Search

Over the past 25 to 30 years, agile innovation methods have greatly increased success rates in software development, improved quality and speed to market, and boosted the motivation and productivity of IT teams. Now those methods are spreading across a broad range of industries and functions and even reaching into the C-suite. But many executives don’t understand how to promote and benefit from agile; often they manage in ways that run counter to its principles and practices, under- mining the effectiveness of agile teams in their organizations. From their work studying and advising companies that have successfully employed agile methods, the authors have discerned six crucial practices for capitalizing on agile’s potential: (1) Learn how agile really works; (2) understand when it is appropriate; (3) start small and let passionate evangelists spread the word; (4) allow teams that have mastered the process to customize their practices; (5) practice agile at the top; and (6) destroy corporate barriers to agile behaviors. They expand on each, providing executives with a practical guide for accelerating innovation and profitable growth. INSET: Agile Values and Principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agile methodology, created to fast-track software development, is now being used throughout organizations by teams that want to execute projects quickly. But those efforts often don’t pan out, say Babson’s Rob Cross and Alia Crocker and Harvard Law School’s Heidi K. Gardner. Their research reveals that many large agile initiatives not only miss their goals but also cause organizational disruption—including staff burnout, the loss of key talent, and infighting among teams. What’s going wrong? With the help of organizational network analysis—a methodology for mapping how people collaborate—the authors have identified where unforeseen barriers undermine agile initiatives. The main problem they found: Traditional practices for executing agile projects are ineffective. Companies err by staffing agile teams only with stars, isolating them from the main business, and dedicating members 100% to teams. This article offers alternative approaches: tapping “hidden stars,” who will be less overloaded, for agile initiatives, and then identifying and reaching out to highly connected potential resources who can bring in expertise as needed. INSETS: Who Makes the Best Team Member?;Who Should Lead a Project?;What Is Organizational Network Analysis?. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When implemented correctly, agile innovation teams almost always result in higher team productivity and morale, faster time to market, better quality, and lower risk than traditional approaches can achieve. What if a company were to launch dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of agile teams? Could whole segments of the business learn to operate in this manner? As enticing as such a prospect is, turning it into a reality can be challenging. Companies often struggle to know which functions should be reorganized into multidisciplinary agile teams and which should not. And it’s not unusual to launch dozens of new agile teams only to see them bottlenecked by slow-moving bureaucracies. The authors, who have studied the scaling of agile at hundreds of companies, share what they’ve learned about how to do it effectively. Leaders should use agile methodologies themselves and create a taxonomy of opportunities to set priorities and break the journey into small steps. Workstreams should be modularized and then seamlessly integrated. Functions not reorganized into agile teams should learn to operate with agile values. And the annual budgeting process should be complemented with a VC-like approach to funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As mobile banking took hold and customers became increasingly aware of what they could do for themselves, the global banking group ING launched a pilot transformation in its Dutch retail unit, replacing most of its traditional structure with a fluid and more responsive organization composed of tribes, squads, and chapters. Dominic Barton, Dennis Carey, and Ram Charan report on this new way of working, which is being rolled out more widely across the bank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the project management effectiveness is key to implementing a successful business strategy that will greatly impact the bottom line. Topics include the project management enthusiastically to help them implement business strategies and gain competitive advantages among competitors, the strategies are usually translated into pockets of projects with multiple expectations, and the project stakeholders may find it a major challenge for a variety of reasons.

The article presents the author's views on various issues related to a balanced architecture governance practice, highlighting a method to establish a non-blocking architecture governance practice of Agile development teams. He states that dependencies can be found in the core of the business technology ecosystem and that dependency-awareness is common among players in the architecture lifecycle. Also discussed is the typical daily routine of an architect.

The article reports on the 80% of DBTA subscribers currently have digital transformation initiatives underway, and the large majority of these projects are focused on two key areas: cloud solutions and analytics.

The article discusses ways for creating a self-directed team for organizations in their early stages of adopting agile approaches for software. It suggests that managers should avoid pushing themselves into the team unless the teams ask for help as it reduces their autonomy, being careful of what they measure as it often drive behavior, and being careful of the language managers' use as it impacts the space they provide for the teams.

As just one example, data scientists often create experimental data products that then have to be rebuilt by data engineers before they can be used in production. Bridging the Gap Between Data Engineers and Data Scientists One of the most pervasive of the challenges not yet solved by older paradigms is eliminating silos and bringing different types of data workers together in a collaborative environment to build a thriving data culture. Essentially, it is a new data management paradigm that combines the capabilities of data warehouses and data lakes, changing the way data teams operate together. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the central aspect of lean thinking in agile software development, that is inspect and adapt. It demonstrates how particular tenet, that is plan, act, study and do, often ignored by teams using the so-called Agile approach. It presents three case studies wherein one examines the common agile metric of velocity and shows how it can be misused by teams. The author concludes by suggesting to adapt or die, citing the importance of teams' willingness in order to be successful.

The article discusses how a team's and an organization's context affects the way agile software development practices are implemented. The author argues that agility is a continuum rather than a discrete state. He suggests that groups can be agile without living in the colocated teams of generalists who are dedicated to one project or product. It presets five case studies detailing various techniques used to overcome the barriers to agility in allowing teams to effectively deliver software.

The article discusses the near-agile software development project and illustrates how the teams with which the author worked agreed on using certain practices that contributed to their success. The author relates the pre-Agile practices to specific principles from the Agile software manifesto. The author also emphasizes the high level of discipline in following development practices as teams may struggle on using either Agile practices or not.

The article offers information on using Design for Hybrid Agile Adoption (DH2A) Methodology for business. It notes the development of Collocated Agile technology in response to business needs for real-time feedback and collaboration among project teams. The article cites that DH2A was conceived to address the limitations of executing Collocated Agile technology in a distributed and cost-controlled environment. It explains the processes involved in implementing DH2A Methodology which include the appraisal segment, estimation segment, and the planning segment.

The article discusses the story of a team within an organization that was forced by circumstances to embrace agility in order to have any success in their work. The team did not have training and had not read any of the literature but aspire to do anything than stem tide in their system. The organization also made a drastic adjustment to the team's structure due to lack of progress. The author concludes the combination of clear vision, committed people and colocation to accomplishing the work.

The article provide information about the collaborative culture of the organization that accelerates the value creation process in term of both, internally and externally. It includes the work on multiple projects for multiple clients by worker teams in software companies, the need of promoting the right culture of collaboration to focus on team accomplishments instead of individual achievements, and the retrospectives meeting system for safer environment for collaboration.

The article elaborates on how best to manage an Agile software development team in India. Topics include subtle differences when Agile is applied for building enterprise software or Internet software as well as geography of teams and Agile software in the views of the executive, an engineering manager, a developer and a quality engineer. Also mentioned are some project recommendations, including looking for problems that should be resolved and building mutual respect among team members.

The author reflects on rapid and agile stability in software development. She says that agile refers to a group of iterative and incremental development approaches where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. She explains that these teams should have the ability to respond to change while following a plan and applying an interative approach to provide continuous delivery of software to customers.