How to Encourage Team Collaboration in an Agile BI Team
People often misunderstand what makes agile methodology in a business intelligence system implementation successful. Too often, there is a focus on process and tools, but its true strength lies in enabling group collaboration.
While it is a simplified waterfall approach with a shorter cycle, what makes agile methodology truly powerful is the level of collaboration that is introduced between teams to shorten the time it takes feedback to get back to development.
In a traditional waterfall approach, a business owner is responsible for making decisions on behalf of a team, while the rest of the team is responsible for following and applying the methodology that the business owner dictates. Though this works well in some waterfalls, it does not work well with agile development, and would not have the level of success as if you would have taken a collaborative approach – an approach where everybody has a voice and could influence the outcome of what is being developed.
So how do you create an environment where all business intelligence implementation team members are open to contribute freely, and where everyone’s voice is heard? Use these techniques to unleash the collaborative potential of your team.
In agile implementation methodology, epics are large project deliverables which are broken down into many smaller stories. People feel a level of accomplishment when they complete something, and recognition is key to increasing employee engagement and productivity. In a workplace where good work is recognized and rewarded, people are inspired to work harder and do better.
By publicly recognizing the successes of both project teams and individual contributors, you can create an energized, engaged workplace where people work harder because their efforts get noticed.
Although in agile you move from the single decider of waterfall to a collaborative, consensus-driven approach, there still needs to be a primary source for understanding what needs to be developed, and how it needs to be developed from a consumer perspective.
People think this source is the scrum master, but the scrum master role in a project is to maintain channels for customer feedback. It is really the project team where everyone’s opinion matters where you get the best feedback – where a junior developer can come up with an idea and can contribute as equally as a senior developer or scrum master.
