Following the blog post from last week, here is the continuation
of the list of 12 tips for a successful transformation towards enterprise
agility. We mentioned already the first 3:
- Why?
- The approach
- Training managers
Let’s move on with 5 more:
- The pilot project
Since we’re talking about
applying an empirical process, the starting point is to setup an experiment in
terms of a pilot project. Scrum can help out with its framework to give some
guidance and some practices which help understand the agile principles behind.
A pilot project can provide objective information on the feasibility of rolling
out Agile to all the organization. Craig Larman says that if an organization is
not able to implement real Scrum with only one team, how can they succeed in
scaling it in the whole enterprise? But be aware of choosing a proper pilot
project. It needs to be important and critical enough so that
people will consider it a serious try and a valuable success (it should be used
to gain even more management support for the change), but not too critical to
create a safe environment for possible failure. It should be end-to-end and
therefore include all the stages that are needed to bring an idea into a product
and it needs to be closely monitored and supported by senior management, ready
to fix possible impediments.
- Scaling up
If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t do it on a large scale – Tom Gilb
However beware not to be too
slow, to avoid the organization finding them in the ford for too long and
losing momentum, sense of urgency and a clear direction about the change to
make.
- The Transition Team
Creating a successful Agile
organization does not simply mean make a number of Scrum teams work: it means
creating all the conditions around to enable those teams to succeed and get astonishing
results. The Transition Team is an operative team, with the goal of helping and
supporting the organization in implementing the Agile Transformation, by supporting
teams, removing organizational impediments, training and coaching people, spreading
the Agile values and Lean thinking. The team works as an agile team, driven by
the so-called Transition Backlog populated top-down by the organizational transformation
strategy and bottom-up by impediments from the team.
- Create the new roles
In order to scale up you need to
build new skills and behaviors for people to fill the new roles of Scrum
Master, Product Owner and Scrum Developer. This is best done by means of a mix
of training, mentoring and coaching and is a typical item in the Transition
backlog. Understanding that we’re talking about new roles, you cannot find in the
existing organization, is a critical success factor. One of the worst (and yet easy
and most common mistakes) is to create a mapping between existing and new
roles, like System ArchitectàProduct Owner or Project ManageràScrum
Master. They are totally different jobs and you need to realize this and
prepare to help individuals who are willing to learn and challenge themselves to
fill the gaps needed to move to the new roles.
- Cross-functional teams
Cross-functional teams who can
deliver potentially shippable product increments at each iteration are a key
element in a successful Agile enterprise. So one needed step is to change your
organization, remove functional silos and have self-organized teams of 5-9
people with all needed competences working together permanently. And this might
imply changes in the office logistics as well, to create the right environment to
enable team collaboration.
The most efficient and effective method
of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation – 6th
Agile principle
It’s probably enough for today: any comment?
Let’s have a date for the next blog post to talk about the remaining secrets for a successful Agile transformation.
Let’s have a date for the next blog post to talk about the remaining secrets for a successful Agile transformation.
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