Agile Coaching Results in Pub One Program Efficiencies

  • Published
  • By David Riley

The Business and Enterprise Systems (BES) Agile Services Office Agile Coaching recently engaged with the Airman Publications One (Pub One) Stop Tool Software Development Team resulting in significant improvements to Agile practices and delivery.

Key outcomes include the refinement of five user stories per 90-minute meeting versus zero user stories in a 180-minute meeting, a reduction in code bugs from 180 items to 42 items, and an increase in the number of functional and technical item refinements from one item per week to 15 items per week.

Strategic decisions include having User Acceptance Criteria with the team’s requirements (user stories) to have a single, agreed understanding of each item of work and clear outcomes, holding meetings in advance to review the product backlog items, and verifying the product backlog item as a clear written user story, linked to both the functional and technical item.

Additionally, the Agile Coaching team provided training to facilitate backlog refinement. These improvements have significantly reduced rework and an improvement in the capability team’s way of working with user stories (requirements) refinement.