My Top 7 Lessons Learned Implementing Agile and Scrum At Harvard University and Amazon.

Although Agile is not prescriptive, some principles and practices can facilitate a successful Agile and Scrum implementation.

First of all, let me define Agile and Scrum. Agile is a flexible and scalable mindset for software development-it can also be implemented across other industries-, which allows us to deliver production ready code within every iteration. Scrum is a framework that enable us to follow the Agile mindset systematically.

Over the past seven years of my Agile and Scrum career, I have analyzed what makes an Agile team successful. The result of my analysis ended up on seven points that I will share below.

1. Failing Early in the process is crucial; embracing failure as part of innovation is paramount.

Generally speaking, it is not easy to tell people that failure is necessary. However, failing should always be an option that Agile and Scrum teams must embrace to develop innovative solutions. If Scrum teams are too afraid of failing and don't see failure as an opportunity for improvement, what is the point of trying to be Agile? After all, inspection and adaptation are all about analyzing what is not working to develop ideas for improvements. Failure gives us tremendous opportunities to innovate and retrospect. Therefore, failing early during an Agile implementation is paramount to the entire team or company's success.

2. Customers Engagement Determines Whether Your Initiatives Succeed Or Fail.

Customers Collaboration is, by far, the Agile principle that Scrum teams need to put most of the effort on. If we don't engage with our customers from day 1, we lose a tremendous opportunity to succeed. However, ensuring customer satisfaction is a journey, not a sprint. Keeping our customers on track with where we are at any given point in time is a must-do that allows us to communicate better and get their crucial feedback. For example, our customers should be attending Sprint Review meetings to see what the Scrum team has accomplished within every sprint and provide their insights. If this is not happening, we create silos and gaps in communication that are difficult to resolve.

"If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful."—Jeff Bezos

3. Adopting an Agile Mindset Is Not Easy.

What does being Agile mean? Some organizations claim to be following Agile and Scrum. However, they are reluctant to welcome and embrace changes as part of the process. In my opinion, if you don't welcome changes and adapt to them, you are not Agile even if your organization teams are doing sprint iterations. Agile is not just following sprint cycles and reflecting; Agile is having a mindset of embracing changes. In some cases, it takes an entire organization shift to make this happen.

4. If You Don’t Adapt To Your Customers Changes, You Risk Losing Them.

In this highly competitive business world, leaders are continuously facing trade-offs. What shall they do when their teams have spent several months working on a solution that no longer satisfies their customers' needs? Regardless of the financial loss that this may mean, leaders and companies must respond to these changes at all costs. Losing customers may be a more significant loss than adapting to the changes they need. At the same time, there is no magic to make this work successfully. Still, Scrum teams, especially Product Owners, must practice active listening when their customers tell them their business goals, vision, and expectations so that the team can anticipate and be ready for changes - to the best of their knowledge.

5.Team Dynamics Should Never Be Overlooked.

A recent Google Research1 revealed that employees passionate about their organization's mission enjoy better job satisfaction and improved performance. Moreover, this research found that talented teams believe what they are doing is paramount and supports positive change for their company. Most importantly, the Google research team found that the best teams are effective because they work well together despite who the team members are.

How does this apply to Scrum teams? If the Scrum teams know the impact of their contribution and work well together, they are more likely to succeed. Additionally, it is essential not to forget about prioritizing a culture of recognition and give the Scrum team recognition at any opportunity. Demo and Retrospectives are ceremonies where team recognition can be implemented.

A team is not a group of people that work together. A team is a group of people that trust each other. — Simon Sinek

6. Scrum Masters Should Understand the Product Vision as much as Product Owners.

An effective Scrum Master understands Scrum very well and knows the business and product vision to coach, facilitate, and train the team successfully. A Scrum Master must collaborate side-by-side with Product Owners to keep a healthy product backlog prioritized and organized, which is essential for the Scrum team to succeed. For example, Product Backlog Refinement meetings are facilitated by Scrum Masters and could be utilized as a knowledge transfer opportunity for both Product Owner and Scrum Master.

7. It is very Easy to Fall into the trap of following Waterfall While Trying to be Agile.

From the Agile Manifesto, we learned that working software is the primary measure of progress; we start by delivering a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), so our customers begin receiving value from the beginning of the implementation.

However, what happens when there is a significant amount of technical infrastructure artifacts that need to be in place before we can develop an MVP? If we do not focus on delivering an MVP with the minimum technical infrastructure possible, we could find ourselves trying to be Agile but failing into the trap of Waterfall.

In conclusion, although there is no magic recipe for a successful Agile and Scrum implementation, these lessons learned have enabled me to understand what to focus on to help coach Agile and Scrum teams to be successful.

1Google Research on Team Effectiveness: https://apnews.com/article/8c60341cc1da47e084b8e17e62e83c98