Driving Agile into an Organization

Agile has exploded into organizations doing software development. Scrum, XP, and other methods (and combinations) are used by many organizations. Non-software organizations use approaches such as CBPM (see my other posts).

Recently I joined an organization that had brought in Agile (mostly Scrum) a couple of years back. While most projects were using this approach, there was no energy behind. In what is a common approach, they had launched it and left it to its own devices. Still, teams were successful with higher quality products and more satisfied customers. But management and the people in the organization thought there was more to be done.

Enter Jose. I started by assessing, along with a small team, of the situation. We ran an internal survey to confirm our findings. The #1 finding was the need for training. But how to bring the training in with limited funds? And what else to do?

We decided to deliver short (1-2 hour) sessions on specific Agile concepts (writing user stories, using Rally, our software development management tool, estimating and planning, etc) as well as doing some longer sessions (I had done a day-long session outside so brought that one in).

Attendance is very high, with no empty chairs.  We’ve scheduled an external vendor for a two-day workshop for product owners. And we’ll be launching a coaching program in the near term.

Response has been very positive and we look forward to improved results.

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