Not too long ago, Ninestack had a session for its .Net team on the Agile methodology. The session was conducted by a Senior Project Manager.
Agile project management focuses on continuous improvement, scope flexibility, team input, and delivering essential quality products. It often makes use of scrum, kanban, crystal, etc., as frameworks. The Agile model is slowly replacing the Waterfall model because of the advantages it offers. The Agile model allows one to make the use of sprints for maximised efficiency. A sprint is a set period of time during which specific work has to be completed and made ready for review. Sprints are of 7 days, 15 days and 30 days.
Under the scrum framework in Agile, provisions are made for teams of 20 members or less. There are certain key players under scrum:
- The product owner: He/she knows the ins and outs of the product and understands the goals to be achieved in a particular sprint.
- Scrum master: He/she is the coach of the team. They ensure that the proper scrum practises are followed.
- Team members: These comprise the developers, testers and designers.
The highlight of the session was the poker game that the speaker conducted. Cards were handed out to the group and a hypothetical scenario was set up. The example of the building of a bridge was given, where in all the tasks that go into the building of a bridge were broken down into small segments. The group was asked to assign story points to each of these individual tasks and write these down on their cards. A ‘story point’ is a number that tells the team about the difficulty of a particular task. The higher the story point, the more complex the task. Team members, especially the ones with an answer that didn’t reflect that of the majority’s, were asked to elaborate on their decision in assigning that particular story point which made for a highly engaging and interactive session.
The session was attended by the entire .Net team.
“The session was extremely fun and interactive. The speaker made use of real world examples and even engaged the audience in an interactive poker game that was linked back to the topic being discussed.”
– .Net Developer, Ninestack
“The session was very easy to understand. It was very helpful and showed us how to deal with deadlines. This is our fifth .Net session and we make sure we attend all of them, given how useful they are.”
– .Net Developer, Ninestack
To know more about Ninestack, visit their website.