Welcome to the Early Adopters program, designed to boost your team's autonomy when using the OutSystems Platform. This 4 weeks program - delivered in the context of a real life project - focuses on core practices needed so that you can become an expert.
 All Stages
Sprint Development
Practices
Project Management
Sprint Planning  
In the first day of your Sprint, get the entire team together to plan the Sprint which is starting. In this meeting, have everyone in the team pick up a set of user stories and break them down into the detailed tasks and estimates that will have to be executed to complete them. Check what this is all about here. In Rally you do it like this.
Risk Management  
Reassess your risks based on the update information and execute mitigation measures when applicable. For a pretty cool article on risk management, you can check the Five Simple Steps to Agile Risk Management.
Daily Scrum  
Having a quick daily scrum will ensure visibility over what’s happening to the entire team and allow any blocking issues to be identified so that they can be tackled sooner rather than later. Never lose track of the three questions: What did you do yesterday?  What will you do today? Are there any impediments in your way? Check it out!

You can check how to conduct a good Daily Scrum session here.
Customer Alignment  
Your customer trusted you with a project delivery, it’s your job to pursue what you proposed and regularly update the project stakeholders with the progress and status. Make them part of the decisions that have impact on the plan leveraging their ability to guide the project with you.
Produce and discuss a weekly progress report.  Having trouble what should be in? Learn how to Present to Senior Executives.

Continuously validate your team aligment with your customer team by requesting their feedback throughout the project delivery, ideally every sprint after the demo. This way you will be able to act and improve on the delivery process when and where needed for a final great delivery experience. Use the Customer Satisfaction app for feedback request and analysis.
Demo  
You work all your sprint to be able to shine in front of your customers, the sprint culminates in a Demo to the stakeholders and key users of the user stories you’ve completed. Make sure this is well prepared for the audience and that you capture the feedback elicited during the session. Let’s rock!
Check this script to help you prepare the demo. You can get great insights for it!
Sprint Retrospective  
Finish every Sprint with a session with the entire delivery team to discuss how the sprint progressed and what things should be improved for the next one. How to do it? Apply the start-stop-continue approach in the sprint retrospective.
Update Rollout Plan  
The rollout plan is a living document. Throughout your project whenever anyone on the team comes across anything relevant for the rollout (s)he should capture it immediately on the shared rollout plan. At least every Sprint re-evaluate the Rollout plan you designed with the business. Don’t forget it should contain not only technical subjects but, more importantly, how the transition to the new system will happen from a business side of things. Training, Change Management, keeping parallel processes are often as hard as the project itself.
We don’t have a good reference for a rollout plan guidance, can you recommend one? yes YOU can!
Requirements Gathering
Backlog Grooming  
The collection of User Stories to be addressed comprises the backlog. These should be ordered by priority to make sure you attack the most important things first. Make sure that you have a complete understanding of your full backlog including its high level estimates. For the User Stories that are candidates to address in next Sprint you must make sure they are detailed and meet the definition of READY.

You can check how to conduct a good backlog grooming session here.
Real Sample Data  
Fake data is a huge distraction for your users, their brains will be wasted trying to understand what’s the info on the screen instead of thinking on the user story you’re delivering. On top of that you will also fail to identify the proper data types and sizes. Ensure that you’re using realistic data in your Demo.
While grooming the backlog for the next sprint, capture some actual data from the processes you will be supporting to really understand the user stories. These can come from paper, excel spreadsheets or the system currently being used and will help meet the real requirements.
Meet “Definition of Ready”  
Having your user stories READY at the beginning of the sprint is one of the most effective ways to speed up your delivery.
Make sure the User Stories you are grooming for the next Sprint meet the “Definition of READY” before that Sprint starts.
Capture Demo Feedback  
Make sure the feedback received from stakeholders and key users is captured and added to the Backlog. The decision on it being implemented or not will be taken later and will depends on its relative priority.
As a general rule introduce the minor tweaks collected (as long as they’re READY) on the next Sprint following the available change request budget in order to close the current user stories. Refrain from introducing the remaining feedback in the Sprint that starts immediately after the demo as you won’t have time to make it READY.

You can check in detail how to use your demo feedback.
Solution Modeling
Update Solution Architecture  
Is your Solution Architecture canvas updated? Check where your user stories will touch and update the architecture canvas with new and changed eSpaces as you design your solution.
You can find architecture guidelines here.

You can use the Architecture Hands-on presentation to learn more about OutSystems Solution Architecture.
Information Architecture  
Information Architecture (IA) establishes the baseline for a solid application structure. It helps create the navigational labels and routes that get the user from A to B in a language that is helpful and easy to understand.
Learn more
Update Installation Plan  
As the development progresses, keep updating the installation plan with any manual or third party tasks that will need to be performed in the production environment when the system goes live.
You can use this template to capture the required steps.
User Experience
Mockups  
Mockups are the best way to create the visual solutions that best solve users' problems, unconstrainted by technology. They are also a great way to communicate and even to test your assumptions prior to start developing.
Learn more
Internal Walkthrough  
Development task in which a developer walks through the developed functionality with a team colleague.
Learn more
Usability Tests  
Usability tests are the only way to guarantee that the users really are able to use the applications for their purposes, meaning that the application will attain its goals.
After you close a sprint you may perform more formal usability tests to the most important user stories delivered.
Learn more
Web Forms  
Filling forms is one of the most demanding task for users
Web Forms Usability Guidelines
User experience  in a nutshell  
Usability requires your constant attention! Check this practical guidelines to keep you on top of it!
OutSystems UX Site
Quality Assurance
Development best practices  
To take the best out of the agile platform there are simple rules development rules that you should follow.
Potentially Shippable  
Having a demoable delivery on each iteration with a consistent set of features in addition to what you’ve delivered earlier is key. This keeps the project progressing steadily with each delivery being a potential useful addition to go live.. Bear in mind that being potentially shippable doesn't mean you can take it live as is, it means that with limited work you could do it.
See how doing this can make your users demo what you’ve built.
Meet “Definition of Done”  
Before saying a user story is done make sure you not only finished coding but actually validated every item in the “Definition of Done” the team agree to in the beginning of the project.
Deliverable 
Tests Process  
Tests are fundamental to ensure quality of the solution delivered. At OutSystems you should follow the Testing Process that, covers how to fit end-to-end user stories functional tests and unit tests in the Delivery Method. This is an iterative process that will ensure solution quality from the delivery team and will ensure alignment with the customer on the acceptance criteria for each user story. Remember that the Acceptance tests must be done by the customer. 
Testing Process
Prepare QA for Acceptance Tests  
Make sure the Quality environment is updated and has the required sample data for the key users to be able to perform User Acceptance Tests after the Sprint Demo.
User Acceptance Tests  
Ensure User Acceptance Tests are actually done, by the Customer, by providing whatever guidance is required and demanding for the results for those tests.
DefinitionAgile Acceptance TestingGoals and How To