How to Become Agile: 5 Questions Answered

Question # 1
What does agility mean?

Being agile means being able to respond to
changes in a timely, effective, and sustainable way.
Adapted from
http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/business-technology/our-insights/want-to-become-agile-learn-from-your-it-team
http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00188?pg=all

Agile companies have
1. high strategic responsiveness and
2. high organizational flexibility.
http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00316

Strategic responsiveness is the ability to sense new risks and
new opportunities in the business environment and to respond quickly.
An example
Respond to the Internet’s impact on publishing by using new channels
such as social media to deliver content to users.
Adapted from

Organizational flexibility is the ability to quickly change
execution.
Example
To what extent can supply chain workers quickly find new /
different content materials when products / services change?

What are great agile conditions?
 It is easy to get quick feedback from users.
 The problem is complex.
 Product requirements will change.
 Solutions are unknown.
 Work can be modularized.
 Creative teams will outperform command-and-control groups.
https://hbr.org/2016/05/embracing-agile

What are examples of work with great agile conditions?
 Product development work.
 Marketing project work.
 Strategic planning work.
 Supply-chain challenges.
 Resource allocation decisions.
What are examples of work with bad agile conditions?
Routine operations such as plant maintenance, purchasing,
sales calls, and accounting.

Question # 2
What values
do agile workers have?

Complexity is the enemy of agility. Keep things
as simple as possible as long as possible.
Example: To increase IT agility, reduce the
number of systems.
Sources
http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html
http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/simple.html
http://www.mckinsey.com/Insights/Business_Technology/The_do-or-die_questions_boards_should_ask_about_technology
Simplicity

An important part of agile is to reduce waste.
Waste is anything that does not bring clearly
defined and immediate value.
http://www.cio.com/article/2433819/agile-development/7-agile-leadership-lessons-for-the-suits.html
Simplicity

Example
Role clarity is a highly ranked practice among
agile organizations. When everyone understands
who does what, people can move faster.
http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/agility-it-rhymes-with-stability
http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/why-agility-pays
Efficiency

People agility means the degree to which
one is open-minded toward others
and enjoys interacting with a diversity of
people, understands their unique
strengths, interests, and limitations, and
uses them effectively to accomplish
organizational goals.
http://www.kornferry.com/institute/488-the-federal-agility-fix-developing-the-next-generation-of-leaders
Openness

For an agile team to be able to adapt, information
must be open and free flowing.
When people share what they do in an open /
transparent way, everyone can see results of the
work quickly and solve problems quickly.
https://hbr.org/ideacast/2016/04/understanding-agile-management
http://www.propernet.com/extranet/mcgill/CLASS%203/3.1%20-%20AgileProjectManagement.pdf
Openness

Learning-agile individuals think creatively.
Example
They generate new ideas through their
ability to view issues from multiple
angles.
http://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz/4-qualities-every-leader-needs-to-take-risks-conquer-stress.html
Creativity

Agile individuals are motivated by learning /
expanding their knowledge.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/karlmoore/2012/06/12/agility-the-ingredient-that-will-define-next-generation-leadership/#6c6c8e30208f
Learning

http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/high-tech/our-insights/software-development-handbook-transforming-for-the-digital-age
Learning For success, companies will need to develop a
mindset that accepts failures. Without it,
developers will hesitate to make changes.

https://vimeo.com/94950270
Minute 1.
Learning

Self awareness means the degree to which an
individual seeks personal insight, clearly
understands his or her strengths and weaknesses,
and uses this knowledge to improve performance.
http://www.kornferry.com/institute/488-the-federal-agility-fix-developing-the-next-generation-of-leaders
Learning

They’re the skeptical members of the team.
The ones always pushing back on the status quo
and forcing the business to rethink
the way it presents itself to its customers.
https://hbr.org/2014/11/bring-agile-to-the-whole-organization
Improvement

In an agile environment, change is
acknowledged and accepted.
http://agilitrix.com/2015/02/agile-culture-self-managing-people
http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/technology/software-engineering/development-practices/article/art20131213120917060
Imrpovement

Adaptability is a highly regarded agile value.
Example
People meet at regular intervals to find out how
we can do things better, for example work more
efficiently and creatively.
https://www.agileconnection.com/article/what-improv-can-teach-you-about-agile-success
http://agilitrix.com/2015/02/agile-culture-self-managing-people
Adaptability

At the core of agile are values of flexibility,
individual interaction, focus on outputs,
and collaboration over more rigid
planning-driven approaches.
https://hbr.org/2013/08/it-on-steroids-the-benefits-an
Helping

Workers in agile workplaces must be passionate,
adaptive, innovative, and collaborative.
The way to begin is to become autonomous.
http://jarche.com/2010/04/agility-and-autonomy/
Helping

Agile workers have autonomy. Instead of a
controlling ideology, the approach is one of
enabling self-organization.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2015/01/26/why-do-managers-hate-agile/#54a318556018
http://www.allaboutagile.com/how-to-create-the-fastest-teams/
Freedom

Further inspiration
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Questions-to-discover-your-values-1329394
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Reasons-why-people-resist-change-1453736

Question # 3
What is the purpose
of the company?

A purpose helps people, who work for a company,
understand why they do what they do.
Adapted from
https://dzone.com/articles/bringing-agile-to-the-next-level
https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/25180871/posts/93

Agile work
Strong purpose
Strong autonomyhttps://vimeo.com/85490944

Further inspiration
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Examples-of-purpose-2350843

Question # 4
How do agile workers
work with users?

Agile is neither top-down nor bottom-up: it is outside-in.
The focus is on delivering value to customers.
The customer is the boss, not the manager.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2015/07/22/how-to-make-the-whole-organization-agile/#396f85ed135b

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2015/01/28/more-on-why-managers-hate-agile/#168b8c853a58

A key feature of being agile is to involve the user
in the development process and use the customer
feedback to improve.
http://www.economist.com/node/779429
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/04/29/scrum-is-a-major-management-discovery/
https://medium.com/@eric_jansen/five-steps-to-business-agility-71c42856958a#.bayhaksj4

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2015/01/28/more-on-why-managers-hate-agile/#168b8c853a58
Instead of asking “How can I get customers to
take what we make?”, we have to ask, “What
are the unmet needs of the customer that I
can find ways to satisfy?”

Adapted from
https://www.atlassian.com/agile/delivery-vehicles
User story
As a user, I need [goal], so that I [receive benefits].
Example of user story
As a user, I need access to quality content, so that I know
how to handle changes in my life.

Some ways to find information to write the user story
 Experiment when developing product / service.
 Use analytics to find out what users do and do not do with the
product / service.
 Ask users what they need / want.
 Watch / observe users as they use the product / service.
Adapted from
https://www.atlassian.com/agile/product-analytics-product-management
https://www.atlassian.com/agile/product-management

Using blogs, polls, and other social media, customers
can be involved in the development process.
Adapted from

Regular customer collaboration creates
transparency about the work and
enables a high degree of flexibility.
https://medium.com/@timrayner01/say-agile-one-more-time-making-space-for-collaborative-innovation-de4834a096a0#.uglb51y9l

More customer collaboration.
Less contract negotation.
http://agilemanifesto.org/

Further inspiration
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Needs-that-people-have-1530997

Question # 5
communicate and learn?

Adapted from
http://strikinggroup.com.au/why-agile-works/
Openness / transparency is a key agile value.
Open communication can happen through,
for example, blogs, Twitter, and other social
media.

When people share what they do in an open / transparent
way, everyone can see results of the work quickly and solve
problems quickly.
Explanation by Jeff Sutherland about the importance of openness / transparency
towards the end of the conversation.

All communication within the agile team must be
addressed to the complete team, including sharing any
documents, release plans or schedules, review requests
and feedback, risks or concerns, and even leave updates.
This builds a complete sense of oneness within the team
and maintains complete transparency at all times.
https://www.agileconnection.com/article/real-key-agile-success-communication

A major aspect of being learning agile is to continuously
seek feedback from users.
https://hbr.org/2014/11/bring-agile-to-the-whole-organization
https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/mindful-agility-5f5acb450f5#.4s5d7nmkh

Agile workers give and receive feedback
to each other.
https://www.agileconnection.com/article/strategies-encouraging-and-facilitating-team-feedback-sessions

People in the team pass information to each other as they
move towards the goal.
Like people who play for FC Barcelona pass the ball to each
other as they move up the field.
Adapted from

Further inspiration
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/How-do-we-give-feedback-1761017

Question # 6
organize?

People who work for agile companies, move out of
company boundaries and engage, for example with
people from other companies as well as freelancers,
students, and independent workers in open-source
collaborations using hackathons, working events, various
competitions, social media, and other platforms.
Adapted from
http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/agility-lessons-from-utilities

LSG Webinars
Sources
http://agilityhackathon.com/
https://www.atizo.com/
https://www.e-teaching.org/
https://www.jovoto.com/
http://learningandskillsgroup.ning.com/forum/categories/lsg-webinars/listForCategory
http://www.meetup.com/

Many organizations perceive social networks as a fragile
system, and capture reduced returns as a consequence.
Social networks are anti-fragile, demanding organizations
to take risks in order to build a more robust system, expanding
their range of opportunities.
Examples include Nestlé and Comcast, that after experiencing
social media crisis learned to reinvent their organizations,
using social platforms to change the way they communicate.
https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/agility-and-fragility-2ca9e1c1df43#.g6rw1wvma

Internet companies like www.wikipedia.org have
harnessed enormous collective power with new
models of collaboration.
http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/agility-it-rhymes-with-stability

To keep all employees focused on the
external environment, DaVita HealthCare
Partners Inc. abandoned the organization chart.

Instead of a controlling ideology, the agile
approach is about enabling self-organization.
http://www.allaboutagile.com/how-to-create-the-fastest-teams/

Break an organization into small, self-organizing
/ autonomous teams of less than 8 people.
https://blogs.versionone.com/agile_management/2016/03/29/scaling-agile-without-killing-agility/

At Spotify, each team manages a piece of the product
that is completely theirs. That way, they’re able to
deploy, change, and upgrade that constantly without
breaking anything else.
http://labs.openviewpartners.com/spotify-great-agile-example-scrum-done-right/

Ericsson has divided 2,300 enterprise software
engineers, co-ordinated from Ireland, into more
than 100 small autonomous teams, developing
products in 3-week “sprints”.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/aa284852-0096-11e6-99cb-83242733f755.html?siteedition=intl#axzz45xZkitBP

A self-organizing team / group decides themselves
1. what problem they want to solve – and why.
2. how they want to work together when creating / building
a solution to the problem.

To be agile, we need to try out things, for example
new methods / tools / platforms / ideas.
That helps us to continuously learn and adapt.
https://neilkillick.wordpress.com/2016/03/13/8-signs-of-an-agile-organisation/

Further inspiration
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/How-can-we-organize-better-2307825

Question # 7
What do agile leaders do?

An agile leadership team often authorizes a senior executive to
1. identify the critical issues,
2. design processes for addressing them, and
3. appoint a single owner for each innovation initiative.

Minute 4.
A leader’s job is, for example, to find out and
communicate 2 things:
1. What problems need to be solved?
2. Why do these problems need to be solved?

Learning-agile leaders take calculated risks
that lead to opportunity.

Find experts with skills required to solve the
problem and complement what other people
in the team do.
https://www.agileconnection.com/article/do-cross-functional-teams-mean-cross-functional-people

Build agile projects around motivated individuals.
Give them the environment and support they need,
and trust them to get the job done.

It’s better to involve passionate volunteers
than to coerce resisters.

Define work goals
before each cycle starts.
Steve Denning

Give people time to complete each sprint.
Make sure that the work proceeds at a
mutually agreeable pace.

Transparency is a key agile value.
Share plan and results with everyone.
https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/product-managers

Agile managers are enablers, not controllers.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2015/01/28/more-on-why-managers-hate-agile/#792de2123a58

Create flexibility - in time, place,
resources, and processes.
https://medium.com/@nickyleijtens/agile-and-agility-not-just-for-hipsters-a315e0d94d9f#.nq41gdrtk

Agile leaders spot and stop behaviors
that impede agile teams.
Adapted from

As agile methods spread to all of Systematic’s software development teams, Michael Holm began
to worry that his leadership team was hindering progress. The agile development teams were
doing things differently, while the management team was stuck doing things the same old-
fashioned way - moving too slowly and relying on too many written reports that always seemed
out-of-date.
So Holm decided to run his leadership team as an agile team. The team
 eliminated more than half of recurring reports,
 converted other reports to real-time systems,
 increased attention to business-critical items such as sales proposals and customer satisfaction,
 began having daily 20-minute stand-up meetings at 8.40 to discuss what members had done
the day before, what they would do that day, and where they needed help.
 began to use physical boards to track its own actions and the improvements coming from the
business units.
Other functions, including HR, legal, finance, and sales, now operate in much the same way.

Freedom / autonomy is a
key agile value.
Enable people to decide
things themselves and
serve needs people have.
https://www.frontrowagile.com/learn-agile/agile-project-management

Agile teams use process facilitators to continually improve
their collective intelligence, for example by
 clarifying roles,
 teaching conflict resolution techniques, and
 ensuring that team members contribute equally.

Further inspiration
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/What-is-good-leadership-1489536

Question # 8
What do people do
during work cycles / sprints?

People work to produce something new,
for example a new product / service.
They test it with users every 1 to 2 weeks.

Efficiency is a key agile value. To work effectively, people
clarify roles they have. 3 examples:
1. What does person A do?
2. What does person A decide by herself / himself?
3. What does person A and person B decide together?
http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/going-from-fragile-to-agile

Agile is about delivering value to stakeholders early and
often through simple steps:
1. Plan.
2. Develop.
3. Complete.
4. Test.
5. Launch / release.
6. Repeat steps 1 – 5.
http://www.cio.com/article/2971822/agile-development/6-agile-principles-that-apply-to-everything.html

Quality should be part of every step of any agile
development process.
To identify risks, each sprint should be composed of
1. development, and
2. testing.
https://www.capgemini.com/resource-file-access/resource/pdf/From_Agile_Development_to_Agile_Delivery__Excerpt_from_2010-2011_World_Quality_Report_.pdf

Effective testing and innovation activities range from
gathering further intelligence, to trying out new
ideas on a small scale, to implementing full-scale
product development programs.

People, who work for www.spotify.com, do gradual
rollouts to make sure that when a team makes a mistake,
it will only have a small negative impact, i.e. an impact
 on a small part of the system.
 on few users.
 for a short period of time.

Project Loon began with a pilot test in June 2013,
when thirty balloons were launched from New
Zealand’s South Island and beamed Internet to a
small group of pilot testers.
https://www.google.com/loon/where/

Further inspiration
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/How-can-we-make-better-decisions-2058027

Question # 9
How long are
work cycles / sprints?

Agile methods are a reaction to the
bureaucracy, planning, and inflexibility of
the waterfall approach. Large projects are
chopped into a series of shorter cycles.
Sources
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a988cd86-9759-11dc-9e08-0000779fd2ac.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/08/16/how-do-you-explain-radical-management-or-agile-to-a-cfo/

Agile has
several
advantages

A sprint – or iteration – is a predefined, time-
boxed, and recurring block of time, for example
2-4 weeks, in which the product, for example
software, is created.
https://resources.sei.cmu.edu/asset_files/TechnicalNote/2013_004_001_62918.pdf p. 42.

As a rule of thumb, an agile sprint should be
as short as possible and as long as necessary.

Question # 10
How are agile meetings done?

What to say during the weekly agile meeting:
1.What do I think worked well this week?
2.What do I think did not work well this week?
3.What do I think we should do better next week?
For question # 3, everyone first makes suggestions.
Then 2 suggestions are picked out to focus on next week.
https://youtu.be/J6oMG7u9HGE
Minute 7.

2 questions for a meeting after a mistake
1. What did we learn from this mistake?
2. In what other ways can we do this?
https://medium.com/@eric_jansen/five-steps-to-business-agility-71c42856958a#.bayhaksj4
Minute 2.

Minute 2.

The team brainstorms ways to improve future
cycles and prepares to attack the next top priority.

Further inspiration
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Brainstorming-the-disney-method-1449101
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Brainstorming-the-SCAMPER-method-1452356

Question # 11
How do we
measure agile success?

VersionOne State of Agile report 2016.

https://blogs.versionone.com/agile_management/2015/06/16/measuring-what-counts-introducing-the-better-faster-cheaper-happier-measurement-framework/

Examples of numbers to measure if we are doing things better
1. On-time delivery.
Percentage of releases that are released on-time.
2. Customer needs met.
Survey of whether the customers think the delivered product /
service met their needs.

Examples of numbers to measure if we are doing things faster
The time it takes to make a decision.

Examples of numbers to measure if we are doing things cheaper
1. Improved value for money.
Ask customers if they think that the product / service is good value
for money they spend.
2. Time developers use for administrative work.

Examples of numbers to measure if people are getting happier
1. Customer satisfaction.
Ask customers to find out if they are happy with how we work.
2. Team satisfaction.
Ask people in the team to find out if we are happy with the way they work.

Question # 12
How do we get started
with agile?

Start small.
Agile work oftens begin in IT, where software developers
are likely to be familiar with the principles. Then agile might
spread to another function, with the original practitioners
acting as coaches.

Example: John Deere.
George Tome, a software engineer who had become a project
manager within Deere’s corporate IT group, began applying
agile principles in 2004 on a low-key basis.
Gradually, over several years, software development units in
other parts of Deere began using them as well. This growing
interest made it easier to introduce the methodology to the
company’s business development and marketing organizations.

Pull resources from businesses / activities that won’t
be relevant / appropriate tomorrow and put them to
work in more relevant / promising opportunities.
https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Strategy/Strategic_Thinking/Strategy_through_turbulence_An_interview_with_Don_Sull_2491

Avoid beginning with part-time assignment to
teams or with rotating membership.
Stable teams are 60% more productive and 60% more
responsive to customer input than teams that rotate
members.

How to Become Agile: 5 Questions Answered

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to How to Become Agile: 5 Questions Answered

Similar to How to Become Agile: 5 Questions Answered (20)

More from Frank Calberg

More from Frank Calberg (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

How to Become Agile: 5 Questions Answered