Is it Agile?
From the Taking the Plunge Blog
by Aaron Porter
In case you actually read this description, the beginning of the blog is about preparing for the PMP exam. It then evolved into maintaining my credential. While maintaining relevant credentials is important, it doesn't make a good long-term topic. Watch for experiments, some serious topics as I try out new things and "take the plunge", and maybe a little bit of fun.
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I recently posted a question regarding whether or not a project, that several of my peers are working on, is agile. You can read the responses here:
https://www.projectmanagement.com/discussion-topic/56782/Is-it-Agile-
If you're thinking, "Who cares?" I don't blame you. Agile. Waterfall. Does it really matter how work gets done, as long as it gets done?
Some processes, however, make you wonder what is really getting done.
One of the concepts used in Scrum is the Definition of Ready. A simple explanation of this is that there is enough information on the story card for the work to be accurately sized. Obviously, you have the user story on the card. Then there are test cases, exceptions, you might need wireframes and a technical spec, and so on. Before you know it, you've gone from Scrum to Waterfall. This was what my peer's project was starting to look like. There were so many pre-conditions that needed to be met before development could begin that they created a Kanban board to track the stories through the pre-conditions, so that they would know when they could size the story and add it to a sprint. From an outsider's perspective, they were sacrificing speed for quality.
But were they? And were they still agile? While you could no longer call their process strictly Scrum, it still contains elements of agile. Scrum may be a flavor of agile, but agile is not scrum. It is not strictly adhering to a set of practices to the point that the practices get in the way of getting work done and delivering value.
Don't ask yourself, "Are we agile?" Instead, ask yourself (and others) the following:
- Are we able to rapidly and consistently deliver value?
- Are we able to respond quickly to changing priorities?
Adopting a flavor of agile doesn't guarantee either. You may have organizational issues or other problems that need to be solved that have nothing to do with agile. Instead of pursuing an agile transformation and hoping that it solves your problems, take the time to find out what the problems are that are keeping you from delivering and responding. If you find that making an agile transformation will solve your problems, by all means, go for it. If not, then do what it takes to solve the problems. Being able to deliver value and respond to change is more important than the name of the process you use to get there.
Posted on: April 10, 2017 12:08 AM |
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Comments (15)
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Thilo Wack
Head of Existing Product and Test Lab| optimed
Tholey-Hasborn, Germany
Aaron, great post. Here are my 2 cents on this: Sacrificing speed for quality is necessary at times, as a lot of people who took one short-cut too many can testify. Agile and waterfall both value speed as well as quality, but have different ideas on how to achieve them, so this per se does not put these guys in one of the boxes (or between them). However I can understand your point; to me, too this heavy emphasis on the preparation/planning side looks suspiciously like waterfall... If I'd be part of that team I'd challenge the approach using the two questions you mentioned and also ask does this this approach deliver value towards managing the project, do we achieve good flow of work and do we frequently inspect and adapt our approach? If yes, then so be it...
Ken Bradshaw
Project Manager| CRA
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
Thanks Aaron! I am new to Agile and find it very easy to fall back into Waterfall. Old habits and all... :)
Aaron Porter
Community Champion
IT Director| Blade HQ
Payson, UT, United States
Thilo, thanks for the feedback.
Ken, I don't think there's a problem with falling back into waterfall. Use the tool that's right for the job. Scrum doesn't work for every project, and even when it might work for a project, it might not be right for the organization. The project approach is only one factor in the success or failure of a project.
Our team is trying to add more agile and scrum techniques to our PMO. I prefer waterfall but I'm seeing some of the advantages of scrum as we use it.
Karthik T
Senior Engineering Manager| Nike
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Thanks Aaron, great article!
Thomas Cooper
PMP, CSPO| State of Tennessee Department of Health Care Finance and Adminstration PMO
Nashville, Tn, United States
Aaron, Great points. Locally, the software development community is exploding in Nashville and so hiring managers are all about agile and scrum, buzzwords if you are recruiting. I, however, work in a very non agile environment. One way to get people excited about changing the way they work is to call it agile! It is my hope that slowly we can introduce agile methods to keep up the enthusiasm.
I see one of the key values out of using Agile methods in your projects is finding out sooner if you are truly delivering the right kind of value to your customer, instead of the chunk of work at the end of the line you break up the chunk of work and get something built that comes as close as possible to what 'we think' the outcome should be and find out sooner if we are on target or not (hence all those iterations) while trying to get to end of job on the final delivery. Plus as you pull in the end user/customer-to-be in your feedback loop during the iterations it becomes empowering to the team to know if they are on track or not.
Mansoor Mustafa
Senior PM| Government Department
Rawalpindi Punjab, Pakistan
Deciding on agile or waterfall maybe a tricky question for organization and sometimes it's a hybrid model that works. There is not better or not so good framework, what works is the best and for PM/ organization it is the value that is delivered in time and within budget, is important.
William Meller
IT Project, Program & Portfolio Manager| Polestar
Gothenburg, Sweden
Farouq Zaabab
Researcher, Coach, Trainer, Consultant| Freelancer
Sohar, Oman
Very useful information. Thanks for sharing
Alok Priyadarshi
Project Manager| Tata Consulting Engineers Limited
Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India
Very well explained that if you are able to quickly deliver value and respond to change, you are practicing Agile .
Thank you Aaron !!
Luis Branco
CEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, Ldª
Carcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Dear Aaron
Interesting your perspective on the topic: "Is it Agile?"
Thanks for sharing
Important point to remember:
"Instead of pursuing an agile transformation and hoping that it solves your problems, take the time to find out what the problems are that are keeping you from delivering and responding."
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