What Is an Agile Team

Agile methodology is a very popular software development and project management approach. It was invented in 2001, and since then, this framework didn’t stop growing. Due to how much value an agile team adds to produce a specific work, it’s picked by a wide variety of enterprises as their first-choice framework.

In short, Agile is an iterative approach to software development and project management. An agile team works setting all their strength to make things happen with the best quality, in the least amount of time possible. This way, Agile lets the team keep up with the demand and changes while still adding value to what they’re working on.

Key Roles in an Agile Team

One major aspect to note is that in Agile, there are different approaches to working on a project. We can talk about a Scrum agile team or a Kanban agile team. However, the more popular of the two is still Scrum. Here is the full guide. 

Within a Scrum team in Agile, there are different responsibilities and roles. There will always be a Scrum Master, and a Product Owner, in addition to a development team. That team can be integrated by different types of professionals, depending on the purpose and goals of the group. In addition, an Agile team always works hand in hand with stakeholders.

Let’s dive into these roles to get to know them better!

Scrum Master

A scrum master is the one who’s there to help the team achieve its goals. Within its responsibilities, we find the following:

Facilitate

They facilitate Scrum ceremonies and Sprint initiatives to make sure the team is working smoothly.

Board Management

In Agile methodologies, teams work using a board to see the work in progress, and what’s on the backlog.

The scrum master makes sure the team doesn’t have any obstacles to completing a certain task, for example.

Coordination between Company Members

An Agile team needs to be prepared for sudden changes, and goal changes.

In that way, the scrum master makes sure to enable communication between what stakeholders require, and what team members can do to meet those objectives.

Helping the Product Owner

The scrum master is always working by the PO’s side since they’ll probably need help to manage the backlog to achieve optimum performance.

Product Owner

Also referred to as, simply, PO, the product owner is responsible for managing the product backlog, making sure team members understand the stakeholder’s needs and working to achieve their goals.

Among their role, they must:

  • Own the product and the business vision.
  • Make sure team members align with businesses’ requirements.
  • Meet stakeholder’s expectations.
  • Manage the backlog, prioritizing what needs to be done first, and what can wait until the next Sprint.
  • Ensure the backlog is transparent, visible, and straightforward to all team members.
  • The PO is responsible for product development to add value to the business and stakeholders.

Team Members

Development teams are composed of a variety of professionals, according to the target. These may be:

  • UX writers.
  • UX specialists.
  • Developers.
  • QA.
  • Product designers.
  • Functional analysts.

Such teams should be self-sufficiently organized, to be effective at the time of performing the assigned tasks. Some of their responsibilities and features are the following:

  • They must be able to organize their schedule and the amount of work to be done.
  • Team members carry out a certain number of tasks within a Sprint, depending on what was prioritized by the PO.
  • To create product increments through collaborative work between team members.

3 Benefits of Using an Agile Methodology

According to kissflow, teams that use Agile methodologies are 28% more successful than those that don’t.

Among the advantages of this type of methodologies in a company, we can find the following:

More Deliverables in Less Time

By using Agile methodologies, value-added products are nearly always achieved faster.

This happens because, in Agile, tasks get prioritized while working collaboratively. In other words, if a team member cannot finish the assignment for whatever reason, other team members are always willing to help out to complete the task as soon as possible.

In addition, a big task can be broken down into smaller ones, reducing the number of features required. That way, the team achieves what’s called a minimum viable product (MVP). That MVP will then be iterated upon, to add the remaining functionalities and Nice-to-Haves.

Superior Quality Products

The Agile team constantly tests products and added features after each Sprint is over. This way, they ensure that they iterate as required to deliver a high-quality product.

Furthermore, Agile relies on feedback from users, consumers, customers, and stakeholders to work collaboratively and fix any bugs, or improve the content, for example.

Flexibility

Even though the business goals are often crystal clear, the strategy may need updating. This may occur once the Sprint has already begun, despite the fact that the Agile team has already started taking on tasks as scheduled and prioritized.

By working on small assignments to get them done quickly, the team can adapt to these shifts quickly, and deploy them at short notice.

Agile is still the most widely used framework for IT development, and will likely remain so for years to come.