The course is part of these learning paths
This course provides the foundational knowledge that is required to effectively design and implement an agile work management approach in Azure DevOps. You will learn about project metrics and key performance indicators, or KPIs, and how they relate to DevOps projects. The course then moves on to how to mentor team members on Agile practices, as well as in-team and cross-team collaboration. You’ll learn how to achieve effective collaboration through cultural changes, cross-functional team collaboration, and tooling. The course comes to an end by looking at the steps and requirements required for creating organizational structures for Agile practices.
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Learning Objectives
- Understand the metrics and KPIs used in Azure DevOps, and the benefits they bring
- Learn how Agile methods can be applied to teams through the use of mentoring and in-team and cross-team collaboration
- Understand the tools and processes necessary for Agile practices
- Understand the difference between horizontal and vertical teams
Intended Audience
This course is intended for:
- Students preparing for Microsoft's AZ-400 exam
- Anyone wanting to increase their understanding of Agile work practices in an Azure DevOps context
Prerequisites
To get the most from this course, you should have a basic understanding of Microsoft Azure and DevOps concepts.
Hello and welcome to Creating Organizational Structures for Agile Practices. Anytime an organization reorganizes, things can get a little bit challenging, reorganizing to become agile is no exception. As I mentioned earlier in the course, becoming an agile organization requires a shift in culture. This means that any existing processes and even policies within the organization are going to be challenged. These reorganization pains are typically more noticeable in larger organizations, because there are often certain operating structures that are in place, as well as many rigid rules and methodologies.
Because businesses today are starting to recognize that their structures and processes do not lend themselves well to agile, many are now making changes. Such changes include the move from horizontal teams to vertical teams.
An organization that leverages a horizontal team structure will often divide its teams based on software architecture. For example, the image on your screen shows how an organization might be divided into teams that are based on user interface, service-oriented architecture and data.
However, a vertical team structure like the one you now see on your screen will typically align with outcomes and span across the architecture rather than mirror it.
Organizations will often leverage vertical teams when running agile projects because vertical teams will often result in stronger outcomes. Vertical teams also offer the flexibility of better scaling. This is because teams can be based on features rather than projects.
As you can see on the screen, we've built upon our previous vertical team structure simply by adding teams that reflect additional features and outcomes.
At the end of the day, when creating organizational structures for agile practices, you should aim to build vertical teams rather than horizontal ones.
Lectures
- Course Introduction
- Project Metrics and KPIs
- Mentoring Team Members on Agile Practices
- In-Team and Cross-Team Collaboration
- Tools and Processes for Agile Practices
- Conclusion
Tom is a 25+ year veteran of the IT industry, having worked in environments as large as 40k seats and as small as 50 seats. Throughout the course of a long an interesting career, he has built an in-depth skillset that spans numerous IT disciplines. Tom has designed and architected small, large, and global IT solutions.
In addition to the Cloud Platform and Infrastructure MCSE certification, Tom also carries several other Microsoft certifications. His ability to see things from a strategic perspective allows Tom to architect solutions that closely align with business needs.
In his spare time, Tom enjoys camping, fishing, and playing poker.