6 Practical Agile Techniques You Can Start Using Today

The article presents six practical Agile techniques that can be applied right away in day-to-day work. Its focus is on changes that do not require large investments but can improve process, speed, and quality in development teams.

Reading notes

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• Deliver software more frequently so requirements, development, and testing happen in smaller chunks, with less waste and less risk around long development cycles.
• Hold requirements workshops with testers, developers, and clients so requirements become more testable, better grouped, and easier to prioritize.
• Write requirements as user stories, using the WWW pattern to keep attention on the user’s need, the goal, and the reason for it.
• Keep requirements clear and concise, and avoid spending too much time detailing future requirements too early.
• Communicate more and document less, using short daily stand-ups, planning meetings, and retrospectives to surface progress and problems.
• Use proximity and flexible roles to improve communication, so customers, users, testers, and developers work more closely together.
• Use sketches, mock-ups, wireframes, and prototypes to clarify interface requirements and to support usability tests.
• Think about testing early by writing test cases in parallel with requirements and by keeping testing strategy details that do not change from iteration to iteration.
• Short iterations can be complemented with a testing-focused iteration for system testing, integration, regression, or performance.
• Start with small steps such as user stories, usability work, shorter meetings, or a testing and requirements tool in one project first.