Implement Agile Practices That Work

Improve collaboration and transparency with the business to minimize project failure.

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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.

Contributors

Amerinet
Pacific Blue Cross
Organization in the medical industry

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Get to Action

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.

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.
- Implement Agile Practices That Work – Phase 1: Assess and Prepare for Agile
- Agile Pilot Project Playbook Template
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.
- Implement Agile Practices That Work – Phase 2: Implement the Pilot Agile Project
- Scrum Documentation Template

Guided Implementation

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

Schedule Your First Call

Onsite Workshop

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:
1.1	Assess and prepare your organization	Organizational readiness assessment for Agile development
1.2	Select the right pilot project	Pilot project selection
1.3	Assess your current SDLC	Current state analysis of development process

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:
2.1	Simulate baseline Scrum	Learning of the baseline Scrum process
2.2	Tailor Scrum and SDLC process flow to fit your context	Customized Scrum process and optimized SDLC process flow
2.3	Understand your Agile metrics	List of metrics to gauge success of Agile
2.4	Build your development methodology selection framework	Development methodology selection framework
2.5	Brainstorm and prioritize your Agile implementation initiatives	Agile implementation roadmap