Initial Workshop

With Scrum projects, it is often assumed that the team(s) can start developing from the first day of the project. However, all projects need a kick-off/initiation phase. In our experience, the requirements in the Product Backlog will not have been detailed into User Stories, nor the team fully formed for when the green light for a project is given.

As such, we will initiate a kick-off/initiation phase, or a ‘Sprint 0.’ During Sprint 0, the project fundamentals need to be set up including defined elements such as access, environments, communications, tooling, reporting, and more. Crucially, the necessary deliverables must be agreed upon to get started.

The initial workshop is facilitated by the service leadership from our clients in conjunction with our offshore development partner SmartDev. The core aim is to agree and capture the majority of the high-level requirements for the Product Backlog.

For large projects or where there is not a clear view of what is needed, the initial workshop will also look to confirm the approach and governance measures to establish the requirements breakdown and planning will be tailored accordingly (aim to complete within 2 weeks). The Product Backlog will also be prioritised to prevent/minimise any development disruption.

The high-level outputs to be established during Sprint 0 are:

  • Create the Team (size, types, location etc.)
  • Develop a Common Vision (level of details, agreement, formality)
  • Review & adopt any standard Enterprise guidelines, templates
  • Establish governance, quality assurance structures
  • Explore Initial Scope (types of modelling, modelling strategy, non-functional requirements, work items strategy)
  • Identify the Initial Architectural/Technical Strategy (level of detail, types, modelling strategy)
  • Develop Initial Release Plan
  • Form Work Environment (physical and/or virtual, toolsets)
  • Identify Risks
  • Identify areas of development risk for early development
  • Establish mechanisms to support Knowledge Transfer
  • Outline roles and communication.

Requirement collection and recommendations

Requirements set project goals and guide developers through coding and testing. Getting the requirements well understood and complete is critical to a project’s success. Wrong or incomplete requirements can create project delays, cost overruns, and poor user acceptance or adoption — even project failure. We want to avoid that, as we’re sure you do too. Fortunately, this is an aspect we’re well-versed in, so we’ll make sure this process is entirely clear and transparent.

Our approach looks to capture as many details as possible from inception so that there is less rework, as well as more preparedness and clarity. The information that is collected during the requirements phase becomes a critical framework to build the requirement-gathering document. Given Agile approaches, regardless of methodology, will never capture all the required details that become clearer in the development phase. Consequently, the requirement-gathering document is a living document updated and reviewed within each and every sprint.

We adhere to the following well established and recognisable 4-component approach to capture and break down the requirements into solution ready scopes of work:

  1. Developing a vision for the high-level details — The objective of developing a vision is to identify the main theme, a high-level vision and scope, the target users, the main goals, and to create a high-level backlog. We conduct a Stakeholder interviews workshop, role playing along with out-of-the-box methods like Vision Statement in a product box, user roles (personas), use case modelling, process diagrams and UI flow and context diagrams to support the information capture at this stage.
  2. Requirements are broken into disparate buckets of work — This stage focuses on breadth rather than depth defining the major items of development (Epics). We look to conduct requirement brainstorming techniques through story writing workshops, post-it note brainstorming and other techniques to get the big picture.
  3. Breakdown of features into user story — Requirement breakdown divides existing epics into smaller user stories. We break down the requirements using techniques such as CRUD, acceptance test slicing and process steps. Dependencies between each of the Epics and Stories are outlined. Epics and Stories are slotted into blocks of development time, called Sprints, for development.
  4. Defining detailed requirements — User Stories are further split into individual tasks along with acceptance tests and UI prototypes. We adopt techniques such as acceptance tests, test scenarios, UI prototyping, wireframing, example tables, and activity diagrams. The tasks are then prioritised depending on the business demand.

Full development process

From Sprint 0 to the Final Sprint

Our projects work in Sprints, components of work dedicated to particular tasks or series of tasks. Sprint 0, for example, results in a comprehensive project plan. After Sprint 0, we will deliver:

  • A functional piece of code, however small
  • A feature prioritisation plan or a list of project stories
  • A release plan, which assigns each story to a Sprint

At the end of each Sprint, we’ll show you what we’ve accomplished by showing you the partially complete version of your project. Sprints are coordinated by daily Scrums, with the Scrum Leader being the main point of contact for all communication outside the scrum team. They keep stakeholders, project owners, and team members all on the same page and help maintain documentation. We’re all about accountability and transparency, and you deserve to know just what’s happening through effective and relevant communication.

Publication

After passing the User Acceptance Test (UAT), the product will be available to end users and will be deployed in a production environment. In other words, it’s done and ready to go.

Maintenance and Improvements

We stand by our work and our clients, offering post-release support and enhancement services to maintain or improve any product or product features as necessary. This helps our clients navigate any unanticipated challenges when the product hits the market and afterwards. The duration, format and team allocation are dependent on the release strategy and will be established and evaluated constantly throughout the engagement.