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FIGURE 1.1 Agile Umbrella

      Source:Illustration by Carmen Catlin.

After the 2001 Agile Manifesto, Lean software development was introduced in 2003 by Harry and Tom Poppendieck. We discuss Lean auditing principles in Chapter 13, Lean and Agile Auditing. There are several Agile certifications available to demonstrate your competency with the various frameworks. While each of these methods is distinct, they all require constant communication and team collaboration. The following is a brief, high‐level description of some of these methods:

      In many projects, including those using Agile methods, effective communication often determines the success of the project. Each Agile method reinforces the importance of communication and most include more frequent meetings, such as daily meetings for Agile teams to coordinate activities. The daily meeting is a unique element of Agile project management for delivering results faster, correcting errors sooner, inspecting the project often, and overcoming obstacles before the obstacles become bottlenecks.

Raven's first introduction to the daily meeting was during a financial restatement project led by the chief administrative officer (CAO). To make sure participants didn't “get comfortable and talk too much,” the CAO literally removed all the chairs from the room. Each Team Member simply and quickly stated the completed activities from the previous day, the planned activities for that day, and identified any obstacles preventing moving forward with the project. We never skipped a daily meeting, someone was always present to discuss the work performed for each team, and it exceeded 15 minutes on only one occasion. In retrospect, the meeting was a Scrum of Scrums. A Scrum of Scrums is an Agile technique that integrates the work of multiple Scrum Teams. When there are many individuals in the team they are divided into smaller groups (usually five to nine members each), working on the same project. It allows the teams to communicate with each other to ensure that they are all working to accomplish the Product Goal. The output of each team is integrated with the output of all teams. This is vital in areas where there could be overlap or the sequencing of events is important. Ceciliana's first attempt to introduce the daily meetings and remove the chairs from the conference room during a project she was leading resulted in the participants becoming upset because they were going to have to limit the time they could speak and standing was not their preferred posture. After explaining that the reason for removing the chairs was to ensure a focused and speedy meeting, the team compromised, and the chairs were returned on a condition of brevity. This is a great “lessons learned” example regarding the importance of clear and timely communications. In this case, even after allowing chairs in the meeting, meeting time was reduced from approximately two hours to 30 minutes, on average, and communications were limited to actions needed to complete the project. In both examples, the daily meeting was essential in timely project completion and is thus one technique you can use today to be Agile.

There was one specific meeting that solidified the daily meeting's value for Raven, which is the main reason we adopted the daily meeting in our Agile framework. Something was said during one of the meetings that could have changed the successful outcome of the restatement project and would have undoubtedly led to bottlenecks to complete the restatement effort. A team leader presented the accounting manager's obstacle – the need to approve thousands of manual journal entries in a very short time frame. Another team lead suggested that the approval was “easy, just select all and click approve.”

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