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Agile

Agile
  • Agile

For Babel, the use of Agile Methodologies in the project goes beyond a methodological environment. We promote the framework of agile methodologies in order to facilitate and apply the collaboration and communication model with our customers for the creation of the different dashboards, with the assignment of the following roles and functions, which will enable effective and agile dialogue, and be the basis and first point of control for the resolution of tasks. 

Adapting the Agile working model to the features of the type of developments we carry out at Babel enables us to:

  • Use partial deliverables in order to implement smaller, measurable milestones.
  • Mark requests as singular to avoid penalties in case of uncertainty about the completion of the work.
  • Speed up unit testing times by focusing on functional testing, and in general use test automation and all the advantages offered by continuous integration in order to guarantee response times and quality
  • Adjust the requirement dates so that they are coherent, attending first to the urgent and then moving down the level of urgency. 

Some of the benefits of using these agile methodologies are:

  • Intermittent and iterative service delivery, improving resource optimisation and optimising monitoring and control. The development of the final dashboards is the result of several partial activities that have been independently and regularly monitored.
  • Performing "peer review" of such deliverables, i.e., have them reviewed by several people functionally related to the task, checking that they are correct in both code and form.
  • Optimising risk management. As there are partial deliveries, it is easier to detect deviation and also whether the delivered software meets the needs that were initially set or whether an improvement is needed.
  • By engaging with the customer in this lifecycle, the customer has, through early and continuous delivery, quick access to those functionalities that really add value and may be able to detect changes in some of these functionalities earlier.
  • Proper management of the service's resources, assigning the necessary people to ensure that the work can be completed on time and with the required quality.
  • Advancing in the use of techniques from agile methodologies, which will help to carry out a more exhaustive monitoring of this type of service, such as controlling the progress of the work based on the delivery of complete jobs. We can consider a completed or finished job as one that completes its DOD (Definition Of Done). 

With each sprint review that we carry out at Babel, regardless of the scrum lifecycle (with a closed scope) or KANBAN (with a succession of resolved user stories), a review of the delivered work will be carried out. 

Events

Before going into the details of the events, the Agile principles, which are common to the different methodologies and which serve to define how the service will work, are set out first: 

  • Vision and Product Roadmap: communicate the vision and roadmap of the dashboards to be developed, project or product at all levels. Sharing and explaining the strategy, objectives and work to be done is crucial for ensuring that all teams involved are working towards the same vision.
  • Multidisciplinary teams: working in highly qualified teams in different fields that work together to deliver a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), share standards and ways of working. Forming such work cells minimises delays and speeds up launch time by limiting the dependencies between work teams that often exist in more traditional ways of working.
  • Kanban Portfolio: manage epics, which are high-level requirements, in order to get a broad view of the work. By aligning objectives and addressing impediments and dependencies, it is possible to avoid activity congestion and to visualise the status of work in progress and pending work.
  • Continuous improvement: problem solving from a pragmatic approach to solutions and improvement actions in the framework. Periodic reflection on the work process is vital.

Regarding the operational model of agile development and delivery of the different scorecards and deliverables, "Top-Down" and "Bottom-Up" strategies are combined in the organisation and management of tasks in order to deliver value in each sprint. The solution to be implemented is designed and defined through a top-down exercise, by extracting an initiative from the dashboard to be developed with our customers, until it is broken down into a set of user stories, which become team tasks.

On the other hand, the capabilities required to enable the implementation of Babel services and solutions are identified in an exercise carried out by the highly qualified team through “Bottom-Up” planning, with the solution architecture down to the necessary components and interfaces.

Babel's multi-disciplinary teams will provide agile delivery expertise, applying at all times in their daily activities the set of values, principles and practices that will promote an iterative service with constant value increments, frequent inspection and transparent adjustment on each of these increments.

These teams will be committed to each service and solution to enforce Scrum practices in order to promote a culture of continuous improvement and rapid delivery within the teams, so that the profiles working on our projects and services are involved, with their respective roles, in the daily work and/or ceremonies.