Effective project management with PRINCE2

The benefits of any training course and the new skills gained are clearly apparent once an employee implements these into their working environment. But with the world of information technology such a varied and diverse area to study, choosing the right training course is crucial to your professional development. 

PRINCE2 training allows a team to successfully deliver projects through a universally understood language. With this in mind, we'll look at how PRINCE2 training can increase the performance of a team and bring substantial improvements to their projects.

An effective overview solution

PRINCE2 is comprised of a number of themes that ensure the efficient management of a project.

The world of commercial industry has changed in recent years, with workers spread further across the world and requiring effective communication more than ever. PRINCE2 encourages the organisation of a project by making it clear who is responsible for which processes – right from the start.

Communication between team members will ensure a project runs on time.

Managing risk uncertainty

Projects generally have a time frame for completion. A valid and considered risk-management strategy is just as important as the successful closure of a project – including tying up any loose ends and ensuring the client is contented.

It's not just failure that can set you back though – problems and issues that arise in the process of a project can be countered by implementing improvements along the way.

Having an effective method of communication between team members will ensure a project runs on time and that problems are dealt with swiftly.  

Effective project management training is a great benefit for any team.Effective project management training is a great benefit for any team.

Timelines and time frames

Project management with PRINCE2 training makes the monitoring of team progress easier than ever. When overseeing a project, you want to be able to correct any problems and review the overall success of the team, while remaining flexible enough to deal with changing client demands. 

Client requests can throw a spanner into the works of any well-managed team – keeping on top of these and weaving them into the establish project timeline will reduce the risk of running over time or budget. 

PRINCE2 can ensure that managing a project is more detailed and inclusive than ever. As mentioned above, effective training can allow project managers to have total control of and oversee many different areas of a team. 

The unavoidable value of training

Whether it's ensuring the communication between team members, integration of new staff into the project or simply avoiding being blindsided by a tricky client request, PRINCE2 training is greatly beneficial. 

If you would like to find out more about how PRINCE2 training courses can benefit your organisation, reach out to an ALC Training representative today.

What is General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)?

The European Union (EU) adopted a new law in 2016 called the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR for short. It affects every company with customers residing in the EU. It comes into effect on May 25th 2018, which is just over a week away. But what does it mean, and should companies be worried?

What is the GDPR?

Firstly the GDPR addresses a number of key areas around the privacy of data for EU citizens, in relation to the storage, processing and handling of personal data. Personal data includes data that can identify an individual directly. This can include the following:

Below is a very short and simple video introducing the GDPR legislation:

I’ve simplified and summarised the key points of the GDPR legislation below:​

The overall effect of the GDPR is to provide improved protection for EU citizens and to unify the laws across the EU. This puts onus on those businesses, including the cloud providers to ensure that data is processed fairly and in accordance with the law. There are a number of sanctions that can be enforced, depending on the nature of the breach:

So what should companies do? Firstly they need to seek legal advice from an expert in European Union law to understand the potential impacts and next steps. Next steps are to perform an audit of their business processes and how they store data to understand their current state. Then they need to perform some analysis on the law, with their legal expert to interpret the law and create a series of overarching requirements. These requirements then need to be solidified into a series of solutions.  

Here is a great example of how market-leading SaaS cloud provider Xero, are approacing their GDPR obligations in relation to their financial accounting package:

It’s very important to ensure that the IT, security, legal and operations departments are all working together closely to work through the issues and implement the solutions.

Want to know more about how you can secure your data and ensure you are following the latest best practices?  Consider taking a Certified Cloud Security Professional certification, leading to an ISC2 examination. I’d be glad to coach you through your questions and help expand your knowledge of all things security.

Cybersecurity as Code in Office 365

Last week I was running a course in Auckland, where I demonstrated the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center. The great thing about this new tool, is that it is policy-based, interactive and extremely visual.

What does that really mean? 

You need to firstly determine the important information around your corporate security posture. Then you can translate this into the Security & Compliance Center, via a series of rules. This allows you to maintain compliance with the law, a regulated industry and your company polices.

Once the policies are in place, you have a series of interactive visualisations and methods, for determining how end-users are using the platform and whether they are in breach of your policies.

Here is a simple example. I always recommend starting with the Secure Score, once you have your Office 365 tenant running. You’ll need an E1 / E3 or E5 licence to be able to follow this through:

Don’t forget to Save the customised home screen and then access the tile by clicking on Go to Secure Score:

Depending on the security posture of your organisation, you can choose to increase or decrease your target secure score. A way of benchmarking this is to have a look at other clients with a similar profile, using the comparison bar chart:

The types of recommendations the tool makes can include the following:

Other incredible features include setting up Data Loss Prevention Rules, using pre-defined templates that align to geography and industry:

Another feature, is to set up the Data Governance Rules to ensure that you retain in-line with legislation and ensure it is securely deleted after that time:

Obtaining all the various compliance reports associated with Office 365 and Azure for a particularly geography and industry:

Lastly, here is a great tweet on how to setup permissions in the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center:

The trick with permissions, is to understand the various roles that you can assign to groups and users, and how permissive or restrictive those roles are. If you need to tailor the roles, keep the original defaults, and simply create a new role. Remember to create a detailed description of how it differs from the original default role.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center, there are plenty of great links on TechNet to get you started. And if you feel you need something a little more, check out our face-to-face classroom training course on Office 365 Security & Compliance. The ‘pièce de résistance’ is where I interactively demo the tool and coach you through the latest security best practices.

And finally, here is a great iconic picture to share, showing the wonderful city of Auckland and the great country that is New Zealand:

Oh…and I just must share the best Auckland pic of the Ed Sheeran concert too!!

P.S If you’re not sure your cybersecurity knowledge is up to scratch, take our cybersecurity quiz to see how you measure up. 

Do Bitcoin and Blockchain Cryptocurrencies Require Legal Regulation and Consumer Protection?

I’m a huge fan of utilising the latest and greatest disruptive technologies. Not just because they improve competition between businesses, but usually because they offer a lower price point and some form of additional value.

Let’s take Netflix – ~$12AUD per month and I tend to watch 6-8 films per month, mainly with my kiddies.  Compare that to a cinema where a film costs ~$20AUD, however it is on a big screen with surround sound, but it’s expensive to take the kiddies. Or compare with a video rental of around ~$5AUD per film when you could actually rent DVD videos from Blockbuster Video….that’s another story in itself on Wikipedia.

Another example is Uber – $22AUD per trip into the Brisbane CBD, compared to $35AUD for a taxi ride. Uber is cheaper, cleaner, don’t smell and the drivers are friendlier.

Here is a quick glance of a range of new disruptive companies that have emerged over the past few years.  Important to note that they don’t actually own the product that is consumed by the customer, they utilise third parties to provide the products as part of their value stream. 

So…does this pattern hold true for all disruptive technologies? 

Let’s look at Blockchain technologies, specifically the purchasing of Bitcoin. This one is a little different, because it’s yet to fully disrupt, displace or compete with the Australian Dollar (AUD) or the ASX share market.

Is it cheaper? It’s difficult to compare as price is not relevant here. Does it provide more value? Not really, if you consider that I can’t spend Bitcoin in many places, unlike my credit card or cash which is accepted everywhere in Australia, online and abroad.

Maybe comparing Bitcoin against my credit card and cash is non-sensical. Maybe it’s really an investment, maybe it’s like shares. I think the best way to find out, is to buy some Bitcoin.  A small amount to help me understand the technology…so where do I start?

How does Bitcoin work?

For me the best place to start with any investment is to talk with my financial advisor. This is where the problems started. “Where can I buy Bitcoin?” I asked, confident I’m receiving what I asked for…..ermmm…. nowhere. 

Why is that? 

Well if you go into the ANZ Bank and you want to buy currency they have safeguards in the form of a specific financial legal acts that ensure you’ll get real currency and any charges are transparent. 

When you go to a Bitcoin merchant, they’re not covered by any specific financial legal acts, so you can’t be 100% sure you are getting what you paid for. Also Bitcoins are virtual. It’s true you can see them in your virtual wallet, but there are no guarantees that you won’t be duped either in buying the Bitcoins or selling them.

But if you assume that it’s more like shares, does that help? Well shares are listed on a stock exchange and are regulated by various acts in that country. The most well-known is the Sarbanes-Oxley ACT (SOX) which covers the listing of shares on the US stock exchange. Unfortunately for Bitcoin, it’s not covered by the same safeguards.

So, what do I conclude? Well I can buy Bitcoins from several merchants, but it’s difficult to assess what safeguards are in place, should I make a lot of money from the transaction. 

Anyhow, I’m happy with using my credit card and cash for purchases and I’m happy to continue investing in a balanced portfolio of shares, as well as using Netflix for kiddies’ films and Uber for rides into the city. 

Did I tell you about the time I discovered the Amazon Kindle and Agile Principles…….?

 

How Can Government Services Use Big Data?

As new technologies continue to be developed, more and more data is ending up in the hands of organisations. Yet, unless properly structured and analysed, big data can be a bigger problem than it is a help.

The sheer size of data sets and the multiplicity of sources is an interesting phenomenon. According to IBM’s Big Data and Analytics Hub, over 30 petabytes of user data is stored and analysed by Facebook, while over 230 million tweets are posted every day.

In August, the NSW government announced plans to set up a whole-of-government data analytics centre.

For commercial and government entities to get the most out of big data, they need an integrated IT department staffed with employees from a range of educational backgrounds, including ITIL certification and IT governance training. 

Big data and whole-of-government analytics

Big data refers to the assortment of large data sets that are collected, often incidentally as part of everyday processes, and used to identify patterns and trends.

It has typically been associated with the private sector. As commercial activities are becoming more and more digitised, information has become freely available to businesses. 

Interestingly, big data is becoming an integral part of governance structures utilised by the governments around the world. 

According to V. Morabito, author of Big Data and Analytics, e-governments’ use of big data benefits citizens in a range of ways, none more so than cost reduction in the public sector. For instance, crowdsourcing information can reduce the amount of money governments spend on detecting and reporting civil issues such as graffiti and potholes.  

New South Wales, a big data analytics leader?

In August, the government announced plans to set up a whole-of-government data analytics centre. Minister for Innovation and Better Regulation Victor Dominello said that data is one of the state’s most important assets. 

“Whether it’s tackling crime, combating obesity or addressing housing affordability, we cannot hope to develop solutions to the long-term challenges that our state faces without an effective whole-of-government data sharing platform,” he said. 

The government aims to combine information from a range of sources to attain better insights.

How can big data help cities run effectively?How can big data help cities run effectively?

Information is now intangible gold

As New South Wales’ economy transitions to a knowledge-based economy, it is important that regulators and governance structures keep up. 

Chair of the Australian Information Industry Association Kee Wong praised the government for its establishment of a data analytics centre. 

“As we mature into a knowledge-based economy, the role of data and the ability to link data from multiple sources, supported by appropriate privacy and security, will drive more effective and innovative government as well as contribute to the competitiveness of the NSW economy,” Mr Wong said.

To access this kind of data, employers will need workers with the required skills. To find out how you can take advantage of a knowledge-based economy, talk to a quality course provider today and find out how you can be part of the big data revolution.

Risk Management Using The Right Approach

It was just last year that the Ponemon Institute and IBM announced startling global data breach statistics. According to the organisations, in the Cost of Data Breach Study: Global Analysis study, the average cost of a data breach grew 23 per cent from the same report in 2013.

The COBIT 5 framework has long been seen as a leading framework for the effective governance and management of IT.

This study analysed 350 companies across 11 countries, also finding that the average cost incurred for every record lost or stolen grew from 2013, rising from US$145 to US$154.

Interestingly, Gartner explained that 75 per cent of enterprise information security budgets will be allocated solely for the purposes of rapid detection and response in 2020, a step up from the 10 per cent in 2012.

What’s more, the organisation also noted that worldwide spending on IT security is increasing as government initiatives, increased legislation and data breaches continue to mount. Interestingly, digital business is another leading factor in security spending growth.

“Interest in security technologies is increasingly driven by elements of digital business, particularly cloud, mobile computing and now also the Internet of Things, as well as by the sophisticated and high-impact nature of advanced targeted attacks,” Elizabeth Kim, research analyst at Gartner noted.

It’s clear that organisations and professionals alike need to start thinking seriously about risk management, especially with data breaches showing no signs of abating, and organisations increasingly funnelling funds into security technologies and processes.

Of course, there’s always a need to balance a focus on security with the actual running of the business. This is where COBIT 5 comes into play.

COBIT 5 for Risk Management

The COBIT 5 framework has long been seen as a leading framework for the effective governance and management of IT, especially at the enterprise level. The real value of COBIT 5 lies in just how how broad the applications are. The associated tools, guidance and resources can help with things like regulatory compliance, risk management and of course information security.

COBIT 5 goes beyond risk management solely with regards to IT security.

COBIT 5 also goes beyond risk management solely with regards to IT security. There’s a misconception in the IT industry that all risks are security-related, even though there’s actually a significant number of scenarios and possible IT issues that need to be considered.

This is where COBIT 5 for Risk can prove a useful consideration for IT professionals and organisations alike. It’s designed to offer introductory as well as practical coverage of all aspects related to the management and governance of risk within the wider organisation.

Get in touch with ALC Training

Training with the experts is always the best way to ensure either you or your employees have the knowledge needed to utilise a framework. This means getting in touch with ALC Training.

ALC offer a number of different courses focused on some of the most capable and proven frameworks available. SABSA, ITIL and PRINCE2 are just a few of the others available that can certainly help individuals to up-skill. This isn’t to mention the COBIT 5 offerings.

Reach out to ALC Training today if you’d like to get started with a framework that can really help with risk management. In turn, organisational security will seem a far less daunting prospect.

Security risks aren’t likely to decrease at any point in the near future, and organisations need to be prepared by equipping professionals with the right skill sets.

How Driverless Are Tesla Electric Cars

I’ve given a few runs of my presentation on Driverless Cars in Australia, Malaysia and NewZealand. One thing I’ve noticed is how engaged and excited the audience become when they see a Tesla Model S, driving itself for the first time. What I wanted to achieve in this blog, is to share with you some of this magic and some of the graphics and features I present to the audience.

Now…the reason I’ve picked the Tesla Model S is because: 1 – it’s a cool car, 2 – it’s Tesla and who doesn’t love Elon Musk and 3 – They make the most advanced and lowest price driverless cars in the world…oh…and did I tell you they have the best range of any electric car, maxing out at around 667km for the lower-end model at 70 kph (see diagram 1 below) and decreasing to 452km at 120 kph. (see diagram 2 below).

Pretty impressive huh?

(Source: Tesla)

(Source: Tesla)

The Tesla Enhanced Autopilot system

The Tesla Enhanced Autopilot system is the key to the car. It provides a number of different automatic features.  New features are added as software upgrades, with the Autopilot hardware already set to support years of automation ahead.  For those worried about hackers, the software upgrades only happen whilst the car is parked safely at home. The car is completely independent when mobile, so all network traffic is blocked.

There are 3 driver assist features I want to demonstrate via a series of compelling videos.

  1. Autosteer
  2. Auto Lane Changes
  3. Traffic Aware Cruise Control

These features do not make the car driverless or fully autonomous, but provide a pathway to automated driving in the future:

Fully Autonomous

Full Driverless or Fully Autonomous mode is the final feature to demo. The best video I’ve found is the one shown by Tesla. Bear in mind, this video is now over 1 year old. To make the video shorter, the footage has been accelerated.

https://www.tesla.com/en_AU/videos/autopilot-self-driving-hardware-neighborhood-short

Source: Tesla

The 3 screens on the right, show 3 of the 8 cameras that the Autopilot system is using. The green boxes show seeing threats to the car, such as other cars and pedestrians, the blue boxes show out-of-path objects which it does not deem as threats to the car. It even picks up the traffic signals, see the orange colours, against the bright cloud background. The automation is controlled by Artificial Intelligence which is delivered through a variety of technologies and techniques. The key technique at play here is Deep Learning, otherwise known as Neural Network modelling.

To find out more around how to use Deep Learning, you can visit Tesla’s partner, Nvidia.

 

Interested in ALC Cloud Computing Courses?

https://alctraining.com.au/courses/cloud-computing/

How Well Do You Know Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity. It can be an intimidating prospect to get your head around, especially when IT isn’t in your job description. However, digital infrastructure has quickly become the dominant foundation upon which businesses are operating. While the digital sphere offers countless advantages and opportunities, it also brings with it a new threats.

5 Signs That You Were Born to Be a Project Manager

A project’s life cycle has a defined start, middle and end with a clear set of objectives. These objectives are managed by coordinated efforts that only work cohesively and effectively when managed by a project manager.

A project manager provides direction and guidance to project managers and project officers. project managers identify, rationalise, monitor and control the inter-dependencies and escalated issues among projects that fall under the project umbrella. A project manager tracks the contribution of each project member to consolidate results.

Considering a career as a project manager? Tasks you should presume to perform include:

How to know when you’re ready to be a project manager

A project manager is responsible for the successful delivery of the whole of the proposed change or implemented idea. That can be quite a weight on your shoulders, so before you jump into a new position, consider if you’re ready for the role. You will know you’re ready when…

1. You understand how to leverage the strengths of your team

Truly effective managers recognise that all team members have their unique strengths and that in order to function optimally, a project should pull on these individual strengths. When strengths are considered, not only do you see increased productivity, you see higher engagement and retention too.

If you pay attention to the strengths around you, assign team projects based on unique strengths, incorporate strengths into performance reviews and conversations, encourage your team to actively discover their strengths, and tap into the strength of others to improve performance, you’re ready to be a project manager.

2. You can communicate clearly with your team

Effective workplace communication builds rapport and trust and maintains transparency in the workplace. In turn this enables better employee management, boosts morale, and facilitates innovation. A healthy company culture comes from working collaboratively and communicating often, and sharing honest feedback can work wonders for productivity.

If you can identify your team players, develop and enforce procedures clearly, be a platform for information sharing, facilitate and encourage social interaction, offer clear directives instead of suggestions, attach deadlines and maintain confidence as you speak, you’re ready to be a project manager.

3. You know how to manage your time

Effective time management requires planning and commitment. You must be dedicated to ‘sticking to the plan’ and not easily distracted. Good time management exercises conscious control over time spent on specific activities to increase effectiveness, efficiency and productivity.

If you set clear goals, make to-do lists, break goals into small chunks, prioritise, schedule time for breaks and contingencies, don’t procrastinate, manage your emails and phone calls, keep a time log, delegate, have good filing systems in place, and know when to say no, you’re ready to be a project manager.

4. You’re using Scrum to efficiently work to a deadline

Working to a deadline requires practical methodology to ensure a team works rapidly and flexibly to deliver client and business requirements. Agile working practices speed up iterations and give you more opportunity to refine product or service quality. Focusing on incremental changes and improvements facilitates high-quality outcomes, and allows you to test on-the-go and work improvements into your design.

If you’re using an agile framework like Scrum or you can manage everyday challenges effectively, from product quality and customer satisfaction to project ROI, control and risk, you’re ready to be a project manager.

5. You can use empathy to motivate your team

The ability to read and understand other’s emotions and needs – empathy – is one of the core competencies of good leadership. Emotional intelligence allows you to influence, inspire, keep people on track, and help people achieve their dreams and goals. Empathy requires self-awareness, self-management, patience and endurance, but once you’ve got it you to begin to connect in a real and meaningful way.

If you observe, listen, ask questions, be fully present and respectful, and put relationships above results, you are ready to be a project manager.

Training to be a successful project manager

Projects require intensive control due to their complexity and scope. This can only be effected with the support of you – the project manager.

An appropriate work breakdown structure is important for every project, so if you’re not sure this is where your strengths lie, consider undergoing project management training with ALC Training.

ALC has more than 20 years experience in providing the highest quality project management training. We cover the entire AXELOS portfolio including PRINCE2®, MSP®, P3O® & MoP®, as well as APMG International’s AgilePM® course. Also, new to our portfolio stream is the Professional Scrum Master™ course – accredited by Scrum.org.

Give us a call today on 1300 767 592 (AU).

How to Break Bad Work Habits to Become More Productive

Productivity in the workplace is an important thing – any successful business understands this. Productivity utilises the capacity of human resource, the basis of all organisations.

Think of productivity as an economic measure of output per unit of input. Labour and capital is the input, while output is the revenue. Labour and capital are both scarce resources, therefore maximising their impact should be of core concern to business managers.

Maximised impact will look different for every company, but in general it means a fruitful, high-yielding day that’s capable of producing large amounts of goods, crops or other commodities. If a day is productive, a lot of ‘useful stuff’ is done.

Methods of productivity vary, but many methods revolve around the streamlining of work to save time. One might focus on the right things and the right time, invest in IT to simplify processes, or divide projects into small goals. Different techniques work for different people, but the result of productivity always remains the same…better business.

Blockages of productivity

Despite understanding the power of productivity, it is and continues to be one of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs, executives, and the workforce in general. Mostly, it’s because people rarely slow down enough to evaluate their work and prioritise. The idea of “pausing” seems counterintuitive, but taking the time to evaluate time really can save you time. Crazy, right?

When you don’t pause to take stock, you get stressed. Stress is never a good thing and the more stress you experience the less productive you become.

Stress is no stranger to most people, but that doesn’t mean you have to live with it. Stress can be managed when you slow things down and carefully plan your time. When you slow things down you suddenly realise there is time for a career, a social life, family, a relationship, and hobbies.

If you feel your productivity is being stalled, look to see what’s causing it. Common reasons include:

Not getting enough sleep

When you try to cram in a few more hours of work or “you time” before bed, you’re likely taking this time away from sleep. You might be able to function this way short-term, but in the end those few extra hours will come back to bite you.

The solution: Stick to the same nightly routine and bedtime whenever possible. It helps to say goodbye to night time technology too. Make a promise to yourself that you won’t pick up a device at least 1 hour before bed, and aim to get a full eight hours every night.

Not exercising

When you exercise in the morning, you increase blood flow to the brain, sharpening your awareness and preparing you to take on the next big project. Exercise gives you energy, and having more energy means you’ll feel more awake at work. Even if you choose to exercise after work, increased fitness will fuel your working days.

The solution: If you don’t have time for a full workout in the mornings, aim to include a number of small steps in your day instead. Park a little further away from work than normal and take the stairs to your office instead of the lift. Mid morning, leave your desk and go for a quick walk around the block.

Skipping meals

Successful CEOs know that a productive day starts with a good breakfast. Never skip breakfast. Also, don’t skip a morning snack, or lunch, or an afternoon snack – regular eating is the key to productivity! Your body needs fuel and water to keep going and when you deprive your body of fuel and water, it cannot function at its best. Eat appropriately, hydrate often and your focus will remain strong throughout the day.

The solution: Start your day with a good breakfast such as a soft boiled egg, avocado and wholemeal English muffin. Keep in your desk a range of healthy snacks like nuts or seeds and when it comes to lunch, ensure you eat it outside and away from your desk.

Failing to disconnect from technology

Technology is a part of life these days and there is no denying this. Whether working, checking emails, browsing the web, online shopping, or checking your favourite social media apps, your face is buried in a screen most of the day. When you don’t disconnect from this, at least for a little while, your health and focus can be damaged.

The solution: Allow yourself to disconnect from technology by giving yourself a screen break every hour. At best, try to spend at least three hours of every day with no technology at all.

Bringing work home leads to burnout

Bringing work home each day can lead you to feel overworked and exhausted. It’s okay to give up some of your “own time” on occasions, but every night – no way! Bringing work home makes you feel like you’re never getting a break, and breaks are important for recharging.

The solution: Keep access to your email on your work phone and computer only. If you get notifications on your personal devices, you’ll never switch off. When you clock out of the office, realise it’s your time.

Social media

Social media is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand it makes promoting a business easy, but on the other it can be enormously distracting. You might think checking social media for a few minutes every hour is okay, but time can quickly get away from you and time adds up.

The solution: Instead of trawling through your newsfeed wondering if anything exciting has happened to the people you care most about, set a designated time to check your feed. Turn off your notifications to eliminate distractions too.

Using the Scrum method to become more productive

For those wanting to ensure blockages of productivity don’t affect their working day, they use Scrum, an agile framework for completing complex projects. Scrum was originally formalised for software development projects, but today it works well for any complex, innovative scope of work. Deceptively simple, the possibilities are endless.

With Scrum, productivity is made easy. Scrum has the power to transform project management across every industry, every business, and even in everyday life. Scrum helps you react more quickly, respond more accurately, stay focused, collaborate and communicate, allowing you to accomplish exactly what it is that needs doing.

Whether you’re designing a new app, managing a new health project or planning an event, Scrum can help. It’s a proven framework used by Microsoft, Adobe and Google and supports you to stay on top of all your tasks. Become a Professional Scrum Master with ALC Training and not only can you help yourself, you can help others in your team stay on top too. The course provides cutting-edge instruction for anyone coaching a development team toward increased efficiency and effectiveness.

If you’re already using the Scrum framework or you’re a product manager, program manager, designer or developer, take the next step by becoming a Professional Scrum Master. Call ALC Training on 1300 767 592 today.

How Amazon and Spotify Used Scrum to Change How They Work

Amazon and Spotify are two market leaders known for their dynamism and technological know-how. In this Scrum case study, we’ll analyse how their approach to agile working improved the way they work and how this can be instructive for other organisations seeking to adopt agile practices.

How Amazon use Scrum in the workplace

Amazon, which has opened several warehouses in Australia, has long been using Scrum in its work practices. Since 1999, the company has been using agile practices for managing its employees.

In the years ranging between 2004 and 2009, Scrum became widely adopted in its development organisations. Amazon’s adoption strategy has been described as an unplanned and decentralised transformation that’s different from the way Scrum adoption usually takes place.

6 ways Amazon uses the Scrum methodology:

  1. Permission
    Amazon’s teams were given broad discretion to solve their own problems without detailed prescriptive practices from a central authority. The decentralised decision-making discretion is designed to let teams create, deliver, and operate high-quality software in a streamlined and red-tape-free way.

  2. Teams
    Stable and long-lived teams support agile practices. Development teams have one manager to whom they report to directly. These standard Amazon team policies make the culture and work arrangement consistent with Scrum practices.

  3. Knowledge
    The spark was lit through team members who were happy to help educate others about Scrum on an ad hoc and voluntary basis. Once they were educated in the practices, individual teams were able to make ground-level decisions about how to implement it. The results these teams achieved drove other teams to become interested.

  4. Scale capacity
    Amazon switched from dedicated servers to AWS and removed the siloed approach from their operations and development teams. This means their developers can deploy individual codes to any of their servers at their disposal, allowing the business to move and innovate faster. Engineers can scale up or down their capacity without restrictions.

  5. Better software
    Adopting Agile has allowed Amazon to deliver better software and save considerably on costs. An average of their 40% of dedicated-servers capacity ended up going to waste. Shifting to Agile practices have seen their engineers deploy a code every 12 seconds, accompanied by a drop in the volume and duration of outages.

  6. Impetus
    With ad hoc, voluntary Scrum education; an email-based Scrum community; and occasional Scrum master training sessions, a critical mass of teams had adopted the winning practice. Following this, a Scrum trainer/coach position was created, and having a full-time trainer on board meant easier adoption and high-quality agile working implementations.

Scrum implementation happened from the ground-level up at Amazon. No timelines or mandates were used. It didn’t start with management-level decisions and prescriptive plans for adoption.

By encouraging Scrum through fostering a culture of innovation and ensuring information about it is available, organisations can drive adoption by responding to demand and removing impediments as they’re discovered. Allowing stable, long-term teams to exist and giving teams plenty of discretion about how they would adopt went a long way to make this approach to agile working successful.

How Spotify use Scrum in the workplace

How Spotify Uses Agile

For a contrasting approach, Spotify provides a suitable case study. Unlike Google’s “grassroots” strategy, the digital music service had a  systematic approach to adopting Scrum. Spotify’s approach has some similarities with Google’s, but its key tenet is living and breathing Scrum as a development methodology. The Scrum masters at Spotify are required to be experienced agile coaches, and many of the company’s Scrum masters are leading agile trainers.

In addition to complete management buy-in, Spotify uses small teams that, like Google’s Scrum teams, are totally independent. These “squads” are treated like individual startups. They’re allowed to be fully autonomous and work independently to focus on assigned, specific functions within Spotify’s product.

These autonomous teams are organised into  larger units of tribes and loosely structured into chapters and guilds to drive stronger knowledge sharing between teams. Spotify’s team approach seems to balance team independence with knowledge-sharing between specialist groups that don’t engage in daily collaboration. At the same time, Spotify is avoiding scaling issues by decoupling where possible.

This approach allows the business to quickly develop and deliver software updates. An additional benefit of these small, autonomous teams is they can make changes and deliver upgrades without interfering the other teams’ work. These squads or teams completely own their pieces of product, so they can deploy, change, and upgrade that piece without interrupting anything else. 

A rapid removal of roadblocks is also key to Spotify’s successful adoption of Scrum. Spotify makes it a priority to deal with roadblocks and issues as soon as they arise, and does so by constantly monitoring possible impediments and eliminating them before they turn into issues. This allows their teams to move rapidly to achieve goals and scale-up.

What you can learn from Amazon and Spotify’s Agile project management

Amazon and Spotify have very different approaches as far as the adoption of Scrum is concerned. In the case of Amazon, the organisation allowed adoption to happen incrementally and at the ground level, as demand drove it. In the case of Spotify, it was a deliberate, management-sanctioned plan that led to Scrum implementation.

However, the two businesses are similar in how they use the process. Scrum is used in order to allow teams to be autonomous and self-directing. Spotify’s approach allows them to emphasise autonomous and discrete teams that work separately from others. Amazon’s use of Scrum is focused on long-term, stable teams.

In addition, Amazon’s practice focuses on sharing knowledge and driving better understanding through resources like training, email-based communities, and expert coaches. For Spotify, the removal of roadblocks is vital for rapid responses, product iterations, and scaling up.

How Scrum innovates the way you work

ALC Training - How Scrum innovates the way you work3

Scrum rethinks the traditional hierarchical management ideology by suggesting a flatter, more empowering working structure is better. This type of organisation can be superior because it can enable you to leverage the skills of individuals and teams while responding more dynamically and being more innovative.

Scrum teams can include a product owner, a development team, and a Scrum master. Instead of the team taking instructions from a senior manager, the Scrum team is usually self-organising and cross-functional.

This means the team chooses how they will do their work. Since they’re cross-functional, Scrum teams don’t need to work with other teams and can act dynamically to achieve goals without waiting for others.

Since products are designed in an iterative and incremental way, teams have a lot of opportunities to test, take feedback into account, and engage in continuous improvement. The development team are by design small enough to stay dynamic but sizeable enough to deal with the workloads required for sprints.

Sprints are another core element of Scrum, and they’re a time-box of four weeks or less during when a useable and possibly releasable version of a product is produced. Sprints can result in a final product or be used to produce product increments rapidly.

Why the role of Scrum Master is pivotal for agile working

Scrum masters play a pivotal role in any Scrum environment. They are responsible for ensuring teammates understand the goals of the agile method. The Scrum master helps team members achieve this by sharing their knowledge of Scrum theory, practices, and rules.

A secondary role of the Scrum Master is to help others outside of the team understand the usefulness of their interactions of with team members. This allows outsiders, who are within the organisation, adapt their interactions to best support the Scrum team members.

The Scrum Master is also responsible for removing impediments to the team’s progress, and they may play a significant role in the organisation by coaching and leading the organisation in Scrum adoption.

Ready to become a Scrum Master and enhance the way you work? 

If you’re keen to take the next step to improve how your team works, sign up to our Professional Scrum Master course. Presented by Erwin van der Koogh, one of the most experienced Scrum Master trainers in the Asia-Pacific region, this course is the world premium certification for anyone wanting to master Scrum. 

5 Everyday Management Problems Solved by Agile Project Management

Agile Project Management (AgilePM) offers a practical methodology for ensuring your teamwork rapidly and flexibly to deliver client requirements. From product quality and customer satisfaction to project ROI, control, and risk, you as the project manager need to be able to manage everyday challenges effectively. So how does agile help you address these issues?

1. Ensuring high product quality

The agile methodology is focused on testing, which is integrated into the cycle. Your team has numerous chances to inspect and correct designs or product iterations during the development cycle.

The just-in-time approach keeps product features relevant while allowing you a chance to ensure it’s as high quality as possible. Issues are kept fresh by the just-in-time iterative method, so your team can work dynamically to correct and improve while the concepts are still fresh in mind.

Agile emphasises automated testing tools, and this can also speed up iterations and give you more chances to refine product quality. Focusing on incremental changes and improvements allow you to work improvements into the design, test as you go, and avoid perfection paralysis. The flexibility to change lends itself well to continuous improvement, facilitating a high-quality-product outcome.

2. Greater customer satisfaction

Meeting customer satisfaction is a constant challenge for businesses. Agile development and project management methods help managers address this core value.

One way to improve customer satisfaction is taking advantage of the quick feedback available through agile methodologies. By integrating customer feedback into each product iteration or throughout the production and/or delivery process, you can refine the product rapidly to deliver a product closely matching their requirements.

Client engagement is another avenue for improving satisfaction. Active participation of customers throughout the project, through collaboration and communication, can boost satisfaction. Combined with the flexibility to change, regular sprint reviews, and rapid iteration, you’re more likely to end up with a product that reaches the market in a shorter timeframe. This, in turn, can also increase client satisfaction.

3. Increased project control

Project managers balancing competing priorities and multiple moving parts can find it challenging to retain control throughout the project. However, by using agile and avoiding the traditional waterfall management techniques, you can end up with increased project control.

This can happen through the smaller, focused groups, which you as the project manager can guide more effectively with regular meetings, specific goals, and rapid changes. Using Scrum (a type of agile working framework) tools like time-boxes and roles, for example, could let you retain more control over your project and team. Sprint meetings and greater transparency are other possible ways for retaining greater control over projects.

Project cost control is another important element, and agile project management can help project managers retain control over this aspect through dynamism. This could happen by allowing you to make new changes quickly, with little costs. For example, the rapid-iteration model lets you develop, refine, and test new products incrementally, which is likely to be more cost-effective than large-scale, longer-cycle development models.

4. Taking less risk on projects

Since agile project management techniques focus on rapid iteration and incremental improvements, there’s a lower chance of absolute project failure. Project managers are effectively dealing with less risk because they usually start with a working product as they sprint quickly from one iteration to the next. Using Scrum planning, for example, will allow you to manage costs and time to completion more effectively, to reduce the risk of falling behind and excessive project costs.

Rapid improvements shorten the timeframe it takes to finalise the product, and integrating client feedback into the process also helps ensure the final product is on point. The shorter timeframe to completion reduces budgetary requirements and minimises cost-blowout risks, a major concern of project managers. Client rejection or contract breach is less likely because of the incremental changes and client collaboration.

5. Agile Project Management results in faster ROI

AgilePM is associated with quicker time to market and higher productivity. Both of these allow your business to realise faster and higher ROI. Rapid iteration, incremental changes, and flexibility to change allow agile projects to reach the final product more quickly.

For businesses, this can shorten the time to obtaining ROI, allowing you to generate more cash flow and from rapid ready-to-market product development cycles. Rather than the long delivery cycles associated with businesses, you can start selling much more quickly.

Refining products quickly and reaching the ready-to-sell stage earlier means you can release products faster, respond to changing marketing conditions, and leverage first-mover advantage. You can take advantage of niches and new gaps in the marketplace to increase your ROI before competitors move in.

AgilePM – with Scrum methodology being a notable type of management methodology – can provide project managers with practical tools to manage simple to complex teams. By applying agile techniques, you can successfully guide your team to achieve faster ROI while improving client satisfaction and product quality.

Sign up to our agile training course

ALC Training is an accredited provider of AgilePM® training, the world’s leading framework and certification for agile project management. Whether you’re an experienced project manager or starting out in the field, our courses can assist you with in-depth knowledge on applying agile techniques. Contact us today for more information.