Do I have the skills to work on an agile project?
It’s no secret to anyone that Agile Methodologies have taken almost the entire industry by storm and are applied to many kinds of digital projects. Facing this work process demands new skills and presents us with many questions, especially for those who are starting in this world. Do I have the skills to work on an agile project?
So… what is Agile?
The Agile Methodologies allow us to create frameworks aiming to optimize the product delivery process. They are oriented to give value to what the customer receives starting at the earlier project stages, and with continuous increments.
Was that clear enough? Well… Maybe it will be clearer if I talk about what it takes to achieve it. Agile methodologies have their epicenter in the famous Agile Manifesto, which is based on 4 pillars:
- Individuals and their interactions over processes and tools.
- Working product over comprehensive documentation.
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
- Responding to change over following a plan.
From these pillars the 12 agile principles are born. As a result, they bring us to the 6 interdependence values of the Agile Manifesto and the incremental and iterative model of development.
- We increase the return on investment by focusing on continuous value delivery.
- We give reliable results working alongside the client with constant communication and sharing responsibilities.
- Uncertainty is always present. We address this through iterations, anticipation, and adaptation.
- We encourage creativity and innovation by allowing all team members to participate.
- We increase team performance through continuous delivery to increase value.
- We improve efficiency and reliability through strategies oriented to specific situations, processes, and practices.
Understanding all this we can say: when a project has a high level of uncertainty, there is no clarity regarding the requirements (but the goal is clear), and if we add a constant reprioritization of the roadmap; then this project has a high probability of obtaining better results managing its processes using Agile Methodologies. Bearing in mind that the strategy to follow is to anticipate and adapt, it is possible to arrive at fully functional deliverables constantly, validated both by the client and the customer in each iteration.
This sounds great but… what are those new skills that I should have?
I don’t intend to give more importance than necessary to the following information, but I want you to take into account how relevant the mastery of these new skills is. Today’s industry looks for people with specific characteristics, and it is no coincidence that they are almost the same as those required by Agile Methodologies.
Hard skills
These skills are completely linked to the technical aspect and are required to work in a specific scope. You can achieve them through academic training, courses and constant practice.
At this point I’d like to talk about a great concept that is in high demand today: T-Shape. I’m not talking about body shape or anything like that, but rather an allegory of the characteristics that a professional should have to face a project.
Its definition states: A professional must have ample knowledge in many areas related to the project that can be used depending on the situation, but must also have deep knowledge in their area of expertise.
Projects based on agile methodologies require a highly trained team to face any problem or challenge and provide a high-quality solution. Although this paradigm can be applied to many disciplines, I want to give a simple example taking as a reference a Web project. Regarding a web UI developer, we could say that this professional should have the following skills.
Soft skills
These are the attributes or qualities of people that allow us to coexist and interact with others. There is a direct relationship between social skills and emotional intelligence. These are very difficult to quantify or measure since they are linked to the personality and the historical referential framework.
If we take the pillars and principles of the agile manifesto as a reference, those skills are the following:
- Negotiation: You will face endless situations in which you must be able to defend your point of view, always taking into account the people with whom you talk, the quality of your argument and the other options, also the way of you are communicating and context. Don’t forget that the objective of this negotiation is to give more value to the product
- Compromise and responsibility: Remember that these Agile Methodologies are oriented to projects with a high level of change and uncertainty. Because of this, you may encounter difficult periods. This doesn’t mean that you should reduce the quality of your work.
- Collaboration: Social skills come into play here. They are very difficult projects and you may not be able to solve everything by yourself. That is why working as a team is imperative and will demand trust and commitment from you. It is very important to think of others, and if someone else is caught up in something important, you must support and help to achieve their goal. “The success of one is the triumph of all”.
- Self-motivation and proactivity: Scenarios of great frustration will be presented, where you will feel that everything is uphill. It is at that moment when the member of an agile team must reach out as to not give up and start looking for alternative paths that facilitate finding a solution.
- Self-organized and independent: all members of the team must be able to organize among themselves, forming agreements that allow a better workflow to achieve high-quality deliveries. This doesn’t mean that each one, assumed the commitment, isn’t sufficiently capable of facing a task under their responsibility according to the skills required for their position.
- Intuitive and goal-oriented: I remind you that all of this is oriented to high uncertainty and unexpected changes. It is necessary not to lose focus by understanding the business and product, looking for opportunities for continuous improvement.
Now, everything get a little complicated if we have to add all these soft skills to the already big T-Shape. All this aims to have each member of the team be able to communicate in a common language that facilitates decision-making and agreements for the benefit of the product.
And if you still don’t realize the importance of what I’m saying, check out what the World Economic Forum published in 2016 predicting the skills that will be needed for 2020. See also what LinkedIn published of the most skills demanded for 2019.
Ok… so, How can I get them?
In the technical aspect, or Hard Skills, this will depend on your area of expertise. You can use job portals like GetOnBoard (Chile) to know what the companies are looking for and start from there. If you are a developer I can advise you keep updated about the today’s technologies and to visit pages like insights stackoverflow to be informed. Also, there are endless certifications and courses to validate your knowledge and enrich your CV.
Regarding Soft Skills, the path is a little more complicated. They are difficult to develop and it takes time and will to strengthen them. However, if you are joining an agile team soon, you will find people in roles like Scrum Master or Agile Coach that are responsible for encouraging agility and help each member be better.
There are many frameworks to perform in Agile mode: Scrum, Kanban, XP, Design Sprint, Lean, among others. And although the project management trend is for digital projects, like Web, Apps, etc., I’m pretty sure with a little tweaking this can work for almost any discipline or area. Without going any further, agility, as a methodology, is born from the analysis of the successful product development process in industries in Japan and the USA in the 80s. (Without web and apps)
Finally
I firmly believe that working under these patterns in project management makes it possible to obtain better products of both quality and user experience. But I am also convinced that this allows people to empower themselves in their professional area by developing commitment. I also believe that by strengthening soft skills we become more empathetic with better ways of communicating with others, but without losing our essence. That is why people who work in agile groups create very strong relationships, where work doesn’t feel like work, and you end up protecting it and trying to improve it.
… so, after all this. do you have what it takes? ;)
You can visit my website for more information https://gonzaloarenasf.cl
