MIS608 Agile Project Management Report 2 Sample
Task Summary
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”- Aristotle
You are required to write and submit a 1500-word individual reflection about how your work as a
Agile Team is progressing so far. You are required to use Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle as a framework for this exercise and your reflection should clearly follow the steps of the framework.
1. Describe your personal concrete experience - by this stage of the trimester your team is formed with a Working Agreement and moving forward with the project using the cycle of sprint planning, sprint reviews and sprint retrospectives.
2. Undertake a reflective observation on your experience working as a self-organising Agile Team so far: the good, the bad and the ugly.
3. Using the abstract Agile concepts that you have learned: Working Agreements, Self-organised teams, the Agile Mindset, Psychological Safety, reflection in Agile practices and
Servant Leadership consider whether your team is working effectively as an Agile Team.
4. Plan your next steps of active experimentation: what will you do in the next phase of the project to bring those abstract Agile concepts to your practice and how do you believe that this will bring your team greater success.
Figure 1 -Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle
Context
In professional life while some parts of a job require individual contribution but progressively more work requires collaboration and group work. Group learning is designed to help you to learn about the process of collaboration in preparation for your career.
Agile teams and agile ways of working are becoming more prevalent in workplaces and it is likely that you will be a part of an agile team in your career. However, agile is very different from the more traditional ‘command and control’ management methods to which many people are accustomed. Reflective practice is a process of thinking about new experiences with a view of learning from them.
It is a form of personal response to new experiences, situations, events, or information. University is the best place to learn, and reflection is considered a key part of the learning process for this course.
It is expected that 40% of your assessment will focus on retrospective analysis, and 60% will be forward planning to enable future success.
Task Instructions
Write a 1500-word reflective report addressing the concepts of how working agreements, the Agile Mindset, Psychological Safety and Servant Leadership can influence how a self-organised team can bring their working agreement to life with Agile practices.
1. Cover page: A cover page will be required which must include the following information:
a. Subject Code
b. Subject name
c. Assessment number
d. Assessment title
e. Class CRN
f. Learning Facilitator’s name
g. Student name
h. Student number (‘A’ number)
2. Introduction (100-150 words): which will also serve as your statement of purpose for this report – this means that you will tell the reader what you are going to cover in your report. You will need to inform the reader of:
a. Your area of reflection
b. Key concepts in this reflective report
c. What the reader can expect to find in the body of the report
3. The body of the report (1000-1200 words):
a. Concrete Experience (~200 words) - Describe what you team has done to date
b. Reflective Observation (~200 words)- Reflect on all aspects of your experience working in the group, whether these are positive or negative
c. Abstract conceptualisation (~300 words) - Consider the Agile concepts shared and interpret the vents in your team to date: is the Agile Mindset apparent in the team, does the team have Psychological Safety, is there Servant Leadership in action – are retrospectives helping the team to improve their practices?
d. Active Experimentation - share 4 ideas of how your can bring the concepts of an Agile Mindset, Psychological Safety, Servant Leadership and retrospective to help get the team on the best track possible to conclude a high quality Agile project.
4. Conclusion: summarise the two most important elements you have learned from the group assignment that you have uncovered via your self-reflection.
Solution
Introduction
The growing adoption of digital transformation through automation has efficiently carried out the business process in a sustainable manner. A self-organized team responsible for digital transformation within the business focuses on agile approaches to accomplish the goals and constraints of business organization. University Assignment Help, Reflecting on the experience through Kolb’s learning theory for encompassing the working agreements of a self-organized team with agile practices has been highlighted in this context. The key concepts that will be delivered in this report shall address the concepts of physiological safety, agile mindset, working agreements and servant leadership strategy during digital transformation by self-organized teams. This agile working process will bring in people, process and connectivity around the digital world more effectively through a self-organized team. In this study, the readers will be able to find out the agile ways of working in a team that can promote creativity and achieve greatness to drive CRM innovation in a large automotive company.
Kolb’s experiential learning cycle
Figure 1: Kolb’s experimental learning theory
(Source: Measey, 2015)
Concrete Experience
While driving digital transformation in the automotive company, my team has adhered to agile management approaches to improve quality and productivity of the automotive. My team has followed agile working agreement to move forward with the project by adhering the agile approaches of sprint planning, reviews and retrospective measures. According to the work agreement, they have shared responsibilities in defining the accountability of each team member and create awareness through both positive and negative behavior in order to maintain the team decorum through the agile ways. Through the agile sprint retrospective, my team has often involved in a recurring meeting at the end of the sprint in order to brainstorm new ideas for the CRM innovation in the automotive company. As per my experience, I remember my team members developing new features on the existing vehicular architecture to dynamically perceive a better world (Measey, 2015). My team has applied agile approaches to increase the mobility demand responses from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM). My team has also maintained adequate policies of psychological safety by developing a safe team environment around and abiding few ground rules in the workplace while driving innovation in the organization (Mundra, 2018). By implementing the working agreement through an agile mindset, they have valued long-form asynchronous communication with other mates to develop an optimal productivity flow in the CRM innovation process.
Reflective Observation
Working in the group to drive CRM innovation in the automotive company, I have felt a variety of experiences during our approaches towards agile project management method on the terms of sprint retrospectives. On the rise of the pandemic situation, the agile process of our group work met confronting challenges due to the physical distance between my teams. As we were not allowed to see our teammates regularly, there was a tense situation of building trust and a sense of ownership with them that led to one of the negative experiences while working. There were some of the members in my group who preferred to work alone without any external direction or input instead of knowing that it is a self-organized group that comes together with collaborating ideas and opinions (Mundra, 2018). On the other hand, I was also subjected to some of the positive experiences while working in the group, where genuine social connections among my team members stood at first place. One of the major requisites to convey an agile approach in a group work activity is communication which I have noticed within them through an open communication network and actively listening to each and every one’s part. Among the ten members of my team, I saw few to build on strong emotional intelligence with other mates that is an integral part of a self-organized team practicing agile approaches.
Abstract Conceptualization
The agile concepts that my team met through their agile mindset in spite of the succinct challenges was highly apparent in them. It was due to their respectful nature at all levels of the organization that aided to build a positive workflow in the complex dynamics of the automotive sector. At times, I noticed their collaboration style for working together at a common purpose and to ensure productivity and innovation with CRM software. On the other hand, I showcased sustainable events in my teams in terms of their psychological safety levels where they focused on collaborative languages to solve a problematic situation rather than blaming others (Cobb, 2015). Psychological safety was observed also through their involvement in decision-making processes that lead to better outcomes in the CRM innovation chain. My group’s psychological safety was also noticeable through their open feedback chain which meant their comfort in an agile approach. In addition, servant leadership was strongly apparent in my team as I observed our ScrumMaster to nurture all the members of the team through praise and encouragement during their failed work. My group was situational aware, especially on the cause of understanding business issues and ethics in the workplace during unprecedented scenarios. For instance, there were some customers who called at an abrupt time just after our business meeting and demanded changes in their automotive or vehicular design. I was surprised to notice my group to practice servant leadership style to accomplish their demanding needs immediately at notice. Inspired by the views of Power & Heavin (2021), the retrospectives in my team encouraged strong participation and led the team towards an amicable solution to improve their practice for CRM innovation. Implementation of retrospectives enhanced visibility among my team members while they were discussing effective business solutions through the video conferencing tool Zoom and often shared ownership in spite of the distributed environment.
Active Experimentation
In order to get on the best track possible, I should assume positive intent of my team for the digital strategy and the patterns in data analysis to create less confusion and setbacks among them. I should also involve my team members in team building exercises to have the fun of working together amidst a diverse culture and developing an agile mindset to support their mental wellness future needs. In the future, I should practice change management approaches to ensure agile mindset of my team members. In order to drive CRM innovation of the automotive company as per the future needs, I should appreciate my teammate’s work by genuinely complimenting them for their automation works. On the contrary, I should foster open discussion to understand their problematic situation and build on trust to strengthen their emotional appeal in terms of psychological safety assurance. In addition, I must solicit feedback from my group in order to understand their perception and behavior while working in a self-organized team as per the future requirements (Anantatmula & Kloppenborg, 2021). In the future, I need to carry retrospective analysis by appointing a ScrumMaster in my team who should be responsible for the kick off meeting in order to ensure the work agreements are followed adequately through a fair strategy. On the other hand, retrospective meetings should be followed up to adhere the problematic disciplines as per their working agreements of agile ways in the automotive company as per the future needs. The concept of servant leadership can run through motivation factors in order to let my team grow on the standpoint of success from the counterpart of business CRM practices. I should also convince my team as a whole in order to build a positive consensus around the workplace and make them aware of their individual strengths and weaknesses as regards to my servant leadership approach in an agile way (Edmondson, 2018). In the future, I should approach towards smart agile approaches for my teammates in order to make sure they implement V2X communications and vehicle-in-cloud solutions to enhance the technological information of the. While ensuring the CRM innovation around the automotive parts, my team can also recall their working agreements to update backlog before standing up daily for the work basis of digital transformation. In order to practice retrospectives around my team, I should create a Kanban board to let my team members visualize the actionable insights of project management and increase their commitment levels in the future needs towards the organization. However, I must run a periodic retrospective meeting to catch up on the level-up work withheld by my teammates and increase the high quality of our work in future.
Conclusion
From the aforementioned study, it can be concluded that self-reflection has paved an excellent way to recognize my group assignment on CRM innovation. From my keen experience, I have observed an agile mindset to be an integral component of a self-organizing team as agile work agreement can ensure enforceability within the team. On the other hand, I have gained actionable insight from the psychological safety context in an agile project as it can deliver innovative business ideas and reduce risky endeavors during the uncertainties in the organization. Thus, these two constructive elements can highly develop an effective agile project from a self-organized team through implicit business solutions in the future.