Agile: There’s more than one flavour out there…

Since the introduction of Vanilla flavoured Scrum in the early 90’s, the most commonly used Agile framework has developed into a whole host of flavours and taste sensations, each satisfying a different palette in the business world. We recently went along to a MeetUp organised by Agile Notts, ‘Scrum in a nutshell’, which was about; well, Scrum in a nutshell…

 Taking place at Capital One HQ in Nottingham, the event wasn’t anything to do with ice cream, but did touch upon the many different roles within the scrum team, and the importance of learning the many different flavours, which you can pick from with your team so that it delivers effectively and efficiently. 

 About six months ago, I took a step back to observe my team’s performance at Xpertise. We were making placements, hitting our targets, but the engine wasn’t quite running as smoothly as I wanted it to. Warning signs identified were; 

•  Lack of visibility over what each of us was doing
• Miscommunication of simple tasks
• Some things slipping through the net 
• Team members working in silo

In order to grow and improve, I needed to make the way we did things more Agile. I don’t want you sitting there thinking that I recruit in Agile, therefore I feel like I have to be Agile. It just worked well for our team. We work in a very close collaborative way, from making regular brews for each other, to helping each other deliver a quality service in a timely manner. 

The following three Agile methods I have implemented can easily be adapted by any team working to improve communication and collaboration.

1. Break it down –By teaching my team to look at things on a smaller scale, it allows us to think about task in manageable chunks, breaking down barriers and ultimately find solutions to issues. 
2. Nurturing environment – we promote open and free communication in an open plan environment, we have a breakout area where I encourage my team to have regular catch ups. This allows us to share ideas and advice quickly and without miscommunication.
3. Future vision - We use the Kanban board as a way to visualise and map our work flow with candidates and clients. It also keeps the team accountable for their individual responsibilities, giving us a chance to challenge each other on processes. This greatly improves training and understanding and also allows us to accurately predict time to hire. 

Take a role we have been working on recently; a client requires a good all round Project Manager, strong in infrastructure, software and process projects. By working closely with the hiring manager, we understood their needs better. Then we have HR, who have been involved in agreeing T&Cs, but understand the benefit of us hearing the technical requirements from the ‘horse’s mouth’ i.e. the hiring manager. By having these close feedback loops between us, the stakeholder, then post interview decision making communications, the whole process only took four working days. Now, that’s Agile!

To sum up, Agile works – but it’s not a one size fits all approach. There are many flavours; you need to learn what works for your team. Everyone is on a different journey. We all work on a mutual understanding basis. Our requirements, deadlines and desired outcomes are all the same. Since I adopted a more Agile approach with my team, I have noticed that we;

• Do things a lot quicker
• Have closer communication
• Are more collaborative and work closer
• Trust each other
• Communicate freely with each other
• Share and draw on each other’s experiences 
• Have more visibility to different approaches
• Provide an environment for collaborative learning
• Enjoy success more with each other

The Agile Nottingham Meetups take place every month, and the team here at Xpertise try to get along to each one. The great thing about them is that you feel part of a community, even if you don’t work directly in project delivery. This means that we’re able to participate and align some of the discussed principles in our industry. We are already looking forward to the next one on in February and also the Lean Agile Birmingham Meet up on the 8th of February. I look forward to meeting you there!

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