Transforming to Collaborative Agile Teams

admin — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:40:58 +0000

Gartner has predicted that by the year 2012 “agile development methods will be utilized in 80% of all software development projects”. My webinar titled ‘Building Lean High Performing Teams’ discusses the key tools an organization needs to consider as it transforms to building collaborative Agile teams. In my experience, I’ve found that many organizations are looking for that quick fix or that one ‘magic bullet’ tool that will solve all problems. In reality, you need a combination of process and people transformation tools to truly achieve a lasting and impactful transformation.

To achieve this, you need to consider a Process Transformation in addition to a People Transformation. Let’s see below what the transformation goals would be for each:

Process Transformation

People Transformation

Goal: Change the way people GET WORK DONE by:

Having a clear definition of the work and its priority. Only working on high priority items.
Breaking down the work into small chunks of value. Deliver value frequently.
Getting frequent feedback and correcting issues/defects early.
Limiting work in progress and multitasking.
Engaging the customer throughout the entire process for prioritization and feedback.
Providing high transparency, measurement and visibility into the progress and value delivered.
Improving our ability to measure our team’s actual delivery ‘velocity’ to better predict future delivery.
Using engineering best practices and test automation.

Tools Used:

Agile, Scrum, Lean, XP, Kanban, Agile Requirements, Story Points

Goal: Change HOW people WORK TOGETHER by:

Working collaboratively with each instead of in silos. Reducing handoffs and increasing communication.
Improving the team’s ability to self organize around its work.
Creating a culture of empowered individuals that are self motivated to see their teams succeed.
Improve the effectiveness of our group meetings and ability to manage dysfunctional behaviors.
Helping teams take ownership of making frequent process improvements.
Foster an environment that encourages ‘Generalizing Specialists’. Helping teams gain the skills for conflict resolution and crucial one on one dialog.

Tools Used:

Servant Leadership, Effective Facilitation, Team Collaboration, Conflict Resolution, Company and Team Igniting Purpose, Team Norms.

Let’s look at these process and people issues from the context of a project team, and just to make things more exciting, let’s say it’s a Program that has 4 different sub teams working together to achieve a common result. Now the spicy part of the story is that several members of the team are distributed in different locations AND in different timezones across the world. Now we’re talking!

So as you can see, it’s a complicated problem we’re trying to solve and no one tool (even Agile!) alone can offer the entire solution. When you chose to have distributed teams then of course the problem is compounded with cultural, communication and timezone barriers. Nevertheless, I believe these impediments call for MORE not less collaboration because your risks of project trouble far outweigh the inconveniences of making this communication happen.

During my next set of blogs we will take a closer at these tools to gain a better understanding of why and how organizations are using them to make some of the transformations above happen.

Please post a comment below and share with us your own experience solving the Process and People issues discussed above and if you’ve used any of the tools mentioned or perhaps can share new ones!

Sally Elatta – President

Enterprise Coach & Trainer
www.AgileTraining.com
www.AgileTransformation.com

About Me:

I am simply a transformer. Someone who is really passionate about in helping organizations move towards building highly engaged collaborative teams that can deliver value predictably. I like to find practical solutions to solve real problems and use a combination of Agile, Scrum, Lean, Soft Skills and Servant Leadership to reach the desired target. I have an interesting mix of technical background as a software Architect in addition to business skills that help me connect with audiences at various levels. My goal is to transform individuals, teams and organizations to doing what they do better.

Full profile/bio: http://www.linkedin.com/in/elatta

Agile Consulting | Agile Transformation | Agile Training

Transforming to Collaborative Agile Teams