How do you identify gaps in your agile practices?

Depending on where you stand on your agile transformation plan, these assessment models can be very insightful or may just give you a starting point. I have found using the maturity assessment models to be more effective when the teams have been following agile practices for a certain period of time. For very new teams, the maturity models may not give you actionable insights. Talking to people, gauging their awareness & understanding about agile practices, the quality of the increments, emotional health or just dialogues are the simplest ways to start with.

I identify gaps in my agile practices by regularly reflecting on our team's processes and outcomes, soliciting feedback from team members and stakeholders, and comparing our methods to industry best practices and agile frameworks. This introspection helps me pinpoint areas where we can improve our collaboration, communication, and delivery of value to customers. By acknowledging and addressing these gaps, I can refine our agile approach to better meet the needs of our team and organization.

Agile leaders can both assess agile maturity of their teams and the organization as well. In this way, they can differentiate what things they should improve on team and organizational level.

To identify gaps in your agile practices, start by assessing your agile maturity through self-assessments and retrospective analysis. Collect feedback from stakeholders to uncover areas for improvement. Benchmark your processes against industry standards and best practices to spot discrepancies. Experiment with new approaches and tools to see what drives better outcomes. Consider seeking external support, like coaches, for an unbiased perspective. Continuously review and refine your practices to ensure alignment with agile principles and evolving team needs

Collecting feedback is critical for continuous improvement, however collecting feedback on the gaps or effectiveness of current agile practices may not be straight forward, it may be via observations or measuring other aspects For e.g. users will be happy to provide product feedback but may not care about practices. If retros are silent, we don't get direct feedback out of it. However, what we may interpret is a lack of psychological safety which can be used to identify the gap. Similarly if your stakeholders feel confident in decision making in the constant unknowns or demonstrate customer & people centricity that may be a feedback. With the maturity of teams the way you collect feedback can vary.

Stakeholder feedback is invaluable. Engage with team members, product owners, customers, and other relevant stakeholders. Understand their perspectives on the effectiveness of your agile practices. This feedback offers real-world insights into what's working well and where improvements are needed.

Organize focus groups to discuss specific aspects of your agile practices and identify areas for improvement. Also, conduct surveys and interviews with key stakeholders, including team members, customers, and management, to gather their perspectives. Finally, hold regular review meetings, such as sprint reviews and retrospectives, to collect ongoing feedback for improvements and to acknowledge successes.

One approach that works well in identifying gaps in agile practices is actively collecting feedback from stakeholders. This involves creating multiple channels for input, such as surveys, one-on-one interviews, and focus group discussions. What I've noticed is that stakeholders often provide unique perspectives on the effectiveness of agile practices. Their insights can reveal blind spots and areas of improvement that may not be apparent to the team directly involved in day-to-day operations. I've discovered that regular feedback sessions can be particularly effective. This frequency should allow enough time for changes to be implemented and their impact to be observed, providing valuable data on the progress of agile adoption.

Collecting feedback from stakeholders is crucial to improving agile practices in an organization. This involves holding regular meetings, such as retrospectives, where teams can share experiences and suggestions. Using survey tools and questionnaires can also make it easier to capture valuable opinions. Incorporating this feedback allows adjustments to agile methods, promoting a cycle of continuous improvement. By actively engaging stakeholders, organizations create a collaborative environment that encourages innovation and customer satisfaction.

Irrespective of we have gaps or not continuous learning and not "comparing" is what we need to build as a culture and habit. All the sources mentioned are excellent way of learning. Continuous learning & experimentation is always important for any team or organization to grow & to stay relevant.

Rather than 'comparing', my suggestion would be to use 'trial & error' with such best practices and standards. For instance, teams can pick one best practice as a pilot and experience it first hand to gauge if it works for them or not. This could be a eye opener in terms of implicit gaps in the process.

Comparing your current practices with best practices and standards like SAFe(Scaled Agile Framework) is a fantastic way to identify gaps in your agile journey. It's like holding up a mirror to your team and seeing where you can improve. SAFe is a great resource because it provides a collection of practices, patterns, and principles that can be scaled to fit the specific needs of your organization. It's not a one-size-fits-all solution, but it can offer a roadmap for improvement. there's no perfect agile approach. The key is to find what works best for your team and your specific project. But by using a combination of self-assessment, feedback, and benchmarking, you can identify those gaps and continuously improve your agile practices.

Best practices and standards are proven IN A GIVEN CONTEXT, not in a universal, always-works way. They might be a useful starting point, but they might always work in a way which is contraindicated in your context.

Benchmark your agile practices against established best practices and industry standards. This could involve referencing the Agile Manifesto, Scrum Guide, or other relevant frameworks. Identify areas where your practices align and where there might be deviations. This comparison helps pinpoint specific gaps that need attention.

Helping your team be comfortable with a try, retry approach and demonstrating that you are comfortable with changing up the methods is a key element of building the trust and relationships needed for success. I find it especially useful to bound those trials - whether for a quarter or PI increment, so that the team has some expectation of a period to get used to a new pattern and reflect on it before either adopting more fully or pulling the plug. Larger quarterly retros with a broad stakeholder group can especially help in these types of reviews.

Experimentation helps in identifying gaps. Teams should be provided flexibility to try out ways on their own. At times, things may not work. However, it would be one step towards eliminating gaps in existing practices.

Agile is about continuous improvement. Experimentation is a powerful way to identify gaps and discover better practices. Try introducing small changes or new approaches to your agile processes. Monitor the impact of these experiments and gather feedback. This iterative experimentation allows you to evolve and tailor your agile practices.

Experimenting with new approaches is essential to improving agile practices and adapting them to the organization's specific needs. This may include incorporating hybrid methods that combine elements from different agile frameworks, such as Scrum and Lean. Conducting rapid prototypes and A/B testing allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of new strategies before full implementation. Additionally, promoting innovation through hackathons and workshops can stimulate team creativity. By encouraging a mindset of experimentation, organizations can discover effective solutions and drive continuous improvement.

In my view, it's crucial to start small when experimenting. Implement changes in one team or project first, allowing for quick iterations and adjustments before rolling out successful approaches more broadly across the organization. Reflecting on my experiences, I've found that documenting these experiments is key. Keep detailed records of what was tried, the outcomes, and lessons learned. This creates a valuable knowledge base for future improvements and helps in identifying persistent gaps in agile practices.

External Support for me would be best sought from other teams working in the organization. Things working for those teams may be suitable items for a trial based approach. Additionally, feedback from such teams & team members goes a long way in chalking out key outliers in the process followed.

External support can also come from within your organization. Communities of practice within your organization or business unit can provide unique opportunities to see various approaches implemented amongst your peers and internal stakeholders. By seeing these practices and their varying degrees of success, you can assess what could work to improve your team’s success. Seeking collaboration from these peers or mentors allows a wealth of knowledge and experience to disseminate and inadvertently create alignment and best practices.

Sometimes an external perspective is crucial. Bring in agile coaches, consultants, or experts to conduct assessments. External support can offer fresh insights and bring in best practices from diverse experiences. They can help identify blind spots and provide recommendations for optimizing your agile practices.

Stuck in a rut? Sometimes an external perspective is essential. Seeking support from agile coaches, consultants, or peer networks can provide valuable insights and guidance. These experts offer fresh perspectives, identify blind spots, and suggest customized solutions. Engaging with the agile community through forums, conferences, or training sessions also keeps you updated with the latest trends and best practices. External support accelerates your learning curve and strengthens your agile implementation, ensuring you stay ahead of the curve.

Incremental & iterative outcomes are must for any component of the organization, including the agile practices. Defining a transformation goal and breaking it down to actions that development teams can take should be the starting point. Just as we measure our delivery OKRs on regular basis, the agile practices should be reviewed on a cadence as well. For a very simple e.g. on a regular cadence, check if the team's agile maturity score is on an positive trend or negative trend.

Agile practices should be agile so as a project manager you can review, refine, change up and or eliminate things as needed to ensure the progress and performance is moving along.

Reviewing and refining agile practices is crucial to ensure their effectiveness and alignment with organizational goals. This involves regularly analyzing processes, tools and results, using feedback from teams to identify areas for improvement. Implementing periodic reviews, such as retrospectives, allows for continuous adjustments in approaches. Additionally, educating and training teams on new agile methodologies can improve execution. This proactive approach ensures that agile practices evolve and adapt to market demands and employee needs.

Regularly review your agile practices as part of your continuous improvement process. Reflect on the outcomes of experiments, feedback from stakeholders, and external assessments. This ongoing review allows you to refine your agile practices, closing existing gaps and adapting to the evolving needs of your team and organization.

In my point of view, measuring the value and outcome for your business goals should be the starting point to check what kind of improvements are needed and then map them back to agile practices. E.g. if there are too many bugs released to production, may be check if a effective refinement session, definition of done, test coverage, etc. in place for the development teams. The other key message is to look beyond delivery measures and also observe behavioral aspects such as alignment to vision, ownership, psychological safety, collaboration, etc.

After incorporating a few techniques into my agile process, I was able to find and fix practice gaps with greater effectiveness, which eventually produced better results. Presenting you with - 1.Conduct regular retrospectives to reflect on practices. 2.Encourage feedback from team, stakeholders, and customers. 3.Define metrics and KPIs to measure effectiveness. 4.Benchmark against industry standards and best practices. 5.Provide training and education for skill enhancement. 6.Consider external reviews for objective assessment. 7.Foster a culture of continuous improvement.

Identifying gaps in agile practices involves regular retrospectives and feedback loops. In subsea operations, gaps may be discovered by analyzing project timelines and team collaboration. Similarly, in renewables, gaps could surface during feasibility studies for grid connections if communication barriers exist. Addressing these gaps requires a flexible approach, adapting practices in areas like optimizing wind turbines or offshore connections to ensure continuous improvement and overall project success

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software. - Agile Manifesto Any practice that does not directly contribute to delivering customer value should be scrutinized as potential waste. Rather than merely comparing current practices to identify gaps, question the purpose and value of each practice. If a practice doesn’t add value, it may need to be modified or eliminated. This approach ensures that your practices remain lean and focused on what truly matters—delivering value to the customer.

Evaluating the level of collaboration among team members. identify are they communicating effectively, sharing knowledge, and working together cohesively Acknowledge and celebrate improvements and successes along the way. This can boost team morale and motivation for further improvements.