Understanding Agile:: A Guide for Managers

1 Why should managers adopt an Agile approach?

"When a man is alive, he is soft and supple.

When he dies, the body becomes hard and stiff.

When a plant is alive, it is soft and flexible.

When it is dead, it becomes dry and brittle.

Therefore, hard and rigid shall lead to death.

Soft and gentle shall lead to life. Lao Tzu"

As a leader and manager, I feel that I need to understand a situation, concept or new tool before deciding whether it is right for my organization. This also helps me to decide on the approach to take to introduce it. With this in mind, I will spend this introductory chapter defining Agile.

There are a lot of misconceptions about Agile. For example, I have heard people say, ‘We are Agile – we use Kanban boards,’ but everything else is done as it has always been. You may also come across those I call ‘Agilistas’. They are dogmatic and claim that ‘If you’re not doing Agile our way, you’re not doing Agile.’ Given the values and mindset behind Agile, this is quite ironic.

Later, we will look at what Agile actually is, but let’s start by looking at the potential benefits.

1.1 The benefits of Agile

The 9th Annual State of Agile Report from VersionOne claims 94% of companies surveyed now use Agile in some form or another. This is an impressive figure, given that Agile as we know it started only in 2001. It means that Agile is now an established way of working and has gone beyond the ‘passing fad’ stage. This is further evidenced by the increasing number of Agile conferences. These are well attended events, and the audience has changed over the past few years from software developers to senior members of companies wanting to understand how to implement Agile in a sustainable way in their organizations.

So what has made Agile so popular? The following are some of the reasons senior managers want to adopt Agile.

1.1.1 Responsiveness to change

There is an increasing pace of change in all walks of life, but particularly in business. Businesses can no longer afford to ignore the changes happening or to react too slowly to them. The successful businesses of the future will be those that are highly responsive to change.

Small, empowered teams with defined goals are central to all Agile thinking. These teams can react to and embrace change quickly and redirect their efforts to the current business priorities.

The Agile approach also emphasizes delivery of value early and often. This means that the organization can realize benefits sooner, benefiting from otherwise lost opportunities and potentially beating competitors to the marketplace.

1.1.2 Better value for money

We all need to do more for less. A very competitive world market squeezes prices and demands that we keep costs down.

The Agile approach is to concentrate on the business need and on what will add real value. We focus on delivering the outcomes that add significant value to the organization. We reduce waste by, for example, not implementing business changes that were never required or add little value. It also ensures efficient use of all resources, such as money, people’s time and equipment.

The Agile approach can be applied at many levels of an organization. The prioritization techniques, for example, can be used at the portfolio level to determine exactly which high-level initiatives will add most value to the organization. Introducing a big initiative in small, frequent steps allows your organization to get most benefit as early as possible. You can also react quickly to change, moving resource and budgets to other initiatives if they become more urgent or represent better value for money.

1.1.3 Pleasing the customer

To remain competitive, all businesses need to please their customers and build relationships that can last well into the future. This is obviously true for our external customers, but a culture where internal parts of an organization can have a similar relationship with its internal customers can also result in a highly motivated, effective organization.

Agile has the customer at the heart of every initiative. It is customers who make the business decisions and constantly have the chance to provide feedback and redirect Agile initiatives within governance guidelines. They also benefit from high-quality outcomes delivered on time, enabling them to plan the inevitable business change activities to get the most value from what is delivered.

It is therefore no surprise that there is a high level of customer satisfaction with respect to both the outcomes and the initiatives that created them. Customers often feel real ownership of the solutions they are given and will promote them and their creators within their spheres of influence.

1.1.4 A collaborative culture

Traditionally, initiatives in organizations are undertaken with much trepidation. There is contention between the customer and the supplier. This often leads to a total breakdown of communication and trust, and the probability of being successful is greatly reduced.

Agile approaches demand the creation of cross-functional teams focused on the same goals. The customer is a central and key member, and everyone involved soon works in a collaborative way as they have the same goal and feel part of the same team. This is equally true of the other stakeholders represented in the team.

Agile in practice

I am always surprised by what happens in workshops or training courses when I create arbitrary teams. The individuals often do not know each other, but within a short time they are working together towards a goal. They also have a common identity and see the other teams as ‘them’ – a competitive spirit emerges between teams! Of course this isn’t always desirable, especially if we consider scaling Agile to large organizations.

This collaborative atmosphere does not disappear when the initiative is over. Those who have worked in such teams develop relationships that go further than just that initiative; collaboration and mutual respect grow and start to permeate the organization. This can lead to a working environment that promotes innovation and removes conflict.

1.1.5 Higher-quality outcomes

Although cost and competitiveness are important, organizations are unlikely to succeed for long if they are not seen as producing quality products and offering a quality service.

In the past, products and solutions were created with little customer feedback until well into the process. In an Agile approach, customers are asked for their contributions and feedback throughout. This means that the solution delivered will really meet their requirements. Technical testing of a solution is also included from the start, test personnel being an integral part of the team and contributing to design discussions. In this way, both technical and functional product quality are built in throughout the Agile lifecycle. Potential problems are discovered early on and can be corrected before they become major.

As long as these principles are followed, the result is a high-quality outcome that really meets customer needs and adds value to the organization.

Agile in practice

In one of my roles, I implemented Agile practices in a pharmaceutical company. We undertook a project normally classed as ‘validated’ – that is, subject to the regulations set by the Food and Drug Administration, Medical and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency or another regulatory body. The validation expert from the Quality department was appointed as a core member of the project team. He was sceptical at first, but as the project continued he said to me one day, ‘Actually, this Agile approach means better quality, doesn’t it?’

1.1.6 Better-motivated people

We all want our organizations to be full of motivated individuals. As well as making the organization a fun place to work and attracting the best people, motivation can lead to high performance and give the business a competitive