Agile Development

7 Tips for Going Agile

Thinking of going Agile or already on the way? You are not alone. Many companies today are considering Agile or have already taken the plunge. A 2011 Gartner survey indicated that Agile development methods will be utilized in 80% of all software development projects by the end of 2012. Agile is quickly becoming mainstream. If you're considering the switch or have already begun to transition, here are some tips to get that magical ROI from Agile you keep hearing about.

1. Be clear about why you want to go Agile
Switching to Agile just because everyone else is doing it (maybe even your competitors) is not a compelling reason and won't motivate your staff to give their all to ensure the success of Agile. It's a significant undertaking, fraught with many pitfalls and roadblocks, resistance to change not the least among them. You'll need to have a crystal clear and valid reason for asking people to change so much. Is it to increase speed to market? To improve quality? To gain product development alignment? Whatever your business driver, it should be obvious to the entire staff what you expect to get from Agile and why it is important everyone gets on board.

2. Decide where to start
Some companies begin by getting their software development teams working in an Agile way, be it Scrum, Kanban, XP or whatever Agile approach you believe will give you the ROI you need. Once the teams have acclimated to delivering software incrementally (which could take years depending on how much guidance, empowerment, management support, etc. they receive), the organization then scales incremental planning up to the program and portfolio levels. Other companies begin at the top and start by aligning program and portfolio planning, creating high-level product development backlogs that can then be divided into smaller pieces for delivery by software development teams over time. Once this alignment exists, they then convert development teams to Agile and start feeding them the fully aligned backlogs of work. Deciding where to start also includes tactical considerations such as converting all of your teams at once ("big bang") or one team at a time. An alternative can be to use a combination approach that includes converting pilot teams, adjusting the rollout process based on pilot results, then rolling out remaining teams at whatever pace works for you.

3. Get external help
For endeavors of this magnitude, it pays to consult a professional who can lead you down the right road, potentially save you money, and avoid the pain of making wrong decisions based on lack of experience. An external professional can bring objective advice and valuable experience regarding what has or has not worked at other companies trying to go Agile, and can help educate senior management on the challenges and benefits to expect. External coaches are also an invaluable resource. Teams need hands-on, 8 hours a day support when they first convert. Mistakes made early in conversion tend to magnify and expand over time, and can derail your entire rollout. Don't risk it. The effort to successfully implement and sustain Agile is significant. Protect your investment by creating a solid foundation right from the beginning. When hiring external Agile resources, require they have actual experience rolling out Agile for companies your size. What's needed to convert 75 teams is very different than what's needed to convert 5 teams. And if you want to scale Agile beyond the team level, that is an entirely different skill set. Scaling Agile is the latest buzzword in the industry, with everyone selling their own version of how to scale, but those that have done it successfully are few and far between. Don't entrust your rollout to someone who is good at theoretical discussions and can write great blogs but hasn't done it before. Theory isn't enough. There are too many potential wrong turns. Demand someone who has been there and knows what to watch out for, and be ready to pay for that experience.

4. Get internal help
External help should be temporary. Eventually you will want to transition implementation and sustainment of Agile to your own internal staff. Start thinking about who those internal people will be and get them involved with the external resources from day one. One of the most common mistakes companies make when transitioning to Agile is neglecting to dedicate internal resources to guide and be responsible for the success of the transition, ensure that rollout decisions are aligned with your business needs, remove roadblocks to a successful transition, be the central area for all questions Agile, and be the gatekeepers when things start to slide backwards (as they will). External consultants cannot fill this role. It has to be your staff who know your business and understand the gaps Agile must address. Creating this group (sometimes called an Agile Working Group or AWG) requires a real commitment. These are the same dedicated, highly-qualified resources that an organization would normally place on high-profile and risk-intensive projects. Since transitioning to Agile is both high-profile and risk-intensive, you’ll need these A-players in order for the implementation to be successful*. They may not be on this team forever, but you will be grateful to have them at the wheel when everything starts changing at once.

5. Get top-down buy-in
It is critical that senior management is on board with the move to Agile and what the target ROI is. You can expect many hurdles and roadblocks during your conversion, but if senior management is publicly on board with Agile, staff will see that the organization is serious about improvement. If management isn’t visibly supporting your rollout, you face even more obstacles. Convincing departments and managers one at a time that Agile is the way to go is a long, arduous, and painful process, and your odds of getting stalled are quite high. Spend the time to get senior management buy-in up front. You will be thankful later when you need their support to implement the big changes.

6. Get bottom-up buy-in
External resources, management support and an internal Agile Working Group are great for increasing your chances for success, but to get real buy-in from your staff, they need to hear from their peers that it works. Identify who in your organization has successful Agile experience and put them on the front lines sharing all the great things Agile gives you. If no one has this experience, identify who has the most potential as a role model (senior developers maybe?) and groom them to lead others to work in an Agile environment. Put them on the pilot projects, give them everything they need to succeed, send them to Agile conferences, give them a budget for Agile books, provide opportunities for them to work with other teams in an advisory capacity, give them role names such as Agile Champion, and recognize them publicly. Have them speak at corporate Town Halls, feature them in videos or posters on the office walls, or use whatever advertising means are available. Another powerful way to get staff buy-in is advertising interviews or quotes from business people who are happy with the results they are getting from Agile projects. The more people see that their own peers are believers and see proof that Agile does work, the faster they will embrace the new culture. Your goal should be to constantly increase how many Agile supporters you have and to keep them and their successes on the front lines and visible to the entire company.

7. Sell, sell, sell!
You may think that most of the work in transitioning to Agile is getting the teams to do 15 minute stand-ups and plan their work incrementally. In fact, the most difficult part of transitioning to Agile is not implementing the superficial mechanics of a process such as stand-up meetings or working in 2 week sprints (although even these have their challenges), but changing ingrained human behavior. If you’ve ever tried to get a toddler to do something he doesn’t want to do, you know how strongly humans can resist change, even if it really is for their own good. So transitioning to Agile is first and foremost a sales and marketing effort. As a starting point, look for pilot projects or quick successes that you can advertise to increase buy-in and excitement about what Agile gives your organization. Then as your transition progresses, keep highlighting successes and bringing visibility to the problems Agile has solved. I have heard that there are only two guarantees in Agile: one, it will bring everything to light, and two, you won’t like what you see. Sometimes you may hear Agile blamed for problems, when in fact those problems existed in the organization before Agile came along. The only difference is now the skeletons have been forced to come out of the closet and are on the table, needing to be addressed before you can proceed with a successful transition. Incidents like this are prime opportunity to sell the power of Agile to clean up the organization and help it become a well-oiled machine. Before that can happen, though, staff need to feel empowered to proactively change whatever isn’t working, without having to wait for permission or being told they should fix something. Your job is to keep up the sales and marketing efforts, to keep sending the same message even when the going gets tough: “We can do it. We can do whatever needs to be done no matter how difficult."

Real Agile requires deep changes to human behavior. Are your functional managers ready to stop micro-managing teams and assigning work to the teams? Are they ready to fully trust the teams to do their own work? Are the teams ready to plan their own work and be accountable if their plans don’t succeed? Are your product managers ready to work together for the good of the company rather than focusing on making their own departments look good? Do your staff feel they can jump in and fix the things that are wrong in the organization, or is it always someone else’s problem? Real empowerment is one of the most difficult things for human beings to acquire. We are all products of our environment, and usually in the business world we are told what to do. To switch to an environment where you really do get input into decision-making, and management and staff trust each other to do the right thing, where there is no blame or finger-pointing, is no trivial thing and requires constant coaching and guidance for the entire enterprise. True behavioral change takes years to become second nature. How far your organization can or wants to take Agile is, of course, up to you. Change is not easy, but in the end it is worth it. Anything else leaves a lot of great things on the table.


*1 - AWG – A Sustainable Engine of Agile Enterprise Adoption, white paper by Jorgen Hesselberg for Agile Alliance 2011