Agile product development and collaboration toolsPosted by Harikrishna Kundariya on March 9th, 2019 "At the heart of every product person, there's a desire to make someone's life easier or simpler. If we listen to the customer and give them what they need, they'll reciprocate with love and loyalty to your brand". – Francis Brown Product development is building a product and sold to clients. The ever-changing technology has made it necessary for new products as the core function of the software companies. Also with life cycle considerations of the products, there is an increase in need of new products. A new product opens the floodgates of a new market. Product development involves understanding the client's requirements and the technology constraint developing a product for it. It is making ideas with innovative ways of reality. The extensive range of products includes mobile and web apps, to enterprise software and even cloud as per the need of the client. The following adage of Thomas Schranz summarizes the importance of products. "Good companies manage Engineering. Great companies manage Products." Today's businesses need software products to understand its market, identify the opportunities and solve market problems. A product started from scratch to market is through the process of product development. The products should help organizations remain competitive and increase ROI. For startups and many organizations to make headway into their businesses is to ensure that their development process is professional and efficient as possible. The best way to accomplish this is to enable their product development teams to have access to advanced and proficient agile development tools. The saying by Brian Lawley could imply the importance of the right product. "Only move forward with creating a product that will be ABOVE THE BAR." Agile was developed to allow teams to work together and manage the continuous changing scope and deliverables of all products. It breaks down into different methodologies and processes to keep the iterative and free-flowing nature of the technique at their core. The following adage by Rowan Bunning implies it. "The agile movement in software is part of a larger movement towards more humane and dynamic workplaces in the 21st century". Agile stupendously suits for the continually changing digital and software world. It is widely used for its set of principles rather than a methodology like waterfalls. The policies include:
New Product Development: As the organizations grow and become highly specialized, there comes a time for customized software solutions. Out of the box, solutions are outdated for enhancing systems, technologies, and intuitive websites. To be competitive in this cut-throat business environment organizations need to develop new products with increased frequency. Only the right tools, technologies and expertise in implementing innovative solutions are the need of the hour. New product development just gives the right tools for such innovative solutions. It is a process from the conception of the product to market designed to exceed customer experiences. In this fast-moving world, there are many failed companies without proper products and others despite a robust marketing team. Only with product companies could reach their goals and become great companies. But many feel spending money on PR could sell software products among others. It is because of the cost and time consuming creating great products. Since the customers expect shorter product development lifecycle, proper risk management, quality & critical elements associated with the new products, this makes the new product development a tricky issue. Only by learning from failures and experimenting a wide range of solutions the right product could be developed. Difficulties of new product development: Meeting stringent requirements with shortened periods are the principal difficulties of developing new products among others. To adhere to the highest standards of code quality and program design are other significant concerns. It leaves with no time for innovation, limited flexibility, missed deadlines and loss of revenue. Factors favoring software product development: To overcome the difficulties for new product development, it is essential to learn from trial and error methods with years of experience. Being passionate about the object of the product design along with the usage of the latest and right tools and technologies will give better results.
Agile product development: "If you adopt only one active practice, let it be retrospective. Everything else will follow". Woody Zuill For more than a decade now development teams were in a dilemma to adapt to the agile development. Developers were over-burdened with fixed roles, and inflexible schedules and programmers pushed into tight boxes. They started to embrace agile due to its philosophy to encourage developers to be flexible and innovative in delivering what the user requires. Studies have confirmed that more than 25 % of developers are now using agile development. It helps them to unleash their intuitive and improvisation skills by way of collaborating with others. It enabled them with fewer misunderstandings, rework to build great products with timely deliveries and produce better results. Features of agile development:
Benefits of applying agile to benefit product development: "Alone we can do so little: together we can do so much." - Helen Keller By using agile a lot of benefits could be had with agile teamwork to bring dream work. The following are its benefits for better results of organizations in many ways.
Agile product development and tools: "We shape our tools, and afterward our tools shape us." – Marshall McLuhan Agile development's key to success is to enable flexibility with perfect organization maintenance. With all the technologies it is indeed a daunting task of bringing the designers and developers on the same page. It requires the right tools, collaboration software, and apps to join forces. Only the right tools will help in tracking projects and organizing the team's progress. It does not impose stringent measures, schedules but enables developers to self-manage to achieve their goals. There are many products to help development managers but those specifically built on agile model nurture much program freedom as possible. Agile model tools help the team to identify the requirements by splitting them into smaller tasks. It helps by tracking the programmers working collaboratively on the split parts. These short cycles alternate between planning sessions and gradually converge on the final result. It enables the team to adjust and focus by keeping the cycles short and feedbacks. The most common feature is the visual dashboard to portray the team's progress and goals. Some of its sophisticated tools integrated with code repositories and continuous integration. It automatically graphs the new code evolving, is it passing tests, online of features and many more. It enables the team to stay on track by tracking each other's progress.
Agile tools: Agile tools are those designed in any one of its methods like Scrum, Kanban, Scrumban or any other hybrid agile methods. The project management tools work in two ways within the budget to manage projects professionally. They work both internally and externally in the plan for its holistic management. In the process of running agile projects in agencies, the Scrum Master or the team lead role is the project management role. It facilitates the team by obtaining all the required resources and also protecting it from all kind of problems. The project management role eternally is managing the owner of the product or the client's interface along with the project. In the process, it ensures everyone is on the same page with their regards to requirements, prioritization, budgets, timeline and also reporting. Tools used in agile methodology: Agile tool methodology using tools varies in its uses depending on they are carrying out the agile-oriented approach. The devices include:
With drag and drop backlog cards it prioritizes and reprioritizes user stories and bugs
With cards displaying the tasks, assignees, and statuses in a sprint it enables to visualize all the user stories
By moving drag and drog cards across lanes epics, projects, and assignees can be formed
Custom workflows are created that could update issues automatically based on specific events
Backlog can be used to estimate stories and tasks and priorities could be set for sprints
Dashboards can be used to get snapshots of teams to progress to be prepared for Scrums and Standups.
The process could be managed by tracking the total work remaining in the sprint or epic..
By tracking the quantity of work completed in each sprint the team's velocity could be tracked along making accurate forecasts The critical elements of agile project management supplied by agile tools:
Kanban or Scrum boards manage with projects manages the task lists and all along with it like files, discussion to time records and expenses.
Enables team collaboration by communicating updates with local and distributed teams by sharing task lists, feedback, and assignments
Precise Time tracking & projections Enables easy understanding of progress reports for stockholders Gives quality assurance Identifies and remedies project obstacles by the progress of tools Evaluates performance Appraises financials
Integrates with plugins or an open API to extend the functionality Best Agile tools:
Collaboration Tools : "If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself." Henry Ford Team collaboration in recent years is on a steady rise, and there is more online collaboration tools introduced every year. Existing ones are upgrading their features as per the technological changes and customer needs. The sole purpose of it is to transform the ordinary staff to dream staff to fulfill the dreams and aspirations of their organizations. Collaboration tools help in the well-functioning of teams to cope with any difficult task and challenges. They give them enough strength as a team to overcome any difficulties with ease. There is a wide range of tools to choose from as per the specialty of their functions. Some tools have upgraded facilities to incorporate most of the latest technological features: Features of Collaboration tools:
Two dimensions of collaborative software in collaboration tools: Collaborative software or collaboration software is the technology to facilitate group work. It is used to communicate, coordinate, share, co-operate, negotiate, solve and even finalize projects and complete tasks.
Multiple users are doing tasks or working together at the same time is known ass real-time or synchronous collaboration software. When it is done at different times, it is known as asynchronous collaboration software.
Multiple users doing work together face to face in one place is called as Collocated or in multiple places or at a far of a distance is called non-collocated or distance. Issues that collaboration tools help in reducing them in daily life:
Functions of collaborative tools: "Effectively, change is almost impossible without industry-wide collaboration, co-operation and consensus." – Simon Mainwaring The main reason for software companies to have a bad reputation for late deliveries and budget exceeds are due to lack of collaboration. It is what is happening in many businesses which are affecting the sales, functioning and many more. It has an untenable under any circumstances in this competitive world. The following features could solve these issues:
Groups are collaboration spaces in any organization where projects are discussed and finalized. Mobile application development companies are using the following functions of collaboration tools could make these spaces smart: ü Post feedback ü Tag colleagues ü Take advantage of secure file sharing & unlimited storage ü Create multi-company groups with external partners, suppliers, and customers ü Real-time collaboration from anywhere: In this smartphone world, real-time collaboration is possible by way of touch with collaboration tools. App development companies take advantage of the following functions: ü Send texts, GIFs, and stickers ü Make phone calls ü Invite up to 50 people to a video conference
Global collaboration made easy with auto-translation is possible when the news feed finds a post in a different language. No work at all to translate it but to click okay for the translating function. The other common functions which best mobile app development companies use include: ü For more natural, more transparent, more productive with persuasiveness ü To enable communications from places and at times considered unimaginable. ü Allows telecommuting ü To reduce and mostly eliminating traveling costs. ü Enhances in one discussion a variety of perspectives and expertise ü To create like-minded and familiar interest groups to work together anywhere ü Massively cuts downtime and cost of group work ü Co-ordinates problem-solving in groups ü Anonymous interchanges or structures interactions and other new modes of communication enabled. Three types of collaboration software in collaboration tools: The collaboration tool types depend on their functions which include:
Allows the exchange of messages between team members and groups ü E-mail ü Voice mail ü Instant messaging ü VoIP or video calls
Allows real-time conversations among members ü Video conferencing ü IM teleconferencing ü Social media group chats ü Forums or community boards ü Shared whiteboards ü Application sharing
Facilitates group activities, schedules, and deliverables ü Calendars ü Time trackers ü Spreadsheets ü Client portals ü Alerts & status updates
Trello is a free web-based visual project management Kanban tool. It is practically made for agile development and serves as an ideal tool for agile teams through its sample boards. It uses a simple card-based format and also as templates for agile projects. Each card can be moved around the board as per the need of the list of tasks enlisted in them. Information from each card can be revealed on opening the cards and also users can upload files among others. It is considered as one the best agile tools because of its easy usability and its intuitiveness. Paid versions of Trello have power-ups to enable to bolt on additional functionality. Github, Salesforce, Slack, Timesheets, reporting, and analytics can be integrated for better results. The primary function of Trello is it is an anytime conference room. The ideas which no one knows when will come can be immediately shared. It can be used as a giant whiteboard to post sticky notes, and others to assign tasks. Also, a typical board allows arranging the order or workflow. Left and right movement of the individual cards which are made up the list can be done. All the team members can be allotted with cards to converse about issues involving: ü Tasks do list – New tasks are assigned in the placed cards ü Tasks doing list – The cards are about the currently working tasks ü Chores are done list – It is an archive of the completed task of every month
Asana is a web and mobile application tool to create a product roadmap of the project's milestones. It is also a task and project management tool to improve the way teams communicate and collaborate. By centralizing daily tasks, it helps different scrum teams organize projects. It also provides teams with a portal view the status of work or project. The main feature of Asana is it enables the design and development teams to track requests for each project. It also allows assigning people to work according to the set priority levels for all applications. The scrum team can facilitate with Asana in the following ways: ü After the software definition phase, it helps scrum teams to streamline handoff ü Creates crystal clear goals as per each scrum's capacity by building out aligning workflows ü It is also known as a teamwork tool without email due to its look and the way it acts as an email box. But it groups projects along with the ability to add likes, stars, and due dates in one place for essential items. It integrates well with third-party sites like Slack, Gmail and many reputed organizations like Uber to make it accessible. It can create custom themes and shortcuts. Conclusions:
Many software companies today find it difficult to meet deadlines and most importantly within the stipulated costs. It is because of technology and the requirement changes every day. Also, the critical and crucial factor is lack of design, development and operations collaboration. Agile developed products are the only solutions to the timely and effective delivery of software development. It is the reason top mobile app developers use the full range of agile product development and collaboration tools for their success and that of the companies and customers alike.
Fast ship code with agile collaboration tools: Top mobile app developers across the world are now more into agile collaboration tools for fast ship code. The communication, conference and co-ordination facilities of the collaboration tools enable mobile app developers to do it fast and with the highest level of quality and efficiency. Right agile tools organize discussion and planning of software development with all the members of the team for collective knowledge. This enables fast ship or deploying code in time and cost useful to improve creditability and increase revenue. Future of agile development tools: The tools and technologies developed today with agile development are only drops of the ocean as per many studies. Mobile app developers for their app development are for more surprise which could enable them to focus more on each of the features, tasks or bugs in separate threads. Top mobile developers can now split discussions up helps the project to move forward at the appropriate rate for successful deployment. Like it? Share it! |