What are your views or experiences of Change management in Agile? How is it adapted in Agile? Would love to understand your experiences in your organisations Saving Changes...
Sort By:
Wade HarshmanScrum Master| GDITIndianapolis, In, United States
Agile organizations embrace change. That's the main difference.
One of the core Agile values in the "Agile Manifesto for Software Development" is "Responding to change over following a plan."
The idea is that traditional project management puts too much emphasis on the project plan. While there is certainly value in planning, we often develop cumbersome change management processes that impede our ability to react quickly when change is needed.
Agile organizations expect change and incorporate change management into their core processes. Change is not an exception to the plan, but an integral part of normal operations. Saving Changes...
I would add to Wade's comment that sometimes the change management processes in predictive plan environments are intentionally cumbersome to discourage change and to promote getting the one-true-plan correct from the beginning. Saving Changes...
Are you referring to project change control or organization change management as the response will vary depending on which you meant.
If the former, then Wade & Keith's responses are correct. If the latter, then because agile delivery implies early and regular change, the need for OCM doesn't go away, but it needs to be leaned out and happen in-line with other delivery activities so that we don't end up in a Scrum-Fall situation where the change itself is ready, but change deliverable supporting the implementation and sustainment of the change aren't.
Kiron Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
I will not write this because the comments of my neighborhood colleagues above (jeje) but it is a big misunderstanding about "embrace the change" related to Agile world. The misunderstanding usually comes because people read just a part instead of all the Manifesto for Agile Software Development (by the way, this is Agile applied to software products only) and what is "worst" do not take the time to understand it. Embrace the change does not mean that there is not a change management control process in place or it does not mean "you can change everything you want when you want". Totally wrong. So, some methods/frameworks based on Agile approach has the change management process embedded into it (Scrum for example), other has it as a layer (SAFe for example) but at the end of the day the answer to your question is: your actual change management process could be used with Agile approach. When you thing about ways to create things you have to think about architecture. In fact, is what the creators of Agile based methods/frameworks done. The basic architecture is like a pyramid where you have, from the base to the top, the approach, the life cycle to support the approach, the method to support the life cycle, the tool to support the method. Saving Changes...
Wade HarshmanScrum Master| GDITIndianapolis, In, United States
It may help to describe it a different way.
In a predictive lifecycle project, there is an assumption that the customer knows what they want. Within reason, of course. We may discover new things along the way, which is why we incorporate change management. We may also discover that we can't accomplish the project goals, and setup fail gates along the way- not necessarily "change management," but certainly it's a form of change to cancel a project.
In many Agile settings, there's an assumption that the customer does not know what they want. This is not to say that the customer is stupid, but rather that we have many unknowns, and our product may evolve as we make new discoveries or react to new technologies, market forces, etc. I have to concede to Mr. Conte that we can't embrace all change, because not all change is good. But we expect change, and therefore work in a way that allows us to react quickly and take advantage of new opportunities.
In the classic example of Minimal Viable Product, there's an evolution of transportation until we get to an automobile. Project Managers sometimes struggle with this example, because if the customer knows they want an automobile, aren't we wasting time creating a bicycle?
Yes. In a predictive project lifecycle where the customers know their end product, it's more efficient to build what they want the first time. But in an iterative project, the customers only know that they are tired of walking. They don't yet know that they want a vehicle. At each product delivery, they decide if they want to make changes. Perhaps a bicycle is enough, or perhaps they want a motorcycle instead of a car. Agile projects incorporate that change management / evolution into the life cycle so customers can make these decisions at regular intervals. But there is most definitely a defined process- we know who will approve these changes. Saving Changes...
