FAQagileWhat is Agile?With Agile we aim for an agile and flexible way of organizing, so that you as an organization can respond faster and more easily to the ever-changing world. You set up teams that work very specifically on customer value. Within short periods of less than a month, they deliver partial products and validate what they have made on real customers. This produces very relevant products and highly motivated teams.What are the benefits of Agile?With Agile you can respond faster to changes and you have more control over the progress of the work to be delivered within the organization. Because you work in short cycles, you constantly deliver value to customers. You limit risks by quickly incorporating customer feedback into your product or service.When is Agile effective?Agile is effective when you develop complex products and services. It helps to collaborate with multiple disciplines within your organization. And it helps to respond quickly to feedback from customers or stakeholders.When is Agile not the best solution?For repetitive work, it is better to develop good procedures – or protocols. These make the work efficient and mitigate possible risks when it is performed incorrectly. Lean and Six Sigma help you to optimize these procedures.When is Agile effective?Agile is effective when you develop complex products and services. It helps to collaborate with multiple disciplines within your organization. And it helps to respond quickly to feedback from customers or stakeholders.What is the difference between Agile and Scrum?Scrum is a specific set of rules that allow you to work together. So it’s the way you approach work and organize teams. Agile is the mindset in which those rules work well.What is the difference between Agile and Lean?Agile and Lean are very similar. Both put the customer first and build on highly motivated teams and individuals. Lean focuses more on the operation and Agile focuses more on creating customer value in a short time.ScrumWhat is Scrum?Scrum is a framework that enables you to develop complex products with a multidisciplinary team. Scrum consists of a clear division of roles, with fixed meetings and a prioritized workload. Scrum helps teams to organize themselves and continuously improve their productivity. Scrum is the most widely used framework in the world.What is a time box?A timebox is the maximum time that a meeting or sprint may last. Shorter is always allowed, longer not. This keeps meetings nice and concise.What is a sprint plan?A sprint starts with a sprint planning. In this meeting, the Product Owner explains the goal and priorities for the coming period. The team members have the opportunity to ask in-depth questions. In addition, team members estimate during this meeting how much work they can handle in the coming period.What is the difference between a daily scrum and a stand-up?Actually nothing. Both terms are used interchangeably. Daily Scrum is the official name from Scrum.org. During this event, team members share their status update on the progress of the work and indicate whether they experience blockages that are slowing down and therefore need to be solved. The meeting often takes place standing, so that it is an active form and does not take too long.What is a sprint review also called a demo?Team members work hard in a sprint. Team members would like to show the result of this sprint to stakeholders. During the sprint, the product owner regularly provides feedback on the work done, but at the end of the sprint this work is shown to all stakeholders in the sprint review. This is the time to get out the champagne and celebrate what has been made. In addition, this is the opportunity to look together with the stakeholders to see what is in store for the coming period. So everyone is hooked up again.What is a sprint retrospective, also called retro for short?Agile teams want to continuously improve. That is why Scrum teams look back after every sprint and give each other feedback on what they thought went well and what could be improved in the preceding period. Together they decide what to work on in the coming sprint in order to grow as a team.RollWhat is the difference between a Product Owner and a Scrum master?Together with the Development team, the Product Owner and the Scrum Master form the Scrum Team. The job of the Product Owner is to maximize business value. The Scrum Master wants to optimize the whole in a smooth collaboration and the Development team members want to make the most beautiful and best products. This together forms a powerful whole of the what and the how.What is the difference between a Scrum Master and an Agile Coach?What belongs to the package of the Scrum Master and Agile Coach depends on the context of an organization. So there is no strict separation. We often see that Scrum Masters guide one or a few teams to become better and better in the way they work and that Agile Coaches guide multiple teams and management in the Agile transition as a whole.What is the role of management in Agile and Scrum?Agile works with self-organizing teams and with Product Owners who translate customer wishes into smart product visions. If teams organize themselves and the product owner represents customer value, what is the role for managers? As far as we are concerned, managers initiate the new strategic course and provide the best facilities for the teams to excel. This seems easy, but in practice it is certainly no mean feat.
