Service
Agile Coaching & Training
Overview
Quoin provides Agile coaching to help your organization develop software better, faster, cheaper. We are experts at applying agile and lean practices for iterative, user-centered, and effective approaches in our own work. An agile coach from our staff has the hands-on experience to provide practical advice to achieve more productive, accountable, and sustainable results from any project team.
Experienced
All our consultants have worked on agile project teams and bring real-world knowledge and practical input.
Adaptive
We understand agile fundamentals as well as methodologies, such as Scrum and Kanban, and can tailor our coaching and training to fit your organization.
Scalable
Quoin knows first-hand the specific practices for the planning, development, operations, and support activities across a development organization.
Measurable
We trust in data and can help your organization establish metrics for productivity and quality that will ensure an effective and sustainable model for agile development.
Our Work
Quoin has always taken an innovative approach to improve team productivity and software quality. Our first use of daily stand-ups and weekly iterations began in 1998 on projects for GM OnStar and WashingtonPost.com - long before these agile practices crystallized into a codified discipline. Over the years, we have shared these practices with many of our clients, enabling them to build capacity and improve their own development processes. These diverse organizations include Lowe’s Companies, Cengage Learning, Houghton Mifflin, and Hachette Books, among others.
Real-Life Advice
The diagram below depicts an example of specific and pragmatic guidance given to a project team on conducting a daily standup. Our experience has shown the importance of using a brief, daily meeting to focus a project team on current tasks and progress towards achieving the sprint plan.
Approach
An agile coach supports your project team with the day-to-day guidance necessary for success – an ongoing process of demonstration, collaboration, and project review that rapidly builds critical skills. Our consultant shares techniques for writing user stories, task management, estimation, sprint planning, backlog management, and other aspects of an agile/lean development process. This approach allows your personnel to learn by doing with the guidance of an experienced project or technical lead. Quoin provides coaching to initiate a successful project or to assist a team throughout development. Our coaching staff has both real-world experience and formal training with a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) or Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) credentials.
Coaching can involve any aspect of an agile/lean software development lifecycle — project planning, development, and resource management. Our focus is on how to assemble and drive effective project teams for successful delivery. Specific points for coaching might include the following.
- Training technologists and product owners
- Writing user stories and acceptance criteria
- Iteration planning and day-to-day task management
- Estimating tasks, including story points and hours
- Using issue tracking and other tools
- Backlog grooming and other planning tasks
- Managing flexible scope and fixed budgets
- Measuring velocity and other characteristics of team performance
- Implementing user acceptance and other tests
- Capturing technical constraints
- Onboarding new project staff and other resource management
- Supporting organizational adoption of agile practices