Where Do I Start with Adopting Agile?
| A PMI member posted a reply to one of my recent PMI blogs asking how to get started with using Agile within your organization. Here are some of my thoughts below but please share any of your own experiences too if you have adopted Agile successfully within your organization! |  |
Step 1 – Education and Buy-in
I think too many people assume they know what Agile is, that they’re already doing it, that they just need to schedule a few planning, stand up and demo meetings and they are ready to go. Agile is about much more than just formal meetings and ceremonies. It’s about getting folks who worked in silos to collaborate, getting business stakeholders engaged and much more. So step one is learning about it. It is beneficial to have an executive sponsor who understands the value of delivering in a highly collaborative and iterative method. Their buy-in will help give your teams the right support they will need. A key point to remember is that you need to transform your processes but also your people.
I think too many people assume they know what Agile is, that they’re already doing it, that they just need to schedule a few planning, stand up and demo meetings and they are ready to go. Agile is about much more than just formal meetings and ceremonies. It’s about getting folks who worked in silos to collaborate, getting business stakeholders engaged and much more. So step one is learning about it. It is beneficial to have an executive sponsor who understands the value of delivering in a highly collaborative and iterative method. Their buy-in will help give your teams the right support they will need. A key point to remember is that you need to transform your processes but also your people.
Step 2 – Pilot – Try it Out
Before you go changing your entire organization structure around, give Agile a try on a pilot project. Take the practices and principles and apply them, then inspect and adapt to see how to improve on them. You will learn a lot from your pilot team. Make sure to choose a project who will have an engaged Product Owner. You can begin here to work on addition deeper training on engineering best practices, collaboration skills, facilitation, Agile requirements, Servant leadership and others.
Before you go changing your entire organization structure around, give Agile a try on a pilot project. Take the practices and principles and apply them, then inspect and adapt to see how to improve on them. You will learn a lot from your pilot team. Make sure to choose a project who will have an engaged Product Owner. You can begin here to work on addition deeper training on engineering best practices, collaboration skills, facilitation, Agile requirements, Servant leadership and others.
Step 3 – Inspect & Adapt then Scale
Now that you have tried Agile on one or two projects, take what you’ve learned and apply it to larger projects, more teams, distributed efforts. You will learn so much more about how to scale agile to larger more complex initiatives, how to do program management, how to help distributed teams work collaboratively, how your existing processes, documentation and procedures can all fit but in a way that provides value for agile teams.
Now that you have tried Agile on one or two projects, take what you’ve learned and apply it to larger projects, more teams, distributed efforts. You will learn so much more about how to scale agile to larger more complex initiatives, how to do program management, how to help distributed teams work collaboratively, how your existing processes, documentation and procedures can all fit but in a way that provides value for agile teams.
Step 4 – Enterprise Agile Adoption
Now comes the magic! The goal here is not just executing projects more effectively and efficiently, but you are asking the question of how can I apply Lean thinking throughout my entire organization? how can I form my teams around cross-functional service teams? how can I limit the multi-tasking and Work In Progress at the portfolio level so I can get better results? how can I change current reward and incentive measures to be more team and value centric? how can I break the silos between many of my departments? how can I transform to a high performance organization?
Now comes the magic! The goal here is not just executing projects more effectively and efficiently, but you are asking the question of how can I apply Lean thinking throughout my entire organization? how can I form my teams around cross-functional service teams? how can I limit the multi-tasking and Work In Progress at the portfolio level so I can get better results? how can I change current reward and incentive measures to be more team and value centric? how can I break the silos between many of my departments? how can I transform to a high performance organization?
Download our free Enterprise Agile Transformation Roadmap guide. Thanks for visiting! Please share your own experiences on this subject.
Sally Elatta – President
Enterprise Coach & Trainer www.AgileTraining.com www.AgileTransformation.com |
About Me:
I am simply a transformer. Someone who is really passionate about helping organizations move towards building highly engaged collaborative teams that can deliver value predictably. I like to find practical solutions to solve real problems and use a combination of Agile, Scrum, Lean, Soft Skills and Servant Leadership to reach the desired target. My goal is to transform individuals, teams and organizations to doing what they do better.
I’m also the Agile Expert for the PMI Learning and Education CoP. Connect with me: http://www.linkedin.com/in/elatta
Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/sallyelatta |
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