What Are the Three Amigos in Agile?

What Are the Three Amigos in Agile?

The Three Amigos process in Agile product development involves a meeting where the product owner, developer, and quality tester come together to establish clarity on the scope of the project. This collaboration makes it possible for the team members to get on the same page and know what to expect in each stage of the product development. 

The three main objectives of the Three Amigos meeting focuses on specifications, test scenarios, and new features. For example:

• The business analyst discusses the user requirements through the user story 
• The developer discusses product features, assess them until the team reaches a consensus on new features 
• The QA tester discusses the design specifications to ensure high quality and guide the developer through the process of developing user stories 

There is no specific format for holding the 3 Amigos meeting in Agile. In some cases, more than three people participate. This leaves room for more viewpoints to be in sync with common goals. Though it’s advisable to restrict the meeting to a small group. If the meeting includes team members that relate directly to the project, it reduces ambiguity but too many people in the group may make it less effective. 

Ideally, the Three Amigos in Agile are conducted two or three sprints before the product development begins. However, the meeting duration should be kept short. The timeframe should be limited to 30 mins and 1 hour. Going beyond 1 hour may lessen the effectiveness of the meeting. 

Benefits of the Three Amigos meeting

• The three Amigos meeting removes uncertainty in the development process as all team members have the opportunity to get clear expectations on what or what not to build. 
• Identifies assumptions or misconceptions and exposes learnings early on in the process.

Failure to conduct the Three Amigos meeting in Agile could cause each team member to have mixed or different perceptions of the project at hand. This is why the business analyst, developer and QA must collaborate and examine the product development through the lens of what’s important to their customers and business.