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Day: October 15, 2019

Why You Should Consider Stopping Sprint Review?

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

What is a sprint review?
Any planned project needs a review to order to find out if the goals set before the initiation of the projects are being accomplished and whether the development of the process is in line with the final objective of the plan constructed. To assess the performance of a product development that is facilitated by a team of developers, a sprint review is conducted.

A sprint review can be understood as a performance assessment method that is used in the scrum framework to assess the development of the product. A sprint review is conducted between the scrum team including the Scrum master training and various other stakeholders to the product development.

A sprint can be described as the time frame after which the assessments take place or reviews are placed out for the developing team to gain insights about the product. The team then decides strategically about the various changes or iterations that can be employed in the development process for creating a more preferred product based on the reviews.

The review is done generally in an informal setting with the purpose of achieving feedback on the incremental progress done so far and to establish a collaboration of the parties involved in the whole process. The interview initiates with the product owner explaining the product backlog items, bringing out in the open the components that have already been developed and the items that are yet to be worked upon.

During the sprint review, the development team, on the other hand, discusses the developments during the sprint, the challenges they faced and the measures implemented to overcome the challenges during the development of the product. The entire team discusses the planning of the next stage of development so that the sprint review provides valuable input for the next sprint planning.

The review also takes into consideration the market externalities that might influence product development and the changes that have taken place since the initiation.

Do we need Sprint Reviews?
After the detailed explanation of the sprint review and the whole process of conducting the assessment, the purpose should be pretty clear. In the most basic form, the purpose of the sprint review is to get feedback and approval on the development of the product in the sprint run.

Since the purpose of the sprint review is to collect feedback on what was developed in the last sprint, the sprint reviews are by a convention held at the end of the sprint. Holding a review of such vitality can be very late for many teams to act upon the insights gained during the review.

In this era of technological advancement, the saying “change is the only constant” fits perfectly in place. The frequency of changes and evolution of things due to technology is enormous, what was in trend yesterday has died already this morning such has been the pace when it comes to products or trends influenced and propelled due to technological advancement.

The development teams are severely affected by this pace of continuous change. On average they might come across five to ten changes per day, at the end of the sprint the number of new developments in place would be 5 * t changes, where t is the duration before the sprint review is conducted.

By this time with so many changes already in place, the stake holder’s feedback during the sprint review is of no significance as people have already been using such features and the ultimate response is measured by the user’s reaction. So in totality, the reviews at the end of the sprint are considered useless in this continuous changing world of technology.

What’s the alternative?
The end of the sprint review is not an answer to this question, however, there are some major changes that should be implemented if it is to prevail in this ever-changing technological landscape. The feedback should be more frequent and in small bytes so that the evolving changes can be taken into consideration in every stage of the development process.

The changes should be discussed with multiple stakeholders who have high stakes in the success of the product. A quick demo to the requestor can be facilitated by some of the team members of the developing team if the development matches the expectations of the requestor it can be considered to be progressing in the right direction.

Every new additions or iteration should be demonstrated to some of the stakeholders and demos for requestors can be facilitated based on the requirements. This one at a time feature reviews increases participation and collaboration between the developing parties and other stakeholders to this product development process, this, in turn, increases the trust among them and establishes cooperation.

One of the reasons why the sprint review cannot be totally curbed out of the equation is that it is much more than just a simple demo of the product features in development. A sprint review provides more than a demo, it is used to prioritize and restructure the product backlogs and takes into account the feedback for further enhancement of the product based on the most recent changes that have taken place which might affect the utility of this product for the ultimate customer.

In addition to accounting and taking changes into consideration, the sprint review can also help to eliminate the items of the backlog that are no longer vital to the development of the product.

Conclusion
A sprint review can be understood as a performance assessment method that is used in the scrum framework to assess the development of the product. Sprint reviews remain one of the significant procedure in the product development process. Since sprint reviews are done usually at the end of the sprint, there might be feedbacks that remain vital but can’t be incorporated in the product development given the growth in the process.

In this ever-changing world of technology, the pace of evolution is unmatched, even in a small time frame, there are significant updates to the process. This required small and frequent reviews to facilitate product development in an efficient manner.

Is it Time to Do Away with Scrum’s Product Owner Role?

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

 

Understanding the Scrum framework

At the very core of the scrum framework processing lies the notion of teamwork which inculcates efficiency maximization. The Scrum process in the technical developments is based on the agile methodology which allows delivering the business requirements in the shortest possible span of time. It is continuous and iterative development to achieve the required objective taking into account the changes factored in from different variables.

The scrum process is open to changes, to say the least. The idea that every variable can be accounted for at the beginning of the development process is very absurd when we think about the frequency of changes taking place in the contemporary scenario.

Technology is ever-evolving and the software based on that technology changes as well. If you come to think of a product development that is technical in nature, from the time you conceptualized to the time you started building it there will be numerous upgrades already.  The point is there are always iterations that need to be facilitated based on the technological evolution and also the preferences of different stakeholders.

To better understand the scrum framework we need to dive deep into the basics of the agile methodology. The agile method is a broader concept that encompasses the scrum framework, technically agile is a practice wherein continuous iteration of development and testing is the norm.

The agile methodology breaks down the product development process into smaller chunks, unlike other software development techniques. It takes into account the feedbacks of all the stakeholders of the product development process and helps to build on that, advocating teamwork as one of the essentials to the process of this technological development.

Role of a product owner?

Product Owner, you can define the responsibilities by the name of it. The values of ownership and accountability are intrinsically embedded in the title. The product owner in the Scrum framework is the person responsible for the output value of the scrum development training in terms of efficiency and holistic development of the product.

The product owner in an agile methodology holds an array of responsibilities that include responsibilities like defining the vision for the product, managing product backlogs, overseeing the product development at various stages, anticipating client needs and acting as the primary mediator between the client and the product development team. If you have to summaries it briefly the product owner is responsible for the holistic development of the product. If you dig deeper there is no direct association with the creation of the particular product but more of a supervisory and management role.

Defining the vision is one of the crucial roles of the product owner, being the mediators between the various stakeholders to this development process the product owner has a lot of information to process and then come to a conclusion about the concrete plan for the development of the product.

Managing the product backlog is another important responsibility that the product owner holds and is accountable for. A product backlog includes a list of things that needs to be done in the whole process of product development. Creating the sequence of the ‘to-do list’ and prioritizing it on the basis of the stakeholder’s requirement is done very strategically by the product owner.

The Team-Oriented approach

The roles in a scrum framework can be broadly divided into two categories, the specialists and the team members. The specialist roles are further divided into two as Scrum Master and Product Owner. If we peep into the job roles of the specialist in the scrum framework, neither of the roles is directly associated with the creation or formation of the products. It is a holistic approach towards the organization of deliverables and supervision of the entire product development process in general.

In recent developments, there are various instances of teams that have started experimenting with assigning and rotating the scrum master responsibilities among team members. However, the experiment with rotating specialist roles is limited to the scrum master responsibilities only.

If you think logically the product owner roles and responsibilities can also be shared among the team members and in the near future, this idea could be commonplace given the nature of the duties performed and the involvement of the team members in the core creation of the products. The testing responsibilities in an agile team is shared among all the team members, similarly, the responsibilities of the product owner can be shared going forward.

There is a possibility that the future might not hold specific job titles for the product owner role. Since all the team members have their specific services to provide and role to play in the creation of the product what matters to the ultimate consumer is the utility of the product. The collaborative decision making will replace the present product owner duties that include taking decisive action in the product development process.

What’s at the center of the idea of a future without product owner job title in the scrum framework is the diversity in the team and developers equipped with more than their conventional coding skill sets.

What’s the way forward?/ Conclusion

The future might not hold specific job titles for product owners but will include team members having diverse skillsets and collaborative decision-making abilities to facilitate the much needed final output of the product development process.

Digging a little deeper into the role of the product owner we can easily establish that there is no direct association with the creation of the particular product but more of a supervisory and management role in the development process.

The role and responsibilities associated with the job of product owner can easily be shared and divide between the developing team members, it might need some people with additional experience and expertise in the field but not a person with an exclusive job title.

In recent developments, there are various instances of teams that have started experimenting with assigning and rotating the scrum master responsibilities among team members the same concept can be easily applied to the product owner’s role.

Ways Trade Execution Can Improve Your Capital Market Business!

Posted on by Imarticus Learning

What exactly is Trade?
Trade is the exchange of items between two or more parties backed up by purchasing power. In a layman’s language, buying and selling of products and services are known as Trade.

What are Capital Markets?
Capital market is the kind of financial market where securities such as long-term debt, equities, etc. are traded frequently. This is a volatile market as the value of these securities and the interests and dividend rates involved with them keep fluctuating.

The capital market is further broken down into two categories: Primary Market & Secondary Market. The primary market is the capital market where new securities are bought and sold and the Secondary market is the one where the already issued securities are exchanged by various investors and companies.

Trade Execution and the Capital Market 
Whenever there is an exchange, trade comes into the picture, even in case of financial instruments. Financial instruments are heavily traded all around the globe every second. And with such exchange of securities, the trade aspect has to be clearly defined and should not be eclipsed by the volume of transactions. The capital market runs on the game of exchange. Such exchanges are facilitated by smooth trade execution, Asset Management Allocation, and a well-versed post-graduate diploma in Banking and Finance.The trade life cycle has to be optimized and every step has to deliver some value to make the process smooth and glitch-free. Mentioned below are the stages of the Trade Life cycle and how their execution leads to improvement in the capital market business.

  • Order Initiation

The order is initiated when the stocks of various companies are made to float in the market. Such a process can be called as “Security Existence Awareness”. Then an individual buyer or a company shows its intention to buy particular security with the help of their registered stock brokers. The brokers perform the buying and selling function for their respective clients in exchange for a small fee. After the order is placed, the brokers process the transaction, delivers the security or collect the money and transfer the benefit to his client.

  • Order Processing and Managing Potential Risks

A capital market is a place with fluctuating value. And with fluctuation, risks dawn in. To process the order, the broker must have a clear picture of the funds residing in his client’s account and also of the securities the client is interested in. If both the scenarios fall in line, the broker generates the receipt and processes the orders. If any default on the part of the client, the broker will have to keep a window up for such loopholes and manage the associated risks carefully. Also, the broker has to recover the additional charges from their clients efficiently.

  • Order Matching and Trade conversion

On the verification of what is required by the client, the particular securities are sent to exchange for verification of various details and allotment of the respective securities. The brokers charge a brokerage for executing the security trade function effectively and efficiently. The receipt of the order confirmation is then sent to the client and the details of the client are recorded by the broker for the allotment of a unique customer ID.

An agency that is commonly known as the custodian then intervenes in the settlement of any security deal. The custodian receives the details of the order from the exchange. This includes details like the type, price of the security, etc. This is done to make the custodian aware of an upcoming securities exchange. It is the job of a custodian to validate the details of the transaction and then show a green flag to the broker. This complicated process can be made much easier by proper capital market training.

  • Trade Settlement and Clearance

The trade is then settled after 2 days of a valid transaction. This is commonly known as a T+2 settlement. The clearance provider then informs the restrictions of the particular transactions which is followed by the settlement of balances. The securities are then allocated to the client in his DMAT account and the share value is credited to the companies raising capital. After completion of such a transaction, it is recorded by the Exchange offices.