and deliver production in a short period of time whereas traditional methodology involves a long period of time where cycles of the same program are released. Also agile methodology promotes working in groups compared to the traditional methodology where each person is assigned a task and are required to finish the task. Also, since agile releases so frequently, the customer is more satisfied. The customer might introduce some additional requirements for the software to have and agile would be able to deliver that opposed to traditional methodology where the software is released after long periods of time.

An example of the process of agile methodology. First comes the planning of the program, and then you implement the program and test it and during the whole time the customers can see what is going on. If the customer approves, the product is released, however if the customer doesn’t like what he/she sees, the program is changed accordingly to the customer’s feedback and another iteration/cycle of the program begins. This keeps happening until the customer’s requirements are met.     Image: http://www.stagrp.com/wp-content/uploads/Agile-Development-Diagram.jpg

Agile methodology can be applied towards all kind of projects. In a study of student projects by Gerndt, Schiering, & Lüssem (2014), they found that agile methodology allowed the student groups to be able to handle the projects efficiently and in a self-organized way. According to Gerndt, Schiering, & Lüssem (2014), “… traditional project management approaches like the waterfall model or the V-model failed.” (p.44).

Agile methodology can make or break the project, depending on the team management (Scrum Master and Scrum Team).One example of a software that put Agile methodology to good use is Spotify. Spotify is constantly releasing updates, making the program more appeasing to users. They are constantly fixing bugs and that is why Spotify is one of the most used programs worldwide. Also, Spotify has experienced agile coaches, someone who has to lead the team. Having a good experience agile coach leads to a more organized team co-ordination. One example of a software program that didn’t benefit from the agile methodology is healthcare.gov. Healthcare.gov didn’t have an experienced agile coach, meaning weak leadership. Weak leadership equals the group falling apart and this in turn led to lack of co-ordination and communication between different teams working on the project. I would suggest deploying agile methodology in application-type programs that makes the user want to come back and keep using your application. Agile methodology would allow you to constantly release updates that make the application look more appealing to the user. Such examples include Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. To have a good agile methodology, you must hire a good experienced agile coach who has good leadership and can keep the team together.

Author Cervone (2011) summarized Agile: “Within an agile project, roles are clearly defined and do not cross boundaries. Features can be completely developed and tested in short iteration cycles. Because each team members bears major responsibility for their part of the project, ownership of the project is more broadly based. The methods of agile project management enforce extensive communication, which helps teams organize more effectively.” In ending, Agile methodology is a much more organized methodology that keeps the customer as its priority. This leads to the demands of customers being met more frequently and happy customers = more product being sold.

Works Cited:

Primary: Cervone, H. (2011). Understanding agile project management methods using Scrum. OCLC Systems & Services, 27(1), 18-22. doi:10.1108/10650751111106528

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Fifth source: Two Examples of Agile Done Right and Agile Gone Wrong | OpenView Labs. (2014, January 16). Retrieved September 14, 2014, from http://labs.openviewpartners.com/agile-done-right-agile-gone-wrong/