The 4 trademarks of agile businesses
Running a business that incorporates the principles of agile processes, including physical product development and software testing, is useful in a growing competitive marketplace.
Companies must be innovative and change up how they’re doing things to get an advantage. Otherwise, they risk being left behind, or being seen as ‘out of touch’ with modern business requirements. For the future growth of the company, this won’t bode well at all.
Here are the four trademarks of businesses that adopt some or all of the recommended agile approaches to project management.
Working towards a shared vision
Companies that embrace agile practices don’t work as a collection of separate departments that tend to defend their position as a fiefdom. Instead, employees understand that they must work as a cooperative whole to get the best results for the company.
A clear vision of the organisation and what it’s trying to achieve through its products is vital. This is different to the Mission Statement that so many companies have probably produced, printed, and framed, only to be promptly ignored. Instead, it’s a core principle of the business where key decisions are validated through the perspective of whether it fits into the shared vision.
The shared vision can act to energise the staff. It gives them something larger beyond their role within the company to aim towards. When every step speaks to that vision and hopefully moves the company closer to achieving it, then an employee can be extremely satisfied. However, it must be sincere and from the top down to be believed as a core vision of the company.
Iterative, rapid approach to development
Part of the reason why businesses should use agile in software development is that it creates a quick burst in the form of a sprint where considerable work is completed based on a development plan.
Companies that adopt agile processes avoid packing in too many updates and feature additions to a single sprint. They also don’t add extras in at the last minute which will extend the sprint and prevent it from being as successful. Instead, they tightly control how long they run for and what is included to get strong results from each one.
After each sprint, it’s important to consider what was achieved, add anything that was skipped to a future sprint (so it’s not forgotten), and then assess the results. This includes initial QA testing to confirm whether the fixes resolved any product issues properly or indeed if they have introduced new ones and/or didn’t solve the initial problem either.
The rapid-fire approach through a series of sprints is the very essence of agile project management. It works for businesses overall and is widely used in software development too. For instance, rather than getting bogged down in long software releases that only happen every few years, companies that switched to rapid version development, testing, and release have seen a positive response from new users and long-term customers alike.
Setting a high bar on quality
Aiming for as close to excellence as is reasonably achievable is something that separates mere participants from winners. To achieve that, it’s very necessary to include agile testing into the mix.
Rather than looking at product testing as a single occurrence that only happens before its initial release, the iterative approach to regular improvements to design and production quality (or bug fixes, updates, and new features in the case of software or apps) is remarkably similar.
A high bar is necessary to set the standard and lead in an industry – or to attain that position in due time – based on a quality standard that must reach and extended over time.
For physical products, this means starting with an initial design that reaches production, paying attention to live feedback from customers leaving positive (and negative) reviews, and then going about improving the product. Usually, these design changes are iterative – like fixing a latch that keeps sticking for people or reshaping a product to make it more ergonomic based on customer feedback.
For software, similar agile iterative approaches are used too. This includes software sprints to perform bug fixes and make security updates. Also, other sprints may add new features based on feedback from real users. Within this approach, the software must be QA tested to find the software bugs to eradicate them in the next agile sprint. Using a QA solutions like Global App Testing to do so can speed up the process considerably. Global App Testing have dedicated, experienced teams with this specific focus which drives results and helps to improve the overall software product quality.
People-based company
With agile-based companies, the employees are at the core of its success. When the CEO speaks of everyone working as a team, they’re not merely paying lip service to this idea that’s often cited in annual reports.
Instead, agile relies on a dynamic collection of people who are willing to work in different aspects of product development to help the business work through iterative cycles. The shared aim is to improve products (and occasionally services too!) by continually and rapidly making them better. As much as repeated cycles of improvement and gains should form part of the DNA of an agile business, it all falls apart when the people aren’t equally driven to succeed in a truly team-based effort.
Agile businesses aren’t just those that work in the software industry. There’s a way to use these flexible trademarks for how agile business can operate well for other product-based companies and even service-based companies. Plenty of businesses may start offering products but later move to a subscription or service-oriented business model. Therefore, these different ideologies and processes that come from adopting agile business methods have broad application.
Lastly, it’s also worth reminding business owners that while the agile framework lends itself to repeated cycles of improvements, this won’t work when QA testing is either disregarded or given lesser importance than it should have received. Remember, good reputations are easy to lose.
