Implement Agile Practices That Work
Improve collaboration and transparency with the business to minimize project failure.
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Contributors
- Amerinet
- Pacific Blue Cross
- Organization in the medical industry
Your Challenge
- Application development managers are under increasing pressure to perform more in less time with the same amount of resources while remaining aligned to business priorities.
- Deployed products are not aligned to current stakeholder needs. Miscommunication and late injections lead to costly rework.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- The Agile philosophy is a complete shift of the traditional mindset that many organizations struggle to comprehend. Agile is often misunderstood and implemented with the wrong intentions.
- Agile will reveal more issues than you think. Increased transparency and collaboration will reveal communication, process, and tooling gaps.
- By-the-book Agile processes are not enough as there is no one-size-fits-all Agile methodology. Adapting the Agile process to your specific context is critical for a successful implementation.
Impact and Result
- Complete an organizational readiness assessment to gauge the fit of your development teams, management, technology, and culture for Agile.
- Select the appropriate pilot project to learn, adapt, and cement Agile philosophies and behaviors, and gain the necessary metrics to convince stakeholders of further Agile rollout.
- Gain a grounded understanding of your current software development lifecycle (SDLC) to identify the required practices, steps, and artifacts that must be conducted and created in your Agile process.
- Begin with baseline Scrum and modify it to better fit your context.
- Create an Agile implementation roadmap that will accommodate all of the necessary people, process, and technology changes to successfully adopt your tailored Agile process.
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should implement Agile, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.
1. Assess and prepare for Agile
Determine the readiness of the organization and development teams for Agile development and select the pilot project that is most suitable for Agile.
2. Implement the pilot Agile project
Simulate and modify the Scrum process to fit the organizational context and develop a roadmap to successfully implement Agile. Prepare for a wider rollout.
Guided Implementations
This guided implementation is a five call advisory process.
Guided Implementation #1 - Assess and prepare for Agile
Call #1 - Discuss the organizational gaps that may pose a risk to your Agile implementation
Call #2 - Validate the appropriateness of your Agile pilot project
Call #3 - Review your current SDLC
Guided Implementation #2 - Implement your pilot Agile project
Call #1 - Clarify the Scrum process and identify opportunities to improve its fit with your development team
Call #2 - Discuss strategies to roll out Agile beyond your pilot team
Book Your Workshop
Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Assess and Prepare for Agile
The Purpose
- Assess the current state of your development environment and its potential fit with Agile.
- Select a pilot project to demonstrate the value of Agile.
- Review and evaluate your current software development lifecycle (SDLC).
Key Benefits Achieved
- Understanding the notable organizational gaps that can derail your Agile implementation.
- Selection of a pilot project that will be used to gather metrics to continuously improve and obtain buy-in for wider rollout.
- Realization of the root causes behind the people, process, and technology issues in your current development process.
Activities
Outputs
Assess and prepare your organization
- Organizational readiness assessment for Agile development
Select the right pilot project
- Pilot project selection
Assess your current SDLC
- Current state analysis of development process
Module 2: Implement Your Pilot Agile Project
The Purpose
- Gain a grasp of the goals and philosophies of the Scrum methodology through simulations.
- Tailor the Scrum process to better fit your context.
- Optimize your SDLC based on the lessons learned from your Scrum simulation.
- Define the initiatives to implement Agile in your organization and to prepare for a wider rollout.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Strong understanding of the by-the-book Scrum process and realization of its fit to your development environment.
- Customized Scrum and SDLC processes that addresses your development challenges and business objectives.
- Agile implementation roadmap based on current resource capacities, task complexities, and business priorities.
Activities
Outputs
Simulate baseline Scrum
- Learning of the baseline Scrum process
Tailor Scrum and SDLC process flow to fit your context
- Customized Scrum process and optimized SDLC process flow
Understand your Agile metrics
- List of metrics to gauge success of Agile
Build your development methodology selection framework
- Development methodology selection framework
Brainstorm and prioritize your Agile implementation initiatives
- Agile implementation roadmap
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this Blueprint, and what our clients have to say.
Client
$ Saved
Days Saved
Testimonial
Best Friends Animal Society
$12,949
N/A
This was a great discussion. Andrew provided sound insight, it's just hard for me to judge the real impact without implementing some of his suggestions. Solid discussion, I came out of it with an understanding of how to actually move forward and with some actionable items on my side. He understands these concepts and better yet can apply them to different business cases.
Arizona Department of Health Services
$2,590
15
Very informative. Rich content. No complaints
Texas Capital Bank National Association Inc.
$2,590
30
The knowledge of the presented was insightful and thorough. All questions had valid and thought provoking answers.
New York Property Insurance Underwriting Association
$647
N/A
Given the projects in flight, the team hasn't been able to review and implement the agile practices at this time. SMEs were very knowledgeable, and we'll need some additional assistance in the future once we have the resource capacity to dedicate to this effort.
Father Flanagan's Boys' Home
$1,295
N/A
Just getting started but I like what this has to offer. Andrew is very knowledgeable and great to work with!
World Trade Organization
$6,474
N/A
Clear vocabulary and adaptable to what we were saying
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis
$250
10
Not for Time and Dollars above: These are hard to quantify - This gave me new insights not sure how to map that to days and dollars - We are already performing better from the conversation. Also, strengthened my resolve around a couple of issue of which I was concerned. I realize that days and dollars make for some easy to understand metrics but ... Best: highlighting effort taken up just in embracing Agile and in taking tools like VersionOne. Worst: Can't think of anything.
Hope Global
$6,474
15
This guided implementation experience is great. I feel we have an IT Department extension - partnering with us along the process. It is highly recommended. Andrew is superb. I am looking forward to our next session.
