Henry Ford once said – If everyone is moving forward together then success takes care of itself.
And how do we make the team move forward TOGETHER.?
Different minds in a team and making them focussed towards one common goal can be tough. Every team needs a set process to work and achieve a common goal. Normalising such process into a Workflow can make the incremental product easier to achieve.
With Agile mindset the workflow can be customized as per the team goals or needs. The team is empowered to drive the delivery process in an efficient and effective way by continuously inspecting and adapting to the situation.
When implementing a workflow always remember to start simple. Complex workflows are hard to understand and can deviate the team form achieving the desired product.
The above image is a simple example of a software workflow.
Teams that are new to agile or that do not have cross-functional skills often end up with mini waterfalls in their workflow. Discuss each point with team members during retrospective as each team member may have slightly different value or perspective towards achieving the product goal.
Hence it is necessary to customize the workflow that suits best for the team.
The above workflow is not a set stage of a software development life cycle, unlike waterfall, it is rather a set flow which helps in continuous integration and continuous development throughout the cycle.
From the above workflow the team members and non-team members get a clear picture of what is waiting to start, in-progress or done.
The team can set a Work in Progress limits to understand which step has the bottleneck.
But what happens when multiple Agile teams are working on the same product development. Imagine different workflows for different teams and trying to achieve the same goal.
Organizations having several agile teams face impediments due to different workflows. May be for one team it is efficient but can be a headache for another team.
“Agile teams benefit when they share the same workflow.“
Whatever may be. the workflow but the process to develop this should be Agile.