Agile…It Ain’t Easy!
Hopefully you can forgive the Southern dialect ridden, grammatically incorrect title of my blog post, but to me it encapsulates everything I hope to convey discussing Agile Delivery. I’ll be the first the tell you…IT AIN’T EASY!
Agile methodology has been around for years. From the early ages of Scrum in the 90’s, to the birth of the Agile Manifesto in 2001, to the practices we now know such as Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), agile delivery has evolved immensely over time. Furthermore, agile delivery has also grown all the more popular across businesses and industries, ensuring speed to value and a finished, working product at the end of each sprint. What’s most intriguing is that agile delivery is not just the way of the ‘Apples’ and ‘Googles’ of the world — it’s becoming more commonplace (in fact, more or less a mandate if you plan to keep up) for industries that historically have not been compelled to be innovative in this right (like Energy and Utilities). That’s because agile delivery has its benefits and they are major! In environments that are orchestrated properly, agile delivery lives up to its promise of quick development, quicker time to production, and iteratively increases value to the end customer.
One value add that IBM offers is the ability to help our clients gain their footing in agile development and coach them in what agile means beyond the textbook and in practice. Since most IBMers are required to take agile training, it has become second nature for most practitioners. Yet, if you gather three IBMers in a room who have delivered agile projects, you will find that each person’s experience is different. That’s because agile is not cookie cutter or a one size fits all methodology. Yes, the principles are standard but how you deploy those principles across an enterprise, to fit your environment can be unique. I have discovered that while I have been able to leverage my experience in each client project, there are many elements that are just different from implementation to implementation when stepping into a new project.
I find myself coaching my client and sharing my agile delivery experience on a daily basis. Like many enterprises implementing agile delivery on a fairly large scale, it’s challenging to transition from just an idea of agility to actual agile behavior and best practices. One of my favorite sayings from one of my clients is “It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks!” There is so much truth in that phrase because it is not easy. It is much more than saying “We’re Agile…now Ready. Set. Go!” It takes time and preparation (A LOT OF IT) from a people, process, and tools standpoint…and most importantly PRACTICE!!!
Recently working with the same client, I resumed a role that was familiar to me — Scrum Master. While I had been a Scrum Master before, this time it was very different — 20+ multi-vendor developers, three business analysts, testers, the whole nine yards. Definitely a much larger team than when I last ventured on this journey and frankly a bit atypical for an ideal agile team. Nonetheless, this is the way we will work until we have more clearly defined what our products are and where separation into multiple teams makes sense.
With managing such a large team, there is no shortage of new learnings and adjustments. As an example, there is no room for inefficient stand-ups or any scrum ceremony for that matter. Given that I facilitate most of the scrum ceremonies, I have to be quick on my feet in knowing when to reel the conversation in. I have been receiving coaching and enabling tools from the client’s Agile coach, and one of the things I have found works really well is the use of a “parking lot” in stand-ups. Conversation getting lengthy? Mark it as a parking lot item as to not derail the standup, and keep the folks needed as part of the parking lot discussion immediately after standup. This allows those that are not part of the parking lot conversation to exit and get back to work, while also allowing me to work through any blockers that my scrum team is facing. This simple tool has allowed me to stay true to a 15–17 min daily standup even with over 25 people on the call, and I am here to tell you that I have never gotten better advice/coaching than that little tidbit.
This is just one small personal lesson learned from my experience, but therein lies the beauty of agile. It pushes teams (and individuals) to be more efficient, focus on value, and retrospect early and often to course correct when needed. With that, it’s important to get the little things right as being agile doesn’t mean things like proper documentation and standardization fall by the wayside. Instead, it’s about establishing a set of habits, instilling those habits throughout the delivery organization (both Business and IT) and ridding the organization of rigid waterfall processes that allow no room for innovation. Don’t get me wrong — instilling agile delivery throughout a larger organization is a daunting task as it is very difficult to “teach a dog new tricks.” BUT, it’s worth the leap and with investment and commitment throughout — it can be done!
