An Overview Of Distributed Agile Development- StarAgile

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International and inter-organizational collaboration has now become a natural progression in the functioning of the global market in the world of globalization. Several businesses have investigated international sourcing because of limited budgets, scarce resources, and time limitations. Distributed agile software development is a field of study that explores the impact of utilizing the concepts of agile software development in a development setting that is spread out across different locations around the world. The aim is to address the obstacles that arise in projects that are geographically dispersed.

The advantages of resource mobility and gaining additional knowledge through this method of working are promised to enterprises. Therefore, this mode of working globally with different nations and different organizations benefited in gaining a lot of knowledge, mobility in resources, exploring the market globally and hiring the best, skilful individuals which helps in reaching different locations, reducing time, and raising the standard of product and growing through acquisitions, getting close to the market and many other things.

Henceforth, many different developing software companies already started for global supply chain implementation. So, now talking about agile development, it is basically the modern management of project by dividing large project into smaller parts so that employees can get customer feedback at every point which helps in polishing and reviewing the product in a better ways and satisfying customer needs.

Team members often work in different environments and routines, so you might also wonder how agile in distributed teams work?

Nevertheless, if some members aren’t familiar with this sort of environment they may fall behind on tasks.

Now to ensure that team members are aware of the goals they are working toward, team leaders need to set clear objectives and expectations. They should also develop systems for communicating challenges, reporting progress, and receiving feedback. Agile in distributed teams can be achieved by several ways but the most effective is the above-discussed one.

Why is Agile so popular?

It is becoming popular mainly because the larger project are getting divided into small cycles which naturally increases flexibility and accuracy in your project. The development team does not always involves in the entire project; they are rather making it into one cycle of development, so that you are not doing everything again and wasting time rather you are creating a product that satisfies customer's needs. The agility in distributed teams is also an important virtue. So make sure to follow these principles to achieve the perfection.

12 principles of Agile:

Constant supply.
Utilise change.
Regular deliveries.
Companies and developers collaborate.
Individuals with motivation.
A face-to-face discussion.
Functional software.
Sustainable growth.
Technical mastery.
Simplicity.
Self-contained teams.
Regular modifications.

1. Principle of Agile Customer Fulfilment:

Customer needs and customer feedback should always be the top priority.

We should always consider the feedback and take it in a positive way and work on it. Delivering product details on a frequent basis is the only way we can get honest feedback.

2. Principle of Agile Quality:

Primary outline of success is developing the software that exactly satisfies customer needs. Constant working on software and making it easy to use with unique features will help to get positive feedback from customers. Always strive towards challenging development that is sustainable. Over the entire software development life cycle, your crew should be capable of upholding the standards of your incremental as well as iterative methods (SDLC).

3. Principle of Agile Teamwork:

The Agile software developers and the stakeholders involved in the project should strongly collaborate, to effectively understand and incorporate the clients inputs. Always design functional software around driven individuals and provide them with the development approach they require, to complete the task at hand. The most effective way to collaborate on Agile DevOps is in-person, face-to-face, and communication.

4. Principles Of Agile Management:

Agile development relies heavily on simplification. Taking out any pointless phases and processes from the agile development method can be considered as simplification.

Never forget to periodically assess how well your team is doing. You can use this to optimise all next sprints and procedures.

Also Read: Agile Change Management

Advantages of Agile development:

1. Improved client satisfaction: The main benefit of Agile development is that it helps to actively incorporate clients in the software development process. By doing this, one can genuinely involve people as testers for software design and development rather than assuming what they want. Software testing will become more effective as a result of frequent client feedback.

2. Greater flexibility: As soon as this Agile process breaks down into small chunks, it becomes easier and accurate development software. Whenever you want to enter different customers' feedback, you don't always need to redo or edit the entire project, you only have to redo the software testing one time. Therefore, it makes the use of software really quick and easy.

3. Improved time and money management: The Agile has become flexible to use which helps the software developer to make fast decisions between time and budget restrictions. By developing such a kind of software; you will experience a faster and easier way to use it and also will have better cost savings.

4. Improved cooperation: In this kind of methodology of Agile development, team collaboration and team cooperation are the main steps of developing such software which will eventually facilitate better teamwork. Opinions from every personnel involved in this software development is considered which makes a strategically better team. Lastly, it would help to make better products which will fulfil the needs of the customer.

5. Higher motivation: As agile software development aims on larger projects to be done in smaller chunks, which makes work easier and teams can complete the designated tasks quickly to achieve that achievement which ultimately makes them focus more on working hard and smart in making software.

Also Read: Exploratory Testing in Agile Software Development

Management of different Agile teams:

The management of Agile teams should be done in the following ways:

Cooperation and Teamwork.
Size of Agile teams and their roles and responsibilities.
The Appropriate Toolset For different allotted teams.
Creating a solid product backlog.
Development Using Low-Code.

Popular Management Tools for Remote Agile Teams:

Nowadays, remote work is the most popular trend across the globe and this evolution entirely changed the software development teams with rapid recruitment of remote teams. Currently, many businesses are using remote project management methodology which distributes work for quick and easier development. There are many tools that are involved in making Agile teams:

1. Gitlab:

GitLab, a popular and widely used cloud-based DevOps, helps businesses improve their company processes and serves as a potent tool for agile project management.It enables distributed agile teams to deliver software quickly while reducing associated risks. Also, it boosts the productivity and efficiency of the developer at a lower cost.a number of important characteristics that aid agile teams in their work are comprehensively outlined.

Workflow control.
Portfolio administration.
Reporting and analytics capabilities.
Kanban panels.
Tools for remote collaboration.

2. Github:

This tool is one of the best and well-known technologies used for Agile development. It has traits like security, intermediated coding, and CI/CD. It includes following characteristics too:

Team Management
Codespaces
Project Management
Notifications

3. Jira:

Jira, a remote solution, enables you to customise your company's workflow through efficient team workflow. It enables them to provide high-quality software on schedule.This tool is most frequently used by different agile teams to organise, control and monitor every aspect of software development projects. It has following features:

certain fields.
Individualised Scrum Boards.
Individualised Kanban sheets.
Integration of tools Bug tracking.

4. G-Suite:

It enables the sharing of documents between distributed team members and facilitates easy and quick updates whenever necessary. This is among the equipment that is used the most when working remotely. Almost everyone who works with software, including programmers, authors, users, and designers, has used Google Docs, Sheets, presentations, and other tools at least once.

5. Asana:

This tool has various characteristics which makes the team organised:

Asana has a number of tools that can keep you and your team on schedule and organised, like:

One can find it very effective, distribute them to coworkers, and monitor their progress using the task management function. Also, you can give assignments due dates, include attachments, and get feedback.
A calendar view, Gantt chart view, and boards in the kanban style are just a few of the features that Asana provides to assist you in managing your projects.
Asana can be integrated with a number of different applications, like Dropbox, Slack, and Google Calendar, to assist with organising your productivity more effectively
Asana provides security features, such as SSL encryption as well as the choice to enable two-factor identification, to protect your data.

There are many ideas to make Remote Agile Teams Work better:

Equitable distribution of business tasks:

One must share the workload equally among remote teams in various regions while managing agile in distributed teams. The whole scope of the responsibilities allocated can vary based on the person's skill and expertise.

Investigate Code Quality:

Agile teams must assess the level of code quality produced by distributed employees. It might be challenging to evaluate both the status of the project and coding standards. The only thing that is harmed in this situation is the software's quality. They are unable to guarantee stability, which could prevent the other members of the team from working.

Think about hiring agile teams:

Agile transformation requires a talented, flexible team. To train agile teams and raise their morale, a lot of money and effort must be invested.One can manage all of this with the aid of outsourcing. It enables users to effectively manage company resources. A qualified and seasoned remote staff offers value to your company because they are highly knowledgeable in that field.

Routine project status updates:

One of the major difficulties distributed environments frequently provide to remote teams is a lack of knowledge of clearly defined goals. Remote collaborations never undervalue or disregard the transparency of the status of the project.

For good teamwork, you should engage in the best remote and communication systems:

In order to achieve a certain objective or serve a shared purpose, teams working in several locations must work together. While they worked in many zones, they fostered agile values and concepts. Effective collaborative interaction and communication are among the most important things when working remotely. Regular standups, conferences, and strategy meetings must be held to keep your team in touch and working together.

Conclusion:

Finding the viability of agile methodology in remote software development has been nowadays becoming increasingly popular due to the need to address issues regarding complexity in the software development and the importance placed on cooperation, teamwork, and interactions.

If you want a hassle free experience and want to reap all the benefits of Distributed Agile then StarAgile provides a course for SAFe training. Agility in distributed teams is necessary to ace in the business field. If you complete the SAFe training provided by us, you will not only get Safe Agile Certification but it will also develop your skills to the next level.

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