Social media has completely transformed how we communicate, create and collaborate. We keep seeing organizations showcase their brand value and culture by effectively positioning themselves on various social platforms. Social media has become a key driver in software product innovation along with rooted Agile principles and practices to deliver in this dynamic settings and evolving parameters. But this is from an outward and CX perspective, have we looked at the possibility on how being social can influence the inward practices of agile engineering?
If we delve further into Agile Engineering practices and look at the intricacies of everyday processes, we can decipher that the everyday agile teams also work in a tight Social Media inspired collaborative space. Let’s look at a few evident similarities/thoughts:
ARE YOU?
- Doing daily check-in’s, Small is Good? Agile and DevOPS helps in pushing small change sets to production?
- Flaunting with #PRs raised the way you post your pics on Facebook about everything
- Sharing your learnings on Wiki the way you share on Social media platforms?
- Following SME’s on wiki the way you follow on Twitter and reading and reacting on the documents?
- Updating your status regularly on tickets the way you update your on social media?
- Watching feeds on JIRA/Confluence board/Slack and go through detailing?
- Part of relevant groups on Slack channels the way you are part of groups on different messenger platforms… following / contributing and acting on the messages?
- Many more examples…
Growing need to apply the social media behaviour principles to agile engineering principles for achieving five Prime C’s:
- Continuous Cognizance: Browsing behaviour principles we should also look at our check-in feeds, ticket feeds and posts continuous awareness to deliver using the most important goal of delivering results in dynamic settings
- Continuous Interaction: A well communicated team that is always in touch discussing, strategizing, troubleshooting has high chances of delivering a successful software than teams that work in silos
- Continuous Monitoring: Content on social media generates further conversations in the form of comments, discussions, related topic association; similarly teams should acknowledge changes and actively debate how it will affect current and future development scope and fuel technology
- Continuous Update: Social media strategies thrive on the notion that you remain relevant and keep friends/follower interested if you post well thought out content regularly. Similarly one need to post updates on appropriate channels to generate traction and invite feedback from other team members, stakeholders
- Continuous Improvement: Over time, like any social media strategy, the team will keep maturing and being ‘social’ will become a routine/habit. This will strengthen the actual implementation of agile principles.
Being ‘Social’ in Agile engineering is integral part of the practices and help product engineering companies to complement business growth and transform into a truly digital and dynamic organization.