Changes in Practice

In the past two decades, modern agile practices have been refined and improved upon in order to meet the needs of today’s businesses. Companies now understand that agility requires self-organizing teams, continuous improvement, collaboration between departments, and customer feedback loops. The biggest change is a shift from traditional waterfall delivery models toward more iterative approaches such as Scrum or Kanban. Scrum masters are responsible for guiding team development cycles towards success and ensuring quality throughout each sprint cycle. Similarly, Kanban boards help teams visualize their workflow so they can identify bottlenecks early on and make adjustments quickly if necessary.

Organizations have also moved away from siloed design thinking where individuals worked independently towards cross functional collaboration where different areas add value together using multiple tools such as prototyping and experimenting with new ideas to see what works best for the end goals in mind. Along with this transition comes an increased focus on customer experience (CX) which requires strong communication between those involved in product design and those close to customers who can gauge how changes will be received once made available to the public. Having these kinds of conversations earlier on leads to better solutions that support both user needs, corporate objectives and large scale societal impact all at once!

Benefits of Agile Development

The benefits of working with an agile approach have been massive for many companies across numerous industries. Faster time-to-market means earlier profits and customer satisfaction; improved collaboration leads to better problem solving; faster feedback loops allow for corrections sooner rather than later; efficient resource management helps reduce cost waste; greater transparency allows for better planning and decision making at all levels of an organization; increased employee engagement as developers feel more empowered due to frequent reviews or code rewrites based on customer feedback; finally a reduction in complexity – after several iterations you’ll soon realize some features may not need implementing due serendipitous discoveries through experimentation but weren’t considered before starting out on your journey towards agility excellence!

Challenges of Agile Development

While agile development has had major benefits for many companies, there are still some challenges that need to be addressed before we can consider ourselves truly agile oriented organizations. Teams often struggle with adopting new practices or adjusting existing ones due to lack of experience or internal resistance to change; lack of support from senior leadership may lead to an environment where people don’t feel safe when taking risks; inadequate user experience design may cause features to be developed without consideration for the target audience; insufficient resources can limit opportunities for improvement; finally ineffective communication between departments slows down progress significantly which can lead to costly disruptions further down the line.

To expand on this even further there’s also difficulty associated with maintaining legacy codebases (software written 2+ years ago) along side new developments leading up confusion when trying figure out what pieces are contributing what functionality at certain points (which module does feature xyz interact with?). Furthermore managing dependencies between modules after major refactoring becomes critical especially when dealing with distributed systems because any little mistake could cascade across multiple services resulting maximum disruption!

Finally let’s not forget about testing! Writing automated tests was never particularly enjoyable task but given the higher velocity development cycles nowadays it must be done accurately otherwise regressions can creep back into system if you’re not careful – plus knowing what you should even test becomes difficult too if specific business logic isn’t well defined upfront… All these issues must be tackled head on by organisations pursuing high level agility if they’re serious about becoming successful long term!

Steps Towards Successful Adoption

The good news is that despite all these challenges, it’s still possible to successfully adopt an agile methodology at your organization provided certain steps are taken by leadership: commit fully by addressing any cultural factors preventing successful adoption (e.g., hiring experienced personnel); provide training for team members so they are familiar with modern development practices; focus on creating a culture of learning which encourages failure as part of exploration process; create clear expectations around roles and responsibilities within each department/team/project; develop user experiences that align with strategy goals and objectives; invest heavily into adequate resources (people, tools) needed for success transitioning into an agile environment will require work but with patience and dedication it will pay off eventually leading your organization towards sustained high performance levels over years come!

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Many companies, startups, and professionals understand that this area has immense potential and put effort into coming up with the unique ideas that allow them to take the leading positions. However, since the projects related to artificial intelligence are rather costly, many businesses are looking for ways to reduce the development costs.

A lot of them opt for outsourcing because that’s a go-to alternative, which gives access to a large talent pool of vetted specialists. One of the most popular solutions the businesses make is to hire Ukrainian developers with the help of offshore development center, because local professionals are known for having skills in different areas, including AI.

To get a deeper understanding of the topic, let’s take a look at the most sought-after technologies associated with artificial intelligence.

Speech recognition

Being applied by the organizations for different tasks, like, call routing, voice dialing, or speech-to-text processing, speech recognition converts human speech into a format that computer applications can process. One of the most prominent examples is Siri, which is a virtual assistant created by Apple.

Machine learning

This is one of the essential branches of AI, which is also a sub-discipline of computer science. It enables computers to learn new techniques and become more intelligent, facilitating various processes. Machine learning platforms are gradually becoming indispensable parts of any company because they’re continuously advancing, leveraging algorithms, training tools, big data, and APIs to make a more substantial impact.

Many companies, including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, sell machine learning platforms to help other businesses improve their categorization and prediction practices.

Natural language generation

The mentioned term implies understanding the way people communicate with each other and getting the computer to replicate that behavior. This technology enables humans to interact with computers in a more convenient and natural way. NLG is the AI’s sub-discipline, which converts text into data. Most often, it’s used in customer service, facilitating the processes of creating reports and market summaries. An array of companies, like Lucidworks, Cambridge Semantics, and Digital Reasoning, have a strong interest in this area.

Robotics

Automation is a trend that is here to stay, and robotic process automation implies using scripts and a handful of other tactics to modernize human tasks. This technological application helps emphasize people’s skills and talent.

Cognitive intelligence

This is a combination of several technologies (including machine learning and deep learning, in particular), which helps to create AI services that are able to have human understanding. Cognitive intelligence systems use visual recognition, sound, reading comprehension, and NLP, alongside the two technologies mentioned above, to understand the information associated with human interaction and respond appropriately.

AI optimized hardware

The applications of the next generation are sought-after nowadays, and they become such owing to enhanced graphics and improved central processing units. AI hardware includes chips and GPUs. A notable example in this area is Google using AI in hardware to ensure an end to end control. Also, apart from being used in consumer applications, the technology is implemented in gaming and entertainment.

Decision management

As mentioned above, AI systems are highly valued in different areas, and when it comes to decision management, their impact is immeasurable. When rules and logic are inserted into AI systems, they can be used for training, setup, maintenance, and tuning. The companies implementing AI systems become more profitable, adding value to their businesses. In other words, data-driven decisions optimize the routine.

Image recognition

There are many situations when people need something specific from a picture or a video. And that’s when image recognition solutions step into the game. They can define the necessary objects, as well as diagnose diseases, and study personalities.

Virtual agents

This is a computer program that can effectively interact with people. Chatbots are among the most common examples of how this AI technology is being used nowadays. Also, smart home managers come to mind. Some of the most well-known virtual agents were developed by Apple (Siri), Google (Google Assistant), and Amazon (Alexa).

Biometrics

These are the solutions related to recognizing, measuring, and analyzing the physical features of the body’s structure, form, and human behavior. They help to facilitate the interactions between machines and people. The technology is commonly used for the purpose of market research.

Deep learning platforms

Deep learning uses artificial neural networks, meaning that information goes through them, and their structure changes to a certain level. The point to which they’re affected is based on output and input. It’s widely used in fields that are closely related to recognizing patterns and data applications. Some of the most popular companies in this area are Fluid AI, MathWorks, and Ersatz Labs.

Conclusion

AI has already made a tremendous impact on many industries, automating the processes and helping businesses get more tasks done within shorter terms. Organizations dealing with decision-making, among others, point out the effectiveness of using such technologies. So, if you aim to increase your business capacity and get that first-to-the-market advantage, consider implementing artificial intelligence into your routine processes.

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• One platform to support products at all stages of the lifecycle.
• Tools for all stages of software development and support.
• Full traceability of design artifacts, from initial requirements to code, tests and running product.
• Flexible customization to the process: Agile, Lean, Waterfall or hybrid.
• Fast setup and implementation, high speed of employee training.

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Trello application interface

In Trello, you can create an infinite number of personal boards, cards, and lists. You can work in collaboration with others on 10 free boards. If the number of tasks increases, you have to go to a paid version of the program.

You can attach pictures, .docx, .pdf documents, presentations, etc. to cards. You can delegate tasks in Trello by assigning one or more users to each card. Also, cards have fields such as due date, checklists, tags, and comments. You can use them to set reminders so no one forgets about current tasks and to communicate with colleagues.

Other advantages of Trello are worth mentioning:

• A handy KPI (i.e. key indicators of team success) monitoring dashboard.
• Many options for sorting cards.
• Ability to set global milestones (milestones to overcome in order to reach the main goal).
• Templates to quickly create new projects and boards.
• Quick synchronization between the PC version and the mobile app.
• Integration with a large number of popular third-party services.

Cost: free for a small team and personal use; from 735 rubles for removal of limits.

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Kanbanchi offers:

• A simple system with a dashboard for workflow visualization.
• Customizable for your own needs.
• Adding and removing team members.
• Kanban board.
• Maps.
• Error tracking.
• Attachments.
• Search.
• Activity flow.
• Text tags, colors and customization of card backgrounds.
• E-mail notifications.
• Changes in real time.
• Comments.

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The principle of YouTrack is almost identical to that of competing applications. The board is divided into columns, and in each column, you can create a list of tasks. Tasks can be organized by priority, deadline, and other criteria.

Each project can have several stages focused specifically on software development. These include “completed tasks”, “in development”, “review”, “testing”, etc.

YouTrack also has:

• An easy-to-use interface with Drag & Drop support.
• Pre-prepared templates for quick creation of boards and cards.
• Convenient functions of communication between colleagues and superiors.
• Ability to set a limit on the number of tasks you can add to the column.
• Advanced analytics system.
• Integration with Zendesk, GitLab, GitHub and other advanced tools for developers.

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YouGile features:

• Creation of access roles, 72 parameters to configure
• infinite nesting of tasks into subtasks, building cascade structure of projects
• boards accessible via a link, with the ability to communicate for guests
• flexible reporting-summary and online monitoring system
• event log – full transparency of people, projects and boards

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Allows you to describe work phases or production stages to clearly understand what your colleagues are doing. Transition states and rules allow you to describe the process and follow it.

Simple and effective metrics are available to analyze team productivity. Measurements of current process parameters allow you to identify weaknesses.

The service helps to record demo results, retrospectives and achieved agreements in the knowledge base so that you can return to them later and not lose anything.

It is possible to write off temporary workloads while executing tasks so that you can better understand what your colleagues’ time is spent on.

Ready processes for sales, marketing and development management.

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Scrum Time features:

• View current tasks.
• Changing workflow progress.
• Scrum Board.
• Task backlog.
• Work control statistics.
• Notes.
• Interactive event calendar.
• Online messenger.
• Sorting by tags.
• Comprehensive reports and graphs.

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The system implements tools to improve project management using Agile approaches (Agile) and the methodology of project management “Critical Chain” by Elia Goldradt from the set of tools of the Theory of Constraints of Systems (TOC), also there are some elements of PMBoK support.

BIPULSE is a single environment for the project manager and team and provides solutions to the main tasks: project planning, controlling work execution and focusing on what is important.

Key features of the system:

• Automatic scheduling of project schedules by project portfolio, taking into account constraints.
• Recommendations for decision-making by the project manager or project office,
• Monitoring project execution,
• Project completion date forecasting,
• Tools for identifying project bottlenecks.
• Focusing on what’s important to team members.
• Execution discipline control.

In terms of applicability to various aspects of project management, the BIPULSE IT solution provides answers to the questions:

• When will the project be completed?
• Is the team on schedule?
• When will the employee be released?
• What is the employee’s past performance?
• What is the plan for today?
• What is the plan for tomorrow?
• What projects is the employee involved in?
• Who is to blame?

And others related to project planning and individual employee performance.

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