As Agile consultants we are sometimes asked for advice how to approach starting something new. How should you go about it?
There is a numbered step approach:
- Confirm that you have a meaningful effort to work on.
- Gather a team.
- Assure that the team is on the same page, and agree on a definition of Done.
- Prepare a Product Backlog of user stories (and other work).
- Work on Iteration Zero.
- Start Daily Scrums (standups).
- Do Sprint Planning.
- Do daily Sprint work and Daily Scrums.
- Do Sprint Review.
- Do Retrospective.
- Repeat steps 7-10 until effort is finished.
The above assumes the team is going to go down a road involving the Scrum framework.
More broadly at the start you could consider:
- ask “why are we here?” What’s the purpose of the project?
- create an elevator pitch
- design a product box
- create a NOT list
- meet their neighbours (project community)
- show the solution
- ask what keeps them up at night? (What are the biggest risks?)
- size it up (how long do we think this project will last?)
- be clear on what’s going to give when time and/or money has run out?