The Best Framework to Use for a Successful Agile Transformation

 

This is, of course, a trick title. There is no "best" framework. Consider some organizations that Stephen Denning's Age of Agile mentions as making a successful adoption of Agile: Barclays, Cerner, Menlo Innovations, Riot Games, Salesforce, and Spotify.

Two things they have in common stand out:

1. They figured out what worked for them
2. They implemented:

• a. focus on the customer
• b. how to have self-organizing teams
• c. how to have these teams work together in a network

Not adopting a pre-existing framework does not mean that they created their way of working from scratch. Most brought in training to learn how teams can work effectively. The real issue, of course, is changing mindsets and how teams can best work with other teams. Both of these are very specific to the organization involved.

The issues that have to be dealt with - product management, planning, DevOps, etc, - are fairly well known with a slew of solutions for different circumstances. Teams can often create something that works for them by merely picking up existing practices and tying them together.

This is the essence of Disciplined Agile's approach to people choosing their own way of working.