Task Summary

You are required to write a 1500 words individual reflection about Agile ways of working and Agile teams in preparation for Assessment 3. In doing so, you need to examine and reflect upon the agile concepts, more specifically the concept of servant leadership.

Context

In professional life while some parts of a job require individual contribution but progressively more work requires collaboration and group work. Group learning is designed to help you to learn about the process of collaboration in preparation for your career. Agile teams and agile ways of working are becoming more prevalent in workplaces and it is likely that you will be a part of an agile team in your career. However, agile is very different from the more traditional ‘command and control’ management methods to which many people are accustomed.

Reflective practice is a process of thinking about new experiences with a view of learning from them. It is a form of personal response to new experiences, situations, events or information. University is the best place to learn, and reflection is considered a key part of the learning process for this subject. The below model from Gibb shows the different learning modes of the reflective cycle. We are asking you to initiate your activity in this cycle with the description step where you have examined important concepts of agile teams and ways of working. Some of the concepts will be new to you and you will need to examine your thoughts about:

1. Describe your understanding of an agile team and how participants work together?
2. How does this make you feel?
3. What do you believe are the positives and negatives of working together as an agile group?
4. How will you be able to bring this way of working to your group work?
5. How will you recommend to the team that you use the method and ways of working to complete the group assignment?
6. What action plan will you recommend to the team as a way of forming and working together as an agile team?

Gibb’s Reflective Cycle (n.d.)

Task Instructions

1. Write a 1500 words reflective report addressing the concepts of agile teams and agile ways of working with a view to selecting three practices which you plan to implement within your group in completing the Assessment 3 Group Case Study Report.
2. Bear in mind that you will be working in a group for Assessment 3 and there will be a requirement to use agile ways of working in your team – this is a good opportunity for you to focus on which of these will prove most useful for you and your team in achieving your assessment goals.
3. The focus of this assessment is to give you an opportunity to reflect on the theoretical knowledge you have developed and how you might put it into practice in your group assessment.
4. Please structure your report as follows:

Title page: include a title page with the subject code and subject name, assignment title, student’s name, student number and lecturer’s name

Introduction (100-150 words): which will also serve as your statement of purpose for this report

– this means that you will tell the reader what you are going to cover in your report. You will need to inform the reader of:

1. Your area of reflection
2. Key concepts in this reflective report
3. What the reader can expect to find in the body of the report

The body of the report (1000-1200 words): cover the concepts of agile ways of working and team roles within agile teams. Consider how these might be applicable in helping your group be successful in the group assignment which you need to complete. The following questions serve to guide you writing in this reflection and carry equal weight:

1. Describe your understanding of an agile team and how participants work together?
2. How does this make you feel?
3. What do you believe are the positives and negatives of working together as an agile group?
4. How will you be able to bring this way of working to your group work?
5. How will you recommend to the team that you use the method and ways of working to complete the group assignment?
6. What action plan will you recommend to the team as a way of forming and working together as an agile team?

Conclusion: summarise the three most important elements you have learned from the group assignment that you have uncovered via your self-reflection.

Format and Layout

Please use font Arial or Calibri 11 point, should be line spaced at 1.5 for ease of reading and page numbers on the bottom of each page. If diagrams or tables are used, due attention should be given to pagination to avoid loss of meaning and continuity by unnecessarily splitting information over two pages. Diagrams must carry the appropriate captioning.