Agile is a state of mind, NOT a recipe
Agile development is challenging!
That is why researchers and consultants spend time helping us understand and apply it. They develop frameworks and methods we can use to support our daily work. If you are practicing agile methods, you have most likely experienced that it is not always easy to do exactly like the book tells you to. You probably feel that you can't divert from the methods – because what is then the point of having them ?
But, you need to divert from the books, take complete ownership of the process and apply the principles your own way to become truly agile.
We've spend five months with a company who faced this challenging question and one of the outcomes is this report "Agile challenges using SCRUM" that we want to share with you (DK Audience only) .
Case study
The company used SCRUM to organize their work for a couple of years. They used a great deal of time teaching their employees about the SCRUM principles, roles and artefacts. Still, they didn’t feel agile. In the contrary, they felt restricted by the method. Their initial thought was “we must be doing something wrong. Let’s study the principles again and improve”. Studying the principles again made them realize something important. Some of the principles did not fit the context of their work. The principles were developed under another set of conditions.
Realizing this, they began to see the methods merely as guidelines instead of strict rules and they started studying and testing other methods. The result is that they now combine different methods all dependent on the context of the projects they are working on. It often ends up being a mix of SCRUM, Kanban (Scrumban) and Extreme Programming.
How to make it work
Now to the point! Frameworks and methods are gold and so are principles. They help us. But you have to adapt the principles and methods to the context you are working in. They are developed under one set of conditions and you might be working under another. It is great, if you divert from a principle because you know what is wrong with it in your context and what should replace it. It is not so great, if you divert from a principle because it is easier than following it and you don’t know why.
Forretningsudvikling?R?dgivning? Skaber varige forandringer med +15 ?rs ledelseserfaring I Bestyrelsesarbejde | Berlingske Talent 100
10 年If only many more companies would realize this and start by changing the mindset rather than the organization and just adding a new word "scrum" - the "new" word don't make your company agile!
Head of Product and Methodology
10 年Thanks for your comment Steen. Had me thinking about all the effort we put in some Management processes that are really quite simple. We need to get the power back and get in touch with our business.
Direkt?r/CEO hos TIMESAFE
10 年Hence my motto: Context is King! Great point in this article. I think we have a basic problem in our culture today - we're living in a management culture, which is good in a lot of ways, but at the same time it has taken away a lot of people's ability to think in simple and obvious terms for themselves...
?? Bridge Builder
10 年A good insight that it is hard to model independent thinking by following book slavishly.
Senior Product Owner - Platform Engineering | Magento Expert | Product Outcome evangelist
10 年Talking to my heart...! :-)