How to Get Things Done in Agile Methodology

As more organizations are transforming to agile the competition in the business world is increasing, as agile is improving productivity, reducing time to market, better management of uncertainty, and employee satisfaction. Increasing the implementation of agile correctly and with accuracy is providing many benefits and hence the organization is driving their employees towards achieving accuracy in agile methodology to reduce their competition. When get disrupted by new competitors agile organizations further moves towards using the latest technologies and trends with agility. But what if you still want to improve further?

It’s good that agile is not limited to processes and concepts but involves mindset and personal development. Agile is never restricted to a particular concept or process they are always welcoming with the concepts and trends where there are chances of improving as an organization or as an individual. The concept of getting things done in agile is one example of it. Agile has its way of getting things done where we can see how agile helps agile individuals to be more productive and better manage uncertainty. Getting things done can be applied in agile along with its other processes for stress-free, productive, organized, and easy handling of critical tasks. Let’s see how the “Getting Things Done”, described by David Allen in his book, the concept is.

The concept includes four phases of any project planning

Define- This involves defining the basic principles and purpose of the project or agile task.

Envision- This involves foreseeing the required potential outcomes so that we can move in the right direction of the goals without getting confused.

Brainstorm- brainstorms the further ideas or links that are missing to move forward.

Identity- Once completed the above steps of project planning, move toward the next course of action.

Once we are done with project planning further step includes mastering the workflow which includes six steps as mentioned below;

Collect

In the first step of getting a task done, collect all uncompleted and needed tasks in one list despite their urgency and priority. As enter your open loops of the task.

Process

Once a list is created observe if every task is doable or not. If any of the tasks is not doable then put it in the trash or keep it for reference for time being. More than four tasks in mind will affect your performance.

Organize

Now organize the task in a list as per project requirements and share it with team members. You can even compile the entire project task in one place for the team.

Review

The concept suggests always reviewing the list and updating it accordingly. Put a tag on overdue or pending tasks for reminders. Keeping all tasks at one location will provide the team with agility as they all will be clear with the list.

Act

This step means working on the task which is at hand for completion. This helps you narrow down the activities from the list.

Control

The last step of getting things done involves controlling your tasks and to-do list. Have complete control over your list for easy organization and elimination of useless tasks getting in the list.

The additional simple tips for getting things done that can help you achieve the outcome easily are;

·       Control your thought that is causing any distraction, as they are the enemy of agility.

·       Having appropriate and good thoughts at right time with tools to capture value-added thoughts will improve creativity and productivity.

·       Apply the two-minute rule where you act immediately if the action is in two minutes or less.

·       Improve your imagination, as imagination is an important tool for cultivating and growing ability.

Disadvantages of Getting Things Done (GTD) Concept

·       It gives more emphasis on the stages of organizing and processes than implementing them.

·       The concept is mainly for people who have fixed tasks rather than being in creative work.

·       GTD regularly requires setting priorities and feeling like moving slowly towards goals where particular tasks are completed in a day.

·       It doesn’t consist and refers to any tools which can help to raise higher levels.

·       It prefers mainly following a methodology that can lead to automatically following the processes, without involving thinking that can cause some issues if a task doesn’t fit in the methodology.

By understanding the benefits and disadvantages of the concept and implementing it as per our requirement this concept can easily help agile in various ways to get things done reducing the stress of employees. 

About Advance Agility

We, at Advance Agility, are the new-age Agile Coaching, Consulting and IT services company. We enable end-to-end Digital Transformation. Agile execution is integral to our being. We are doing SAFe implementation with small, medium and large organization across the globe. Our vision is to be the leading Agile execution player globally. To keep adding value at every process stage. We are on a mission to empower our clients, move from concept to cash in the shortest sustainable lead time by adopting human centric approach to business agility. Embracing the change is in our DNA. Things that keep us apart are Quicker and Seamless execution with End-to-end gamut of services. Our Global presence and Stellar Track Record give us an edge over our competitor.

Connect with us at advanceagility.com to learn about SAFe and SAFe Implementation. We provide various SAFe certification courses along with DevOps, Scrum, Agile Coaching and more trainings. Write to us at contact@advanceagilty.com for any agile training or consulting needs. We are always looking for competent agile trainers as well. So if you are a good trainer or want to become one, do get in touch with us to that we can learn, grow and achieve together.