All about Agile Consultant at SoftServe: profiles, levels, three cases from working life
Creating opportunities for professional development is one of the key tasks of a PMO (Project Management Office). As of early 2023, besides the original four profiles of a Project Manager, which you can read more about in this article, there are additional profiles. All of them were created because each person has a different experience, and our task is to help them apply this experience correctly and unlock their potential.
Additional profiles include Agile Consultant, which has three levels: Scrum Master, Agile Consultant, and Senior Agile Consultant. These are profiles for which a Project Manager (and not only) can apply at SoftServe and can develop other skills. PMO Competence Managers and Agile Consultants created these profiles.
Anton Voronko, Senior Agile Consultant with extensive experience in setting up Agile and Lean processes for various businesses, shared the specifics of Agile Consultants' profiles and opportunities for cooperation with exciting clients from multiple fields on the example of cases solved by consultants with this profile.
Why was the Agile Consultant profile created?
PMO received 26 requests for various Agile services in 2021. They include consulting, mentoring, creating training solutions, and hiring people with experience implementing Agile methodology. The avalanche-like growth of client requests for services in 2022 (their number almost doubled to 47), supported by profile reports on the development of demand for Agile Consultants in the market in general, prompted us to develop a profile that could help meet this need.
Three key areas of Agile Consultant work at SoftServe
We embedded in the profile essential skills and knowledge for the implementation of three services:
- Consulting
- Mentoring and coaching
- Education
Therefore, when creating this profile, we identified the following most essential characteristics of a person who works with Agile processes:
- In-depth experience in Agile and Lean practices, mainly working with various frameworks, metrics, and tools
- Facilitation, mentoring, and coaching skills
- Experience in developing training and workshops to convey important Agile and Lean concepts
Of course, it is essential to have a life-long learning approach to your career, which can also be expressed in certifications from leading providers (Scrum Alliance, Scrum Inc, Scrum Org, Kanban University, SAFe, LeSS, etc.).
Profiles and knowledge levels
Each profile has three levels: Scrum Master, Agile Consultant, and Senior Agile Consultant. Skills and scale drive the difference between these levels and where the skills are applied.
Scrum Master (L3) is a specialist who helps 1–2 teams implement, maintain, and improve Scrum and Agile practices. The main focuses are launching Scrum processes and facilitating events, working with team blockers, and supporting the team in its development.
Agile Consultant (L4) is a consultant for several teams developing a single or related product. The main focuses are defining the framework, improving team processes, organizing team collaboration, and mentoring Scrum Masters and team members.
Senior Agile Consultant (L5) is a consultant focused on Agile transformation. The work often starts at the application level, where many teams interact on a single platform. The main emphasis is on customizing Agile approaches, implementing scalable frameworks and maturity models, and extensive training and workshops to develop the Agile mindset.
This profile allows you to develop as an Agile specialist and understand where to go next. There is a clear breakdown between Scrum Master, Agile Consultant, and Senior Agile Consultant. At the first level, you can have 1–2 teams, you play the role of Scrum Master, and at the highest level, you can come from scratch to an organization or program, assess the current state and choose the framework that suits them and set up the appropriate processes
Yuliya Yanishevska, Agile Consultant
Examples of cases that Agile Consultants work with
Case #1
Client Description: B2B department of the European FMCG division of a Fortune Global 500 company. It has an e-commerce platform for the sale of food and beverages. The company expected to work with Agile Consultant to improve the customer experience by increasing predictability and quality and reducing time-to-market.
The approach Agile Consultant chose after research and cooperation with the stakeholders:
- Adjust the baseline for the product NPS and define the predictability, quality, and time-to-market metrics.
- Make changes to workflows to improve the metrics, evaluate the impact of the changes, and test the approach with the customer's end goal (enhancing product NPS).
Result:
- A release frequency has doubled.
- Bugs were reduced by half.
- The application predictability rate is 96%.
- The previous results contributed to a twofold increase in the company's revenue.
Case #2
Client Description: a company in the US that is a provider of quality assurance solutions. The company has a platform that helps telecom service providers monitor the quality of work performance. The company expected cooperation with Agile Consultant to improve client and team collaboration. Previously, this collaboration had specific difficulties because of the need for more predictability in sprint results.
The approach Agile Consultant chose after research and cooperation with the stakeholders:
- Establish a systematic approach for planning based on velocity and capacity.
- Determine which metrics would help capture the collaboration's effectiveness and adjust them to improve the workflow.
- Increase team engagement by improving retrospective procedures.
Result:
- eNPS increased from 63 to 90.
- Team predictability is 80–90%.
Case #3
Client description: The DevOps team provided a technical environment for feature-driven groups making a large product. The Scrum Master needed consultation to improve the team's approaches, as the amount of work that had to be done during the sprint was unpredictable. The goal of implementing the transformation was to prepare the team for a new strategic subproject. The company expected the collaboration with Agile Consultant to bring about changes in the team's approach, among them a willingness to collaborate more effectively.
The approach Agile Consultant chose after research and cooperation with the stakeholders:
- Conduct four personal sessions with Scrum Master.
- Establish future expectations of the collaboration.
- Determine the current state and issues that must be addressed as a priority.
- Identify metrics for stable project flow.
Result:
- Team focus: duration of the Daily Meeting was decreased, contributing to spending less time and maintaining a greater emphasis on the team.
- Communication: scheduled regular demo sessions with stakeholders, which resulted in faster response times and better process setup. Greater awareness of the team led to more engagement.
- Improved predictability: moving to "everyone works on the whole project" reduced the bus factor and provided an opportunity to solve problems faster. Four consecutive sprints were completed successfully.
