This site uses cookies to improve your experience. To help us insure we adhere to various privacy regulations, please select your country/region of residence. If you do not select a country, we will assume you are from the United States. Select your Cookie Settings or view our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Used for the proper function of the website
Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
Cookie Settings
Cookies and similar technologies are used on this website for proper function of the website, for tracking performance analytics and for marketing purposes. We and some of our third-party providers may use cookie data for various purposes. Please review the cookie settings below and choose your preference.
Strictly Necessary: Used for the proper function of the website
Performance/Analytics: Used for monitoring website traffic and interactions
As I've been speaking about the Modern Management Made Easy books, people ask these questions: We're pretty good with our agile approach. These people tell me their career ladder doesn't work to enhance agility. Organizations reward people as individuals—but agility demands collaboration. It's time for performance reviews.
Several of my clients want to use some sort of maturity assessment for their agile transformations. For agile transformation, an assessment can help people see how they change—how they innovate the products and the culture. These are about the product development behaviors I see in the organization.
They think that the agile tools they use, such as boards, offer a strategic advantage. However, they adopt or “install” an agile framework or process without customization. Instead, agile organizations need flexibility, not rigidity. Commodity businesses don't need agility for product development.
I see many teams and team members who say, “Agile stinks. ” When I ask people what's happening, they say: We're doing an agile death march because someone else already told us what we have to do and the date it's due. And don't get me started on how coaches tend to do life coaching instead of support for agility.)
One of my clients wants to use shared services “teams” as they start their agile transformation. Their developers work on a product for months and years at a time. ” Shared service-thinking denies the reality of effective product development: A cross-functional team learns together as they develop the product. .”
So when does it make sense to customize your agile approach to gain a strategic advantage? Example 1: Startup/Small Organization with Few Products. They offer their product in two versions: Pro and Lite. (No They want an agile approach, so they started with Scrum. Let's start with a couple of examples. Others mob.
In Part 1 and 2 of this series, I wrote about how an agile approach might offer strategic benefits. And because an agile approach changes your culture, I said the agile approach was part of your strategy. So let's ask this question: Can any tool—agile or otherwise—offer you a strategic advantage? (I
In Effective Agility Requires Cultural Changes: Part 1 , I said that real agile approaches require cultural change to focus on flow efficiency , where we watch the flow of the work , not the people doing tasks. What about those cultural changes? This is not an agile approach. Every effort has risks.
They think agile approaches are tactics and agile tools are part of their strategy. That's why they want to Buy an agile approach. Worse, the longer they maintain their custom board, the more they spend on that internal product. And the less they have to spend on products that affect the customers.
Once the team completes that highest priority feature(s), the team can release the product. When we release, we can regroup and figure out what to do next for this product. Fork another product. (I I did this with several Lite vs Pro products using this approach.). Opportunities for More Agility.
Back in Part 1 , I wrote about how stage-gate approaches were as agile as we could use at the time. We had one delivery, so our agility was about canceling the project if we couldn't finish it. ” One of the customers realized he wanted something different—something we didn't expect for this product.
Worse, most career ladders assume we can assess what a person can do, not on their contributions to an agile team. That means most career ladders don't fit agile teams or an agileculture. Instead of individual achievements, we can reward the types of agile leadership we want to see in agile teams.
Worse, many of these managers also want business agility. Business agility requires change. Product strategy, to define the value the products offer to the product's users/customers. In addition, you might need these product strategies too: Product architecture, to shepherd the technical value of a product.
I started this series with many specific concerns about a particular interview question: “The product owner and dev team cannot decide on a sprint goal, even after hours of discussion. Instead, I see assumptions that reveal a divide-and-conquer, and possibly a command-and-control culture, not an agileculture.
I started this series by discussing why managers didn't perceive the value of agile coaches and Scrum Masters in Part 1, resulting in layoffs.) Then, in Part 2 , I asked those unemployed agilists to review their functional skills, the skills people need to do a product development job well. Especially, Agile is Not a Silver Bullet.
The managers don't believe the teams need product owners, so the teams don't have POs. Those outcomes can help teams decide which agile approach(es) to start with and adapt. Let's start with who wants the teams to use an agile approach. Who Wants the Teams to Use an Agile Approach? They're having trouble with Scrum.
Are you trying to make an agile framework or approach work? Maybe you've received a mandate to “go agile.” Or, maybe you're trying to fit an agile framework into your current processes—and you've got a mess. I've seen plenty of problems when people try to adopt “agile” wholesale.
I spoke at Agile 2019 last week. Here are my thoughts and where I think the “agile” industry is headed. Problems I See with “Agile” Here's a summary of problems I saw last week: Too many people think “agile” will solve all their problems. Culture requires management involvement.
More of my clients say they want business agility. Yet, we don't share a common definition of business agility. Actions matter when it comes to business agility. Since managers create and refine the culture, they can create an environment that supports business agility. That's a good thing.) Actions Over Mindset.
Several of my clients have internal struggles about how to internally see the future of the product. The teams want to use an agile approach so they can incorporate learning. The managers might even think this is roadmap reflects an agile approach. There's nothing about this roadmap that's agile. What can you do?
(That link just goes to the first post) My most recent book: Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility. In addition, here's the unedited transcript: Agile _ Adapt – Expert Talk – Johanna Rothman – April 2024 in docx format. I hope you enjoy this one.
I was on the Agile Uprising podcast this past Sunday, discussing my most recent book. Some of what we discussed: That managers want agility but do not care about any agile methods or frameworks. While we might think “agile” is another project organization method—or lifecycle—it's not. See (and hear!):
Strategy and Product Feedback Loops. Instead of teams being responsible for delivering product, the managers are responsible for explaining when the managers want to decide. What about product decisions? The product value team might need to see product deliverables at least once a week. Or finish a project.)
The larger your product, the more likely you have components teams. I often see component teams because of the architecture of the product. In this first image, the Integrated System Program, the rest of the product uses the Platform of Common Services as components. InterRelated Program Product.
Anytime I've seen a successful innovation culture, I've seen these principles. Let me address a little about business agility and innovation. Business agility allows us to create a culture where we plan to change. Too many people think business agility is about the ability to do more of the same, faster.
I said that when we focus on individual achievements and deliverables, we ignore the agile system of work. Worse, when we reward individual achievements we prevent an agileculture. That's because agile teams learn together as they create the product. Agile Behaviors for Learning and Working Together.
We had (and still have) too many products to keep the same teams on them for a long time. For programs, the team stayed together and moved to a different feature set/internal product until the program finished. We could move to a new product and/or a new team. My job was to smooth the way for people to deliver products.
If you’re thinking about an agile transformation, you already know about feature teams. You might even call them/use them as product teams. You might wonder about organizing all the work as product work. The “Typical Product Development Organization” shows the kind of organization I see most often.
A Guide to Agile Practices and Their Benefits in Today’s Dynamic Business Environment In to-day’s business landscape, agility has become a key driver for success. Agile methodology, originally conceived for software development, has transcended its IT roots to become a vital approach in various business sectors.
We talk a lot about empowered or self-organizing teams in the agile community. When Mark Kilby and I wrote From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams , we said the easiest way to create a system that worked for the team was for the team to create its own board. Agile Approaches Require Management Cultural Change.
Effective governance can serve as the bedrock of organizational culture, which shapes perceptions, attitudes, and interactions throughout the organisational hierarchy, between departments, and within project teams. Foster an inclusive culture that values different perspectives.
The original signatories of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development wanted to solve these specific problems: How can we: Bring more adaptability to software development? For example (books have affiliate Amazon links): Takeuchi and Nonaka published The New New Product Development Game in HBR in 1986. Womack and Daniel T.
Isn't every iterative and incremental approach an agile approach? We often hear agile approaches are a mindset. An agile approach requires a change in culture at the team level, at the portfolio level, and in management. Agile approaches change what we discuss, how we work together, and what we reward.
I discussed the origins of the agile approaches in Part 5. In this post, I'll discuss how you can create an agile approach that fits your context. Why should you create your own agile approach? Because your context is unique to you, your team, project, product, and culture. What do you need? Start with the Team.
In Part 1 , I wrote about how “Agile” is not a silver bullet and is not right for every team and every product. This post is about how management fits into agile approaches. Too often, managers think “agile” is for others, specifically teams of people. Team-based “agile” is not enough.
He thought agile approaches would work to “meet” and “enforce” deadlines. I asked Brad these questions: Do you have product or feature teams that are cross-functional and can release alone? ( Component teams create interdependencies and take much more time to finish work.). Why do you have deadlines?
I started this series asking where “Agile” was headed. (I I didn't like what I saw at the Agile 2019 conference.) This part is about what “Agile” or “agile” means. I understand that people want what they perceive as the value “Agile” will bring them. Why a Manifesto?
If you read my scaling agile series , you can see that becoming an agile organization requires seeing your organization as a system with a culture. You can start with teams, move to programs and the product part of the organization. You know why you want the organization to use agile approaches. Define Culture.
I started asking if you actually need an agile approach in Part 1 and noted the 4 big problems I see. Part 2 was why we need managers in an agile transformation. Part 4 was about how “Agile” is meaningless and “agile” is an adjective that needs to be applied to something. That would be resilient.
I had a great time on the Agile Coffee podcast, 75. We spoke about a variety of issues that managers, teams, and people encounter, such as: Culture and how that plays out at all levels. How we might ascribe value to seeing customer situations vs sitting in the office working on the product. Managing with Coffee.
At the Influential Agile Leader workshop earlier this year, I led a session about scaling and how you might think about it. I asked if any of the teams succeeded at using an agile approach at the team level. I explained how in Agile and Lean Program Management.). ” Agile Scaling is the Answer to Whose Problems?
In Effective Agility Requires Cultural Changes: Part 1 , I said that real agile approaches require cultural change to focus on flow efficiency, where we focus on watching the work, not the people. If you and your team have been practicing real agility, you might say these ideas barely show any agility at all.
A Guide to Agile Practices and Their Benefits in Today’s Dynamic Business Environment In to-day’s business landscape, agility has become a key driver for success. Agile methodology, originally conceived for software development, has transcended its IT roots to become a vital approach in various business sectors.
I started this series asking where “Agile” was headed. This part is about how people want a recipe, The Answer, for how to get better at “Agile.” ” Before we can address what an answer might be, your need to know your why for an agile approach. Can “Agile” deliver on that?
We organize all of the trending information in your field so you don't have to. Join 55,000+ users and stay up to date on the latest articles your peers are reading.
You know about us, now we want to get to know you!
Let's personalize your content
Let's get even more personalized
We recognize your account from another site in our network, please click 'Send Email' below to continue with verifying your account and setting a password.
Let's personalize your content