Team Coaching
Your team would like to adopt agile methodologies or you want to create an agile team from scratch? Agile promises the fast delivery of value to stakeholders and customers. “But how do we get off the ground quickly?” you’re asking yourself. Countless tasks await the team, the organisation expects a number of information and the team has to deliver results fast – where to start? We use a structured approch, based on the 4-Ps of product development: product, people, processes and place. Facilitated by one of our experienced coaches, the team finds answers to key issues based on good practices. The results are easy to communicate and can be refined iteratively. This typically includes:
- Team building
- Team enabling (methodology knowledge, e.g. Scrum oder Kanban)
- Team processes (events, planning, DoD, DoR,…)
- Stakeholder involvement and management
- Vision, roadmap and Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
- Backlog Management and agile requirements engineering
- Agile testing
Your team has already adopted Agile? But you’re asking yourself, why the expected results don’t materialise or why team collaboration isn’t working out as planned? Our coach helps to detect the pain points and develops solutions together with the team.
Contact us to find an approach that fits your needs.
Our services include:
- Training team members and stakeholders
- Implementing Scrum
- Implementing Kanban
- Coaching of teams in the use of agile methodologies
- Facilitation of retrospectives and other ceremonies
- Interim Scrum Master
- Agile requirements engineering
- Agile testing and DevOps
Implementing Scrum
Despite the fact that the Agile Manifesto has been written in 2001, the breakthrough of “Agile software development” was caused by a skyrocketing adoption of Scrum. According to the SwissQ Trends and Benchmark Survey a majority of projects use agile methodologies, the most common being Scrum. Scrum’s success is largely based on its simplicity. However, a fact that is often overlooked is that Scrum in its original form only describes the process of how one team develops one product within their boundaries of direct responsibility. It is ignored that the real world is far more complex. Multiple teams are working for different projects to develop various products that have to be interlinked by interfaces. Scrum does not provide any solution on how to handle these complexities and replace legacy systems, which have often been developed with a Waterfall methodology.
As a result many companies cannot leverage the advantages of Scrum and therefore reduce adoption of this agile methodology to planning sprints and stand-ups. The challenge is to benefit from Scrum while integrating and optimizing the requirements engineering, release management and test management processes of the organization.
Our services include:
- Feasibility assessment of Scrum for your organization
- Process analysis and measures for improvement
- Methodology evaluation and tailoring support
- Setup of agile requirements, release or test management processes
- Support for adoption and agile transformation: Definition, Coaching, Training
- Training: Agile Essentials (1 day) to convey fundamental Agile Know-How
- Training: Scrum Kickstarter (1/2 day) introducing Scrum principles and practices, including a Scrum simulation
- Rent an agile professional: Product Owner, Scrum Master, Business Analyst, Embedded Tester
- Implementation/Transfornation support for your organization
Implementing Kanban
With the wide-spread adoption of agility, Kanban is increasingly applied to IT and business processes. Often Kanban is wrongly seen as just a board to visualise the process. Elements that are decisive for Kanban, such as the Work in Progress (WIP) limit and the pull principle, are often not used. The WIP limit is used to limit the amount of work started. This should ensure that the focus is on the important work and that this is finalised quickly.
Although the system sounds simple, the implementation is complex. In order to keep the workflow as efficient as possible, it is necessary to manage the backlog properly, size the work correctly, to set the WIP limits appropriately, to shorten queues and increase throughput, etc. The challenge lies not only in analyzing the process and setting up the Kanban system, but also to constantly fine-tune and improve the system.
Our services include:
- Assessment of your organisation for to the suitability of Kanban
- Process analysis including improvement measures
- Support in selecting the appropriate method set (tailoring)
- Setup of agile requirements, release and test management
- Assisting with the introduction: definition, coaching, training
- Facilitation of retrospectives and planning sessions
- Establishment support within your company>
Interim Scrum Master
We often and intensively introduce and apply Scrum, as well as “Good Scrum Practices”. We enable teams and organisations of different shapes and sizes, from the start as well as after several years on their agile journey.
Agile Scrum teams are self-organised and interdisciplinary (Scrum Guide) to (further) develop a product. These are just two of the reasons why agile teams are often more successful than other (traditional) teams. How does an organisational or project team become an agile, self-organising Scrum team? That’s what you need the Scrum Master for. By coaching and accompanying the Scrum Master transforms the team and its environment, based on basic agile mindset and ideas. Important and aiding decisive factors are experience and understanding and living to and exemplifying the agile principles: commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect.
You want to “immediately start using Scrum”, you’re just missing the Scrum Master? We offer you a Scrum Master – 100% or only 50% – so your team can become agile.
You want to continuously improve your team, but you are missing a experienced Scrum Master? We offer you an experienced Scrum Master – 100% or only 50% . so your team can stay agile and continue their agile journey.
Even teams running with Scrum for a longer time can still benefit of having a Scrum Master by reminding them of the Scrum values, who understands the importance of continuous improvement of the Scrum team and knows iterative product development.
Our expertise includes:
- Introduction and improvement of Scrum in your team
- Teaching the agile values and principles of Scrum
- Coaching your team adopting the Scrum practices and artifacts
- Facilitating scrum events
- Facilitating Retrospectives to continuously improve the team
- Removing impediments preventing successful adoption of Scrum
- Bringing in requirements engineering and testing know-how, in combining our three focus areas: Agile, Requirements, Testing – the ART of SwissQ
