The ability to avoid
common agile adoption pitfalls may seem daunting, but there’s a light at the
end of the tunnel and your experience comes handy with agile adoption. There
are some pitfalls as discussed below and we should take care of these points.
Focusing
Only on Construction
You can realize the spirit
of the Agile Manifesto through many approaches. Ironically, most of these
approaches focus on one phase or discipline within the delivery life cycle; which
goes against the spirit of lean, which advises to consider the whole.
Most approaches focus on
the construction phase. Construction is
typically a straightforward area to focus on when taking on an agile
transformation, but if organizations only change the way they construct software,
they can’t necessarily call themselves agile. The development teams could be
humming along, delivering new working software every two weeks, but if the
processes in Operations only allow for deployment every six months or if the
Help Desk is unable to handle the churn or if customer take holders aren’t prepared
to meet regularly, the organization isn’t realizing all the benefits agile can
provide.
Becoming
Agile Zombies
Organizations fall into
the trap that if they attend a class and mandate a certain out-of-the-box
(OOTB) process, that they are now agile. They train their teams to blindly
follow and enforce the anointed process not considering which practices may
need to change to meet their organization’s unique needs. Agile isn’t a
prescribed process or set of practices; it’s a philosophy that can be supported
by a practice and no two
Agile approaches are the
same. One OOTB methodology that fulfills all needs doesn’t exist.
Improper
Planning
That old adage, “If you
fail to plan, plan to fail,” is really true. Planning is core to the success of
any agile adoption.
Organizations should
answer these questions:
i.
Why do we want to be agile, and what benefits will agile provide?
ii.
How will we achieve and measure agility?
iii.
What cultural, technological or governance barriers exist, and how
do we overcome them?
Without a plan that
clearly shapes the initiative and includes addressing and resolving constraints
to agility (for example, removing waterfall process checkpoints or getting
support from other required entities), it is more difficult to shape the
initiative, staff it, fund it, manage blockers and maintain continued executive
sponsorship.
Excluding
the Entire Organization
You can quickly short
circuit an agile adoption by working in the vacuum of a single software or
system delivery team. A single team can gain some benefit from agile, but to be
truly successful, you need to look at the whole process around solution
delivery. And many people are involved in that process. Agile should be a
change in culture for the entire organization. Find champions in Operations,
lines of business, product management, Marketing, and other functional areas to
increase your success.
Lack of
Executive Support
An effective agile
adoption requires executive sponsorship at the highest level. This involvement
means more than showing up at a kickoff meeting to say a few words. Without
executive sponsorship supporting the overall initiative, the agile adoption is
often doomed because agile initiatives require an upfront investment of
resources and funding — two areas that executives typically control.
Going Too
Fast
Moving to agile is very
exciting, and it can be tempting to jump right in, pick a process, get some
tools, and hit the ground running. Unfortunately, if a proper roadmap for coaching,
process, and tooling isn’t outlined early in the adoption you can run into
issues like the following:
i.
No defined processes for dealing with multiple dependent or
distributed teams
ii.
Scalability issues with the core agile tools
iii.
Extending the tool to support deployment, testing, or business
collaboration
Insufficient
Coaching
Because an agile adoption
isn’t just a matter of a new delivery process, but is also major cultural shift,
coaching is imperative. Developers don’t like change and many people like
working in their own world. As a result, the concept of not only changing the
way they develop, but adding the concept that now they have to work closely
with five, six, or ten other people all the time can be downright horrifying.
A coach can work with
these team members and help them through the early phases of agile adoption.
Have you known of a teacher or coach that possessed a unique ability to inspire
students to stretch their skills and perform at higher levels? Good agile
coaching can have the same affect and make the difference between the success
and failure of an agile adoption.
Retaining
Traditional Governance
When an organization plans
its agile adoption, it needs to evaluate all current processes and procedures
and whether they inhibit or enhance agility. Existing traditional governance processes
can be very difficult to change due to internal politics, company history, or
fear that compliance mandates may be negatively impacted. Some common governance
areas that are overlooked but can have dramatic impacts to agility are project
funding, change control, and phase gates.
Skimping
on Training
Organizations often see
agile practice training, like coaching, as an area where they can save money,
sending only a few key leads to learn the new process in hopes that they can
train the rest of the organization while trying to implement the new approach.
Agile involves a change in behavior and process. It is critical to send all
team members to the appropriate training and provide them with ongoing training
to reinforce agile values and update team members on processes that may have
changed.
Skimping
on Tooling
Agile tooling should
support and automate an organization’s process. Ensuring all team members
consistently use tools impacts the success of the project. If tools are used inconsistently,
metrics may not correctly reflect the correct status, builds could be run
incorrectly, and overall flow and quality issues result.
Ref: Agile for dummies
Enjoy Programming!!!
