SCALING AGILE ACROSS THE ENTIRE ORGANIZATION SO EVERYONE ENJOYS THE BENEFITS OF AGILE [#ScalingAgile #BenefitsOfAgile #AgileNewsAndViews]
TIPS TO HELP YOU BRING MORE COHESION AND STRUCTURE INTO YOUR WORKFLOW, SO THAT YOUR ENTIRE ORGANIZATION CAN ENJOY THE BENEFITS OF AGILE:
A. MAINTAIN TEAM AUTONOMY
B. IMPROVE FLOW BY INTRODUCING LEAN PRINCIPLES
THREE LEAN CONCEPTS FOR OPTIMIZING VALUE DELIVERY ACROSS ALL TEAMS WITHIN YOUR ORGANIZATION, SO EVERYONE CAN ACCELERATE DELIVERY AND INNOVATION:
1. ESTABLISH WORK-IN-PROGRESS (WIP) LIMITS
2. SET YOUR PRIORITIES BASED ON COST OF DELAY
3. DECREASE BATCH SIZES
C. ORGANIZE AROUND THE VALUE YOUR TEAMS DELIVER
Perhaps you already know how to implement a team-based Agile system that prioritizes innovation and continuous improvement. But do you know how to scale that system across an entire organization, so everyone in your company enjoys the same benefits of Agile?
Scaling Agile successfully across the organization requires you to be aware of various externalities that may not have been a factor when implementing Agile at the team level.
These factors include elements like:
Autonomy
Teams work best when they can define their own processes and come up with their own solutions.
FLEXIBILITY
Teams have their own methods and tools they use to achieve their outcomes. Do not force them to adapt to your Agile model: let them adapt Agile to theirs.
Dependencies
greater the dependencies, the more complicated the project. Prevent this from creating unnecessary friction and chaos by keeping an open channel of communication across the organization.
Collaboration
It IS only natural for teams to slip back into their siloed mentality. When that happens, teams lose momentum and problems will arise. Prevent siloed behavior by prioritizing communication across your teams.
Transparency
Teams need to be accountable for their work. This only happens when you have a transparent workflow that lets you see who’s working on what, and what impacts each process has on your project as a whole.
TIPS TO HELP YOU BRING MORE COHESION AND STRUCTURE INTO YOUR WORKFLOW, SO THAT YOUR ENTIRE ORGANIZATION CAN ENJOY THE BENEFITS OF AGILE:
A. MAINTAIN TEAM AUTONOMY
Nobody knows what is effective and what is not effective better than the teams actually doing the work. Naturally, they should be the ones making decisions about how to complete tasks and foster continuous improvement. If your teams are not governing themselves, they are not truly Agile.
Self-governing teams have higher levels of motivation and are more dedicated to bringing value to the organization. According to behavioral researchers, this is because autonomous teams feel like they have more control over their work and environment. Team members feel a sense of ownership over the improvement and innovation they deliver.
Autonomy does not mean that teams are completely free to do what they like. It has its limits. After all, one of the goals of scaled Agile is to eliminate departmental silos. For that to happen, teams need to communicate and work together. Even though Agile teams are autonomous, their decisions still need to be aligned with other teams to work cohesively.
B. IMPROVE FLOW BY INTRODUCING LEAN PRINCIPLES
Lean is perfect for scaled Agile because it helps teams deliver fast, high-quality work by prioritizing continuous improvement above everything else.
THREE LEAN CONCEPTS FOR OPTIMIZING VALUE DELIVERY ACROSS ALL TEAMS WITHIN YOUR ORGANIZATION, SO EVERYONE CAN ACCELERATE DELIVERY AND INNOVATION:
1. ESTABLISH WORK-IN-PROGRESS (WIP) LIMITS
Under the Lean approach, value is attained once a piece of work has been completed and the team has received feedback on it. Having too many Works in Progress can prevent this completion from happening.
WIP limits ensure that tasks are completed by preventing teams from starting a new task until the previous task is finished. Tasks get completed faster and teams receive feedback on their work, making it easier for all teams within your organization to work quickly and facilitate continuous improvement.
2. SET YOUR PRIORITIES BASED ON COST OF DELAY
Cost of delay is an important Lean metric that lets you see how much value tasks bring your organization and how much these tasks cost your company when delayed. Cost of delay lets you look beyond ROI and cost, allowing you to see the various ways delays and completions can impact your company. Cost of delay calculations are great for prioritizing work across teams, so that everyone maximizes their productivity and efficiency.
3. DECREASE BATCH SIZES
Batches are a group of tasks that are designed to move down the workflow as a unit. While batches are an inevitable part of product development, large batches should be avoided at all cost. They increase dependencies, making it more difficult to track the progress of work as it is moving down the value stream.
C. ORGANIZE AROUND THE VALUE YOUR TEAMS DELIVER
When teams are not on the same page, priorities can quickly become chaotic. It is easy for departments to slip back into their old silos, and before you know it, every team has a different objective in mind. You can prevent this from happening by making value the primary objective for every team within the organization.
Of course, value varies depending on the department and the team. But ultimately, value should be considered the element that drives innovation and improves the customer’s experience. Because as long as teams are working to create innovation and deliver constant improvement, they have already taken the first step toward working cohesively with other teams within the organization.
ADAPTED FROM
Effectively Amplify the Benefits of Agile in Your Organization:
Maintain team autonomy, leverage lean principles, and organize around value
Planview Blog
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