How to remove all extraneous work and complication from a process or solution architecture, to isolate the priority sources of value which contribute to the aims of the business.
There are many flavors of Agile methodology, systems, and even waterfall rebranded as agile, carried out in too many ways to critique them and assess them all. Some are great and some are not, but the surefire way to evaluate your modus operandi is by asking those participating if their communication, goals, and velocity are satisfying for the business.
Fully planning ahead causes stress and disappointments by estimating dates for all the company's milestones (impossible!!). By using certain techniques, we achieve the highest return on resources spent and avoid doing tasks which will later be deemed to have been a waste.
Using traditional planning, by the time foreseen business goals, tactics, and methodologies have been budgeted, planned, and implemented, the opportunity may have sailed.
LazyAgile involves a repeated and rigorous evaluation of costs (complexity, money) and priorities in short periods called Sprints, where humanly-worded User Stories are described and scored for their efficacy and importance to the customers and/or users of the product. Accomplishment of Story Points is the only way to accurately measure the effectiveness, velocity, and critical thinking ability of a team. There are no deadlines to the 'end product', because it is done when no priorities worth doing remain in the backlog of anticipated and discovered requirements. Usable and valuable tools and products are likely to arise (and be deployed) far sooner than if a waterfall planning, analysis, and development approach had been used.
The Agile movement has its roots in the 1950s, surprisingly, and it has experienced several resurgences. Due to its effectiveness and the tenacity of teams utilizing its principles, many successful processes have been derived and practiced over the many decades. Its values make good business sense.
However it is a certain style of communication within a team or organization. It does not happen without discipline, distributed control and trust in team members, along with wider participation from stakeholders. This way, all are responsbile for successes and shortcomings, and failure to achieve objectives cannot be blamed on individuals. The team is not a concept of 'workers', but of a multi-discliplinary leadership structure where reality is better reflected in data and plans. Therefore, more is known about how the project is going, and we don't get nasty surprises at the 'deadline', which should have been evident during previous iterations. Without constant feedback loops between people, product objectives, market analysis, and development (in many iterative stages), a project is likely doomed to fail by a combination of lateness, budget overrun, poor quality, or lack of use. Sometimes all of the above.
The agility gained by changing processes results in not repeating the same mistakes of the past. In combination with other techniques and myth-busting processes, we are encapsulating best-practices into LazyAgile, the way forward with product strategy and software development. Planning, analysis and development go hand-in-hand, and belong destributed across the entire project life-cycle, which never ends. By removing all the parts that don't belong, and preventing the bloat and creep of complexity in ideas and systems, we reveal the ideal products.
All hands on deck makes less work for all. Let's get Lazy together.
Fewer moving parts makes a machine more reliable. The same goes for a business process, product vision, and software stack, upon which business value is built, deployed, and maintained. Each element that introduces complexity raises the risk, and the costs, of doing business. Taking a measured and careful approach to complexity, sometimes being ruthless, is often the right way to achieve something that can succeed.
Planning can involve a number of people embarking on a long road before any destination is reached, and any results (value) is perceived and capitalized. Shortening this phase into many phases, interleaved with business analysis and development of components and features, makes results and mistaken perceptions clearer and much more immediate.
The health of a project reflects the communications and health of the people in the team(s) devoting their resources and energy to the product. It's far better to maintain talent and the investments placed in them, than cause them to burn out or become disillusioned by adversity, when it's not managed well. The responsibility for poor project management rests with the management roles, not the developers!
This quote from 'Uncle' Bob Martin (one of the writers of 'The Manifesto' for agile software development) exemplifies the agile principles and gives us a cautionary warning about the results of poor execution in product and software development.
Our process consists of 4 simple steps. We rinse and repeat iteratively to ensure the most value is being extracted out of each business process as the project progresses. Data and feedback from the market, users, internal team members, and stakeholders provides business intelligence to move forward at every step.
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