Agile

arrow_back Kaspersky Lab debuts advanced cyber security platform T he adoption and implementation of Agile within an organisation will probably require a Waterfall approach in order to be successful. That comment, from the floor during the first Johannesburg PMO Forum event of the year held in Bryanston last week, elicited appreciative laughter and agreement from the dozens of PMO executives and leaders, as well as from the main speaker, Dimension Data 's Group PMO, Dr Shaun Kirchmann. The PMO Forum is an interest group that falls under the umbrella of Project Management South Africa (PMSA) and provides an opportunity for PMO executives to network with peers across industries, and share knowledge and experience. Kirchmann had just completed a presentation on the global IT company's Agile transformation journey which, he acknowledged, had not been easy, but was starting to deliver tangible value to the organisat

If you see one or more of these warning signs during your interview, maybe this isn’t the workplace for you. [Photo: gemenacom/iStock] By Gwen Moran 4 minute Read The average job hunt takes the better part of three months , according to job search platform TalentWorks. That’s a long time to have your mind focused on how to land the interview, prepare, and make the best impression to get hired. So, it’s no wonder that, once there, many job seekers overlook red flags that they may not be courting the greatest place to work. “It is important for people to slow down and realize that it’s a two-way interview, because the job is only going to be a great experience for them if it’s a good fit,” says Carisa Miklusak, CEO of recruitment automation platform Tilr , based in Cincinnati. And there are often a number of clues about the job, company culture, and leadership if you just know what to look for, she says. Here are six red flags to watch out for.

   When implemented correctly, Agile leads to better products and services for our customers, delivered to market faster by motivated teams What’s worse than waterfall? Bad Agile! Here are some common mistakes I’ve seen organisations make when they first implement Scrum (a framework for implementing Agile). 1. Forgetting about people If we catch ourselves talking about ‘20% of that remote FTE ’ , we may already be making this mistake. Having 20-30% of 12 FTEs is not the same as having five people dedicated 50%-100%. People have busy day jobs and multitasking and context loss kill productivity and motivation. In the original manifesto, the team is critical. In a truly Agile team, the team is dedicated, empowered, self-organised and thus motivated. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done. 2. Literally ‘sprinting’ I’ve met teams that think Agile is unsustainable becau

Expanding a successful department-level agile initiative across an enterprise requires an agile project approach of its own. Agile delivery has hit a tipping point, with the majority of IT organizations finding some level of agile success. For these organizations, the next logical step is to scale this success into an "enterprise adoption", taking the value they are getting from a single team and replicating it. This is often where it all starts to go wrong. Enterprise agile adoption is a large endeavor requiring changes to many processes and systems and adoption of new tools. Because of its size and visibility, it becomes a "strategic initiative" with large amounts of funding, plans, and oversight. Ironically, for the majority of these programs, it is done following a waterfall process with phase gates and deliverables. Activities like "Roll out JIRA" and "Train everyone on agile fundamentals" become the focus, with the ag

Agile project management and waterfall can coexist and project managers can find value in learning to manage both. By  Bill Siwicki January 31, 2018 10:15 AM Spencer Reeser-Stout is a senior IT project manager at the University of Utah Health will be speaking at HIMSS18 in Las Vegas. The development process known as agile has been around IT for more than a decade. While most standard agile frameworks seem to omit the project manager role and the structure provided by traditional waterfall project management processes, the University of Utah health information technology services has embedded successful agile processes within its existing traditional waterfall framework. Using elements of the agile framework called scrum, HIT services has expanded its portfolio and project management capabilities in its clinical and infrastructure IT delivery through the use of traditional, agile and hybrid project management. Highly matrixed healthcare o

By  Mike Kail  2 days ago Features   Companies often attempt to rapidly inject change by rigidly forcing a transition to an agile development methodology.       The fast and disruptive nature of today’s business cycles means that IT and security leaders must incorporate agile processes in order to remain competitive and close the widening gap between development velocity and current security approaches. However, the reality is that many organisations still haven't (fully) adopted Agile methodology, and many are still only partially there with what is sometimes coined as ‘Wagile' (Waterfall-Agile). Transitioning to agile means to first outline a core set of principles for development and fostering a cross-functional collaborative environment by removing hard boundaries of teams. This initial activity sets the stage for both continued digital transformation, and more importantly, cultural evolution and adoption of  DevSecOps . Technology has permeated litera