Does agility equate to increased speed?

Allow me to pose an additional inquiry. Amongst the various components encompassing the iterative process (Sprints), which ones are more prone to being disregarded? 1. Refinement & Grooming 2. Development 3. Testing & Quality Assurance or 4. Maintenance & Hardening.

I am inclined to believe that 2. Development is unlikely to be neglected. This is due to the fact that it is the sole aspect that yields tangible outputs, which managers can readily comprehend.

Regrettably, it is all too common for managers to expect teams to expedite their work and deliver an abundance of features promptly. However, this propensity diverts valuable time and attention away from other crucial facets of agile implementation, which should hold equal importance throughout the iterative process.

In the past, prior to the adoption of agile methodologies, organizations adhered to a waterfall approach. This entailed allocating extensive durations for the refinement phase before commencing development, followed by protracted periods for testing to ensure proper functionality, and finally, an indefinite maintenance phase.

Contrarily, agile methodology condenses these phases into shorter timeframes, such as sprints. Nevertheless, all the phases—Refinement, Development, Testing, and Maintenance—ought to remain integral to every sprint.

Consequently, it becomes paramount to assemble the appropriate individuals for your team. Without dedicated personnel for refinement, how can we ensure alignment and ascertain that we are constructing the correct deliverables? Without testers, how can we obtain feedback and validate our progress? And if no one devotes time to maintaining and fortifying the solution, how can we guarantee compliance and robustness to meet user requirements?

Disregarding these vital aspects and solely fixating on development time, with the aim of achieving faster results, falls short of embracing true agility in my view.

The essence of agile lies in creating the right deliverables and constructing them proficiently, necessitating the inclusion of all phases within the product delivery process and the involvement of competent personnel.

I have witnessed instances where developers were burdened with refinement duties due to the absence of analysts and only part-time allocation of a product owner. I have observed teams deferring testing activities, as they were excluded from the scope of their sprints. Additionally, I have observed teams succumbing to management pressure to prioritize new feature delivery, instead of addressing technical debt and fortifying the product.

Now, to address the initial question: Does agility equate to increased speed? Well, it might, or it might not. The crux of the matter is that agile is not suppose to make you faster, it suppose to make you smarter and more adaptable to change.

So slow down! Do your refinement properly, make testing a natural part of every sprint and have a healthy balance between maintenance and new features.

/Coach & Consultant

Jacob Kingo

#agile #businessagility #waysofworking #