How to Effectively Steal from Agile PArt 2
Distilling the core of Agile-ness can help you achieve your goals.
The Digital Custodian R&D (Rip off & Duplicate) Department has been hard at work trying to find yet another way to steal from Agile. We’ve developed a process that leverages the core of Agile-ness, and we’re making this information open to the public for general consumption. We’re confident that integration of this core into your business framework can help you achieve your goals.
In my early school days we had various fundraisers for new books, sports banquets, etc. For each new drive for funds, we piled in the gym, clambered onto the bleachers where we half-listened to what we’d be selling and how we’d win those coveted prizes. But the year of the coupon books was different. As the school was about to release its army of prepubescent hucksters upon the world, the presenter said something that stuck with me: “Put the product in the customer’s hands.”
We live in a world where OKRs (Objective Key Results) and Metrics are used to tell us how we're performing, but quite often the numbers don’t tell the whole story. I’ve worked with many development teams who are wholly focused on the number of story points they’re completing in each sprint, and closely watching their burndown charts like it's a video game. All the while, their code is piling up in branches because they haven’t pushed to production in months. Their measure of success is “how many points can we get done in this sprint?” Despite all the “increases in performance”, sales haven’t increased. So what can you use to measure success? More importantly, what can we steal from Agile to apply to any type of business?
First, let’s revisit the ordinal list to the Manifesto and the Principles that I created in part 1. The first four are what I consider the “values” of the manifesto and the following twelve are the principles. The strikeout items were covered in the first article about “Communication” here.
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
Working software is the primary measure of progress.
Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
Seeking Combinations
We can look for commonalities by inspecting the values and principles established by the manifesto. Let’s break them down by 4 categories:
We can extract commonalities by evaluating the values and principles. Let’s group them into 4 categories:
People - Who is the value/principle referring to?
Action - What actions are suggested for the people?
Process - In what way will these people follow these actions?
Cadence - How often should the people follow this action for full effectiveness?
These four categories capture the spirit of Agile in a concentrated form.
Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash
Distilled Agile Principle #2 - Valuable, Working Products:
From the ordered list, let’s take numbers 2, 5, 7, and 11 and distill them down to a principle that is easily digestible.
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
Working software is the primary measure of progress.
These four are about satisfying the customer, an excellent measure of success.
Let’s break it down by extracting the words into the four categories:
People: Customer
Action: Deliver, delivery
Process: working software, valuable software, measure of progress
Cadence: early and continuous, frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months
shorter timescale
People
This one is pretty simple: It’s all about the customer! Jeff Bezos is quoted as saying “We think about the customer and work backwards.” Last time I checked, his company is doing pretty well. At the end of the day, business is about providing value to your customers in a way that they couldn’t do themselves.
Action
So how do we satisfy our customers? Delivery! You must deliver your product to the customer.
Process
Looking at our development/manufacturing process, how do we know that we have succeeded? Agile says that you measure progress with working, valuable software. We are stealing from Agile so let’s make that more generic and say “valuable, working products.”
Cadence
Agile is pretty clear about how often it expects you to deliver. By saying “with a preference to the shorter timescale”, we know that we need to deliver rapidly. I think we can replace “Early”, “frequent”, and “continuous” with “early and often.”
That leaves us with:
People: customers
Action: delivery
Process: valuable, working products
Cadence: early and often
Which brings me to Distilled Agile Principle #2...
Measure your progress and satisfy your customer by delivering valuable, working products early and often.
I help teams redefine “success” by changing their focus to the customer. If you aren’t delivering to your customers, then you have no chance to satisfy them. To apply this concept, we can assess Return on Investment (ROI). When the business invests into the production team, at what point does the business see a ROI? It’s when the customer is able to receive the value you’ve created. After all, we gain nothing if we increase production yet leave the products on the shipping dock.
Or to call up those words from long ago that still echo in my mind, “Put the product in the customer’s hands.”
We have completed the first two Distilled Agile Principles, stay tuned next week for Part 3 of 5.
