5 Practices for Making Your Agile Feedback Loops Work

Gil Broza specializes in increasing organizational agility and team performance with minimal risk and thrashing. Dozens of companies seeking transformations, makeovers or improvements have relied on his pragmatic, modern and respectful support for customizing agile in their contexts. His book "The Agile Mind-Set" helps practitioners go beyond process and adopt a true agile approach to work. His book "The Human Side of Agile" is a practical book on leading agile teams to greatness. These days, several of the world's largest organizations are having him train hundreds of their managers in technology and business (up to VP level) on practical agile leadership. Get Gil's popular 20-session mini-program "Something Happened on the Way to Agile" free at OnTheWayToAgile.com.

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The following is an excerpt from Gil Broza’s new book, The Agile Mind-Set: Making Agile Processes Work.

Do you ever get asked to do something, and when you show your results the response is something like, "That's not what I meant…"? Do you sometimes pour your heart and soul into an amazing idea you've had, only to discover people don't even understand what you're talking about?

Agile thinking came about in the mid-1990s as a response to the troubling success rate in software development. Across the industry, many features went unused and entire products fell flat. How could intelligent, well-meaning professionals produce such grim results?

The answer to that was relatively simple: Their methods didn't allow for timely, actionable feedback. Core beliefs in the reigning methodology of the time (waterfall) were that users know what they want and need, you can get that information usefully out of their heads and it will remain relevant once you're ready with the solution. That might be true for constructing the Golden Gate Bridge, but not in many development situations.

Actionable feedback loops are at the core of agile
A central principle of the agile mindset is to have short, actionable feedback loops, and then to tighten them over time. How do agile teams typically implement this principle? Work closely with your …

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