Having spent the last 15 years of my career helping my teams adopt agile practices to deliver software and data products, I’ve experienced most of the common challenges that organisations and teams face, especially when trying to integrate with existing governance frameworks in complex or regulated environments. Knowing how difficult this can be, I’ve become passionate about helping organisations avoid some of these common challenges.
One of the key challenges when trying to adopt agile methodologies is how people think about agile. Agile is not just the implementation of the new project management methodology, but to be successful needs a mindset shift within the teams and across the organisation.
This does not mean that an organisation needs to spend thousands training every employee in agile practices. However, teams that interface with the scrum teams should have a good understanding of what to expect from an agile team and that everyone within the scrum team should have a good understanding of how to operate within that team. This reduces the risk of potential conflicts and misunderstandings that can ultimately lead to the failure to deliver the desired customer outcomes.
In my experience getting this done upfront at the start of any scrum project or the implementation of any agile journey means that:
– leadership & stakeholders know what to expect when engaging with the agile team. Being clear up front can eliminate a lot of frustrating conversations and unnecessary concerns.
– other teams across the organisation know how and when to engage with the scrum team meaning their are no surprises or delays when support is required outside of the immediate scrum team.
– members of the scrum team understand how to effectively operate within their agile environment making sure that everyone is fully engaged and the team can get the best from each individual.
Getting this start up activity undertaken prior to the first sprint supports both the scrum master and the scrum teams to eliminate impediments to success before they occur.
I would be interested to hear from anyone else who has experienced challenges between scrum teams and the wider organisation when getting their agile journey up and running, drop me a message or comment on the post.
Alternatively, if you would like to know what in my experience I include when thinking about agile start up get in touch.