Agile Reporting

[CyndiLe]

Hi Everyone. Our company is just starting to get into Agile. We currently have two pilot groups set up. I was hoping someone could give me some Best Practices to make it work well with Workfront (some of the teams are frustrated). Have you set up custom forms and templates? Do you use a request queue to add to the backlog? What types of reports are available for measuring metrics, hours, etc. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Cynthia Lee American Equity

[VicAl]

Hi Cynthia, There's a lot there to discuss. My first recommendation would be to require everyone to take the Agile course (or more) in Workfront's training (if you haven't already). Workfront has great Instructor-led web courses. This may help confusion and frustration. Then I would walk the floor to answer people's questions (we did this with our implementation and it was a great success because people won't always speak up until you flat out ask them and sit with them). I think these two things alone would help greatly. Regarding the request queues, forms, templates, reports, etc. Yes we use them all, but it's tough to give you anything canned without knowing more about your processes, etc. But I don't think you need them right away. I would master the Agile functionality first and get them comfortable. Then you can add complexity to solve metrics and other things. If they're confused now, complexity will only add fuel to that frustration �� . Regarding whether we use request queues to add to the Backlogs, we do for some things (i.e. Helpdesks which come in through a request queue may be assigned to an Agile Team). But you shouldn't need that right away. You can create a Task or Story right in your Iteration or Backlog screen itself (that's typically how we create them) (of even in My Work). I'd recommend that to start. And again you can start adding complexity as you all get more comfortable. Hope that helps. Best of Luck.

[CyndiLe]

Vic, thanks for the tips. We have all gone through the training in Workfront, now it is how do we transistion from a project based world to stories on the backlog. Cynthia Lee American Equity

[VicAl]

Oh boy. That's a whole giant can of worms and a complete methodology change (and completely different set of training �� ). Has everyone taken Scrum classes? Do you have CSM's, etc.? It's too detailed and robust to go into here, but in a short sentence I typically describe Scrum as "dicing up a project into 2-4 week increments." Essentially if you take a project that is 100 tasks long, you're moving those tasks to a backlog and ranking them in priority (and perhaps dependency) order. More importantly you're having the Business rank them with you so they decide which functionality they want to see first. Then you select the number of tasks you can complete in an iteration (you decide whether an Iteration is 2, 3, or 4 weeks). And move those highest ranked tasks into the Iteration and try to complete them in the pre-determined time box. Whatever, doesn't get completed moves to the next Iteration. Rinse and repeat. Typically you do Scrum instead of projects. You just work on small feature changes at a time and the cycle never ends. Projects have a defined end. Scrum does not. And an Agile Project is a whole different animal �� . Obviously this is just scratching the surface. There are entire libraries of books and conferences for this type of thing (see "http://www.scrumalliance.org"> www.scrumalliance.org for events and classes etc.). Are there any finite questions we can help with?

[CyndiLe]

Thanks again, Vic. We have a team on site now showing us the ropes of scrum, I am just trying to figure out from an admin perspective what all we need to do. Cynthia Lee American Equity

[VicAl]

Ah, ok that's great then. Sorry if I'm telling you what you already know. Always tough to tell when talking to strangers via email �� . The good news is from an Admin perspective for Agile it should be pretty easy. If you go through the Team Settings of each team and walk through them to set them to whatever you desire, that should be pretty much it (besides their questions that come up). Stuff like which columns you want to show on the Story Board, how many hours you want the Story Points to represent (or just use hours), what you want to happen when a Task or Issue is marked Done. I do recommend trying to set all the teams to the same settings if possible. Consistency helps everyone. However, I know that's not always feasible. So whatever works for you. Let us know if there are any specific questions you have about those settings. Or if I can tell you anything else you already know �� .