Machine Learning Sample

Product Management Sample

A Non-Technical Guide to Agile

Rick wants to become a Cake Artist. He has some knowledge about the ingredients required and methods but no prior baking experience. Now in order to create the perfect Chocolate Truffle here are 2 approaches Rick can take.

Chocolate Truffle Cream Cake

Approach 1: Rick gathers all the ingredients, the tools and goes on to create a Chocolate Truffle Cream Cake. However, Rick's first attempt mostly likely fails and he starts having second thoughts about baking cakes. This is not just limited to Rick but happens to all of us. We attempt something try to succeed all at once only to fail. 

Approach 2: However there is an alternate approach Rick could have taken. Here he wouldn't try to bake the Chocolate truffle cake all at once. He could have first prepared the Ganache, then created the cream and finally the icing for decorations. If you don't know what these are feel free to look it up, pretty interesting stuff. Each time he completes one of the stages of the preparation he can talk to his family, kids, friends ask them for feedback and see if his cake is turning out as awesome as he wants it to be.

Steps of Making a Cake

This second approach is basically the Agile Approach. Agile means physical prowess and the ability move quickly. Assuming Rick has a regular 9 hours job  he has only so many hours that he can spend baking yet wants to bake an awesome truffle cake. So in order to make the best use of his time he has to fast and effective or in other words Rick has to be Agile. 

Agile by definition is a management skill which you might use to handle complete complex projects by breaking down the Project into smaller and simpler tasks then try to complete each of these tasks in a short intervals or time based iterations (1 - 2 weeks at the most). At the end of each iteration you complete the planned task collect feedback on the tasks you have done so far and try to incorporate the feedback into the work that you do in the next iteration. The idea is to keep repeating these iterations until the Task has been completed or in case of Rick until he has been able to able to create an awesome Truffle Cake. 

Even though Agile as a management approach is used primarily in Software Development, it can be used in many other things fields as well. 

Some Non-Technical Organizations that have used Agile,

Museum of National Arts, Netherlands

• Museum of Netherlands - Using Agile to identify the most valuable artifacts
  The Rijksmuseum or the National Art Museum of Netherlands who were facing reduction of visitors footsteps revamped the museum in 2013 and used Agile to increase the number of visitors. Instead of just collecting random artifacts having them displayed the museum authority used feedback from groups divided accordingly to their specialty as to which artifacts would hold most value for the spectators and why. Feedback along with value proposition for each artifact helped the museum prioritize which artifact to display as well as reduce cost by letting go of the artifacts that weren't required.
  

• NPR - National Public Radio using Customer Feedback to create effective Programs
  NPR or the National Public Radio a Broadcasting agency in the US have used Agile as a means of feedback capturing to improve their Programs. Instead of struggling to get producers to create Programs on the NPR have managed to create better quality content at 1/3rd of the Cost. What NPR does is basically create cheap pilots with minimal staff in a very short amount of time. They would then use the Social Media platforms to gather feedback about the Pilots. Then based on the feedback they would actually roll out the the Program into Production.
  

• Mission Bell Winery - Using Agile to find the most efficient distribution Process
  They have managed to use Agile to improve their production and increase the number of wine cases from 411 to 425 per day. They have used Agile in order to play around with Processes and test the ones that actually worked for them. Getting feedback from all their 45 employees they have managed to identify the process that suits them best, streamline the existing practices and increase their production. Along with the increased production they have also managed to secure an ISO 9001 certification on their quality. 

Using Agile for our personal Goals

Just like Rick's truffle cake we can too use Agile for our personal goals. An implementation of Agile is a simple 4 step process. 

Start Small - Execute - Get Feedback...(Iterate). 

• Start Simple: Simplicity is at the heart of Agile and the first prerequisite a succeeding with Agile is for the Objective to be simple enough. If we take the example of Rick, truffle cake in itself is a complex task. It has layers, the base, it has different  creams. However, if Rick only plans to go for the base or the Ganache or the cream first then the task becomes simple enough.
• Execute: The second part even though simple requires discipline and a bit of will power. Based on whatever time frame we allow us, it is imperative we stick to it. If Rick decides to go for the Ganache first and he gives himself 4 days to learn how to create the perfect soft spongy Ganache then Rick should stick to it. Sticking to time frame initially might be hard but then practice makes perfect and discipline is no different.
• Get Feedback: There is no point following Agile and creating fast results if we fail to meet quality or stop improving. This is where the 3rd part of feedback comes in. We need to gather as much feedback as we can and see how we can improve in second iteration whatever we did in the first. 

That is all about a simple Non Technical Guide on how you can use Agile in order to achieve your personal goals. Now following the Agile method please let me know how this guide was and if there is any changes which I should make in the next entry.

Till then Good Luck !!!