Agile Methods

For Developing
Church
Ministries:
Basketball
Camp

Photo by chelsea
ferenando on Unspl
ash
Agile Methods Basketball Story
As I explain the theories of Agile methods, I will
Agile methods refers to the process of development reiterate them with an example my church
that a business uses to be flexible when developing a developing a basketball camp.
product

The Agile method originated with software development,

I will compare this process with the Agile
but has expanded out to other industries seeking a more theories and the Scrum process.
holistic approach to business development.

The Agile Manfesto defines the elements of the agile

method. It can be found here:

http://agilemanifesto.org/

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash Photo by MontyLov on Unsplash

We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools That is, while there is value in
Working software over comprehensive documentation the items on
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan the right, we value the items on
the left more.
PROBLEM SOLVING At OCN
My wife Heather is the children’s pastor at Oxford Church of the
Nazarene. She has the responsibility of organizing kids events at
church. Christian, a high school student from the youth group,
asked my wife if he could volunteer hours in the children’s
department. In our town, the high school seniors are required to
complete a community service project in the community.
Christian decided to lead a basketball camp for one week at
OCN. Heather agreed to help Christian plan and host a
basketball camp.
PROBLEM SOLVING At OCN part 2
Christian designed and planned out the camp, while my wife
facilitated and only stepped in on decision making when she
needed to.

Although Heather did not intentionally approach the planning of

the camp with Agile and scrum in mind, the process was similar.
Due to the small amount of people involved the roles in the
process were sometimes shared or overlapped.

Certain elements of the Agile and Scrum processes will be

covered even if the basketball camp did not include them in
their development.
 Scrum: moving together as a team to
accomplish a task

The original term of scrum refers to a team

maneuver in rugby, but the act of a team working
together can be applied to any team.

Scrum uses a job board that breaks down a

project into smaller chunks or User Stories. Scrum
also uses daily meetings for sharing the status of
the development, the struggles, and the future
plans.
Scrum identifies where tasks are in the
progression of development.
 OCN: moving together as a team to
accomplish a task

While Heather did not use a Scrum board Tasks

she organize the tasks in way that allowed Ages? Acquire basketballs?
flexible development. How many? Acquire goals?
Cost? T-shirt designs?
There was many tasks that needed to be When? Snacks?
worked out in the development. Who is it for? FB advertise?
Who will help?
While some tasks relied on the completion Daily rotations?
What drills to do?
of other tasks, there was many that could be
What curriculum to
addressed right away, or could be put on
use?
hold. Other tasks were prioritized to drive Who can help?
the development.
User Story: a learning objective for
agile instructional design

As the needs and goals are communicated on the

team they are formed into User Stories. These
stories help organize the tasks that need to be
done.
A template is used to form User Stories:
So Heather’s User Story may be:
As a pastor at OCN I want supervise and mentor
Christian by developing a basketball camp, so
that he can earn his community service hours for
high school.

As a (role) , I want (feature) so that (benefit).
Christian’s User Story could be:
As the director of a basketball camp, I want to
have a day camp for elementary students to learn
the basics of basketball, so that they can increase
their skills in a low competition setting.
Leader: the project manager, Scrum Master, coach for the
Agile Team

Product Owner: the client that gives the details and

requirements for the project, prepares and refines the
tasks and what is the most important to focus on

Stakeholder: are involved and affected by the

development of the products, the impact could be positive
or negative for the stakeholder

Tribes: other work groups and stake holders affected by

the project

Tribes
Stake Holder
Product Owner

Leader

Roles
 At OCN, what are the roles?
Leader: This role could go to either Heather or Christian.
Heather has the experience, but Christian created this
camp for his community service requirements.

Product Owner: Christian takes the role of Product

Owner choosing what activities and exercises to focus on

Stakeholder: This role could vary in this small scenario.

Christian, Heather, the church all have some stake in the
success of the basketball camp.

Tribes: Christian’s parents, and the participating children

are tribes around this development

Tribes
Stake Holder
Product Owner

Leader

Roles
Agile

1
The Roles

3
Agile is concerned about the
needs of the individuals including
stakeholders, leaders, team
members and the tribes .
Are you ready for Change?
With the Scrum method changes can be
handled on a daily basis because of the daily
stand-up meetings or scrum meetings.
Scrum’s communication helps change
happen easily.

4
Technology?

2
Agile involves everybody on the
Is there software that can make the
process development more efficient? Sometimes it is
What experiences that you have, that can worth the time and money to look at options
help the team? for a team if it could help them.
Agile at OCN
The Roles
1 3
As an associate pastor on staff at
the church, Heather looks at the
needs of any program that occurs
at the church that involves
families. To develop successful
programs, she works with other
staff and volunteers and
becomes aware of their needs.
4
2
Agile involves everybody in the
process
Christian brings the knowledge of
basketball to the team, and has the
role of Materials Expert too.
Are you ready for Change?
The development of the camp did not
incur too many changes, but during
the camp itself there was changes. If
staff was late other staff filled in. If it
rained, then outside activities were
moved up or moved back on the
schedule.
Technology?
While technology is not prevalent for
a basketball camp, it is still useful.
During the camp one of the trainers
looked up on her phone more age
appropriate dribbling exercises for the
youngest age group to do.
Let’s Review the 12 Principles of Agile
1. Satisfy the stakeholders with
valuable and effective
content
2. Welcome change
3. Deliver effective content
4. All roles work together
5. Build projects with motivated
individuals
6. Emphasize face-to-face
communication
7. Create effective material
8. Maintain sustainable
development
9. Attention to detail in
development
10. Simplicity
11. Help your team to be self
organizing
12. A team has regular meetings
and daily scrum meetings. This
helps to regroup and reflect so
they can be more effective
and adjust according to the
changes.
 Product Owner

The product owner has to take ownership of the project, they are the ones describing to
the team what the finished product should look like. They become the communicators
for the project by connecting with the development team and the stakeholders.
The product owner oversees the development and evaluates the process, he/she is
making sure waste doesn’t affect the process. They may consider if a team is using the
wrong material used for a lesson or a product, or they may need as much material for a
lesson as they can get.
 Sprints
User Stories Help The timeframe in which to complete an user story.

User stories can include the estimated time it will take to
complete the tasks. The timeframe that tasks are
completed in are sprints. With accurate estimated times,
user stories can be completed in expected times. The
concern can be for team members to understand what
“done” means to them for a task to avoid incomplete
tasks.
Demonstrations
A meeting to show the progress of a sprint. This allows the
development team a chance to display the work in
progress. This will result in immediate feedback for the
development if there needs to be changes.

WIP’s
Work in progress limits is a way to control how many user
stories are worked on a scrum board at one time.

User Stories,
Burn down charts,
And
Demonstrations
 Sprint Retrospective
Reflections after a sprint.
The agile process is concerned about
individuals and collaboration in
developing a better product. Reflection
questions should be asked, so that
changes can be made to improve the
product. What changes need to be
made to the product backlog and the
user stories? What met the expectations?
What can be done better?
Part of the scrum process is a repetitive
cycle of development. After a
demonstration developers will take notes
and know what changes to make. After
a sprint, a team will understand what
changes to make to create a better
product. This repetition differentiates
scrum form a waterfall process that can
have a rigid plan. A waterfall process
involves a set timeline and schedule of
when parts of a project will be worked
on. Changes can be difficult to handle
because it causes the whole
development plan to be re-designed.
 Product Owner
The product owner has to take ownership of the project, they are the ones describing to
the team what the finished product should look like. They become the communicators
for the project by connecting with the development team and the stakeholders.
The product owner oversees the development and evaluates the process, he/she is
making sure waste doesn’t affect the process. They may consider if a team is using the
wrong material used for a lesson or a product, or they may not need as much material
for a lesson. They will need to prioritize what tasks are worked on first by using a value
matrix. This will show them what will require the least amount of effort with the highest
return on value.
Agile Methods Team Science

Team science is the organizational

Agile methods “Wash, rinse, and repeat”
This refers to the repetitive process of
development and revision or iterative
development.
As a product or lesson is tested, the team
will take notes and improve it with the
suggestions.
technique to identify the strengths of
your team. The team leader hires team
members based on the skills that they
can bring to the team. Teams with team
members with different backgrounds
become a more effective team.
Characteristics of a strong team:

• Self-aware • Learning each

• Others-aware other‘s language
• Team-aware • Creating, sharing,
• Trust among team and revisiting
members shared wisdom.
• Effective leadership
• Disagreements and
discussion
Waterfall Projects
Waterfall project, it involves a planned out and
an inflexible schedule that’s budgeted out Is traditional ADDIE
still relevant?
beforehand it follows and ADDIE design format.
ADDIE stands for: Analysis, Design, Develop,
Implement, and Evaluation. It was used for
software development. This design process is
more suited for structured schedules with a set
deadline. Testing of the product is towards the
end of the development cycle, so time and
money already been on developing the product
before testing even begins.

Is the waterfall method like building sky scraper?

Agile Design
Agile project design is a flexible process with short
sprints that last 2 to 4 weeks changes could occur
every day. This design method is good for software
development or educational programs or other
programs that work well with user criticisms and
suggestions. Testing and analysis happens
throughout the process. The design of agile allows
for other organizational methods for structuring a
team. It focuses on the roles of the team and how
Flexible,
Testing Throughout,
And,
Iterative
they can improve each part of the project. It allows
the team leader to work alongside the other team
restructure the plan to fit the needs of the change.
The agile design allows for a product to be launched,
members. It allows daily feedback from team leads and then modified and the next iteration. The
to the developers. This design process can be a little project can be modified based on the needs of the
open-ended in the sense of changes discussed customer. The structure can be difficult for team
during the scrum meeting in the morning and could members that need a more clear plan and a
be applied to the work that day. As opposed to the deadline.
waterfall method changes could affect the whole
structure of the development and stop the process
completely until the project organizer can
Agile Methods
Paired Development
The idea of paired development allows for more
than one developer or Systems Material Expert to
work on a portion of the instructional project.
Although it could be more expensive to pay two
people to work on the same thing helps each of
each of them to find mistakes and details in the
design. It also helps them to work off of each
other’s enthusiasm and energy. It allows each of
them a chance to ask the right questions to solve
the problems of the project. It also creates a
competiveness amongst the pair in creating a
quality product.
Team Science
Technical Debt:
Technical debt can be a broad term
referring to a project, it can appear in the
last parts of a sprint when a certain part
of the project should be completed. A
team lead needs to look at a project and
evaluate if there were shortcuts taken.
The lead will need to evaluate if the
technical debt would impact the overall
product.
Agile

3
Kanban

1
Kanban is a term referred to the Coach
scheduling of a development project
that can be separated into four columns
A coach can oversee a team and
the backlog, the working documents,
their goal is to help remove the
the documents that are done, and those
obstacles that get in the way of
that are ready for work or are ready for
winning or six seating. This is
release.
true for sports teams as well as
Kanban can also be a part of a software
development teams.
used for the group.

4
There are four influences of course design

2
Servant Leader
A servant leader has the
model of helping others on
the team and in return, it
creates a more fulfilling life
for them and for their work.
1. stakeholder engagement
2. the collaboration of defining problems
and solutions
3. In-depth understanding of context and
issues before the development of
solutions and respect of project timelines
4. The subjugation of technology to
stakeholders requirements and user
experience
 Kaizen

• Kaizen: philosophy of continuous improvement.

• Agile allows for continuous improvement while maintaining
efficiency.
• It’s a series of small incremental changes meant to benefit the
whole.
• Focus on the process, efficiency is gained for the long term not for
just one aspect.
• The process of learning needs to be studied.
• Content development and content delivery are focused.
• Evaluation of content, analysis, design, planning, and development.
 S.A.M.

The process must be iterative.

The process must support collaboration.
The process must be efficient and effective.
The process must be manageable.
Agile at OCN

1 3
Team member skills
The Agile and Scrum method of
development can provide a flexible
structure by creating a team based upon
their skills to help on a project. In a
church situation where you find
volunteers instead of hiring staff, their
skills are discovered after they volunteer
sometimes. For hired staff their skills
may be increased due to the fact they will
wear many hats.
Paired Development
I could see paired development when two
pastors are focused on setting up an event or
class. Details can be discussed and problems
can be brought up to be avoided. Since the
pastors could represent two different parts
of the church, they can communicate the
event back to their groups appropriately .

4
Kanban in a church
Technical Debt in a Church

2
A church may be working on programs for
the next season. The classes could be for Technical debt can be the lack of training
children, teens, young adults, and older for a volunteer.
adults. For each group a class needs to have It could old equipment.
time to be setup. A Kanban chart or system It could be a change in curriculum.
could help church staff and leaders know
what classes are being worked on and
understand the logistics of communication.
Agile Design be worked on at the same time. The daily scrum
meetings could help a church staff to communicate
the vision and goals of a project can clearly defined.
Changes can be identified and executed before a
The church that can use Agile design and Scrum effectively about project at a set time. The scrum class begins or modified before the next session.
would need to have a workbook set up for them. meetings would them see what problems were Once the development structure for Agile is in place
Church could benefit from some organizational occurring ad see what still needs to be worked on. it can be applied to any projects for a church.
development by studying how multiple projects can By identifying the stakeholder and product owner

Flexible,
Testing Throughout,
And,
Iterative