Agile kick off at WeMake
June the 13, 2017
Together with Chiara e Silvia, from the WeMake - OpenCare MIR team, we explored the main steps of the Agile Planning, which made us able to focus more on our project ResQ.
For those who are not familiar with this methodology, Agile is an effective way of working that helps teams in identifying their unique value proposition, and how to make it real.
Therefore we went through the following steps:
- 01_Why are we here
- 02_The elevator pitch
- 03_The product box
- 04_The Not list
- 05_Meet your neighbours
- 06_What keep us up at night
- 07_Size it up
As following a deeper view on each one.
01_Why are we here
During this first step each member of the team wrote down on a Post-it its own expectations about outcomes, both for themselves and for the group, that the projects might will produce.
Doing this exercise clarified our visions and interests about our ultimate goal.
Therefore we found out that as a group we are very aligned in our aims, in fact, everybody pointed out how crucial are motivations as the personal development and the social impact of our project.
02_The elevator pitch
This exercise consists in completing a brief sentence that should summarize the main aspect of the project involved.
In particular the fixed terms of the sentence are:
- the (name): name of the project to realize
- is (category): what we are going to create
- that (benefit): aim, what the product does
- among (target): people to whom is dedicated
- and (second target): second group of people to whom is dedicated
- who/ that: the interaction between these two target groups
- unlike: comparison with competitors/ status quo (current situation) or other services
- our project (do): the peculiar difference (innovation) that set apart the project from the competitors/ status quo
The final result of this activity has been:
Resq is an application that makes easier the communication between physician in critical context and migrants who need healthcare services. Unlike the current situation, our service speeds up and eases the sharing of medical data.
03_The product box
The product box is the creation of a small advertisement of the product/ service as it has to be streamed on the media.
Resq: Behind the boundaries!
04_The Not list
Everyone wrote down the activities we should accomplish in order to get our goal in the end of these two weeks of residence at WeMake.
We all agreed that we should have used this time to focus more on the research of the context and therefore an the analysis of the data gathered so far, rather than on the development of the software itself.
To point it out even more clearly, we separated the activity we will accomplish for sure, from those we are already sure we won’t be able to do, finding also a little place for “hope” 
05_Meet you neighbours
The exploration of the closest communities of people we should and we will be surrounded of, since we are working in such a project. Also, these are the communities we will work for and from which we could benefit as well.
06_What keep us up at night (the nightmares)
The so-called nightmares.
Or, in other words, the most worrying threats we think we might stumble in during our work.
With the support of Chiara and Silvia we eventually analyzed each items, in order to constructively see if the concern was realistic and/ or how to tackle with it, thus to solve it.
06_Size it up (time planning)
After having defined the activities to accomplish in two weeks, we started to resize them for every day. In this way was easier to find an agreement on what to do exactly each day and how much time we should dedicate them.
The agile method also suggests to host a so-called “stand-up meeting” every workday morning, in order to keep up on what has been accomplished and has been delayed.