Workshops

Advantages of a workshop

Although not all Agile approaches specifically mention the use of workshops, they can be very effective in Agile projects. For example, for a rapid discussion on one or more work items, simultaneously as a team. Some advantages of workshops in Agile projects are:

• Multidisciplinary

  Workshops in agile projects are multidisciplinary. All roles that are necessary to achieve the purpose of the workshop are represented. Thus, in a a short period of time, all the different viewpoints on the work-item can be highlighted. All workshop participants make direct use of the knowledge and experience of the other participants and roles.

  A tester has a very different view on a user story or smart use case than a domain expert or a developer. A tester is mainly focused on exceptions, whereas the domain expert and developer focus on the main points and the developer sees the technical possibilities and limitations.

• Alignment

  During a workshop, all the different views on a work item will come to light. That way, it’s easier for the team to align toward a jointly chosen solution.

• Fast

  Because multiple roles participate in a workshop, it seems ineffective, but a workshop makes it possible to arrive at decisions much faster than by working separately on the work item, one role after another.

• No hand-offs

  Another advantage of workshops is that there are no hand-offs. All stakeholders are at the table simultaneously. Thus, there’s no loss of knowledge occurs between phases like in traditional projects. Hand-offs do still occur on a smaller scale with new Agile teams that tend to treat their work items as mini waterfalls. Workshops also help to prevent this phenomenon.