All delivery systems create value for customers. In a Predictable & Agile Delivery system, 'value' flows:
Managers who know how to achieve this optimise delivery systems continually. Improvement is done efficiently, by collaborating with delivery teams and removing obstacles to performance.
The crucial challenge for knowledge work is quality. A new software feature may pass QA and HR may hire the best candidate for a role, but these are subjective. In reality, these processes are rarely documented and often badly flawed. Of course, people do their best under these conditions. Yet the result is inconsistent outputs and problems that have to be corrected later. The costs saved today are wiped out in re-work and apologising to customers, later.
Lean techniques are particularly good for increasing efficiency and Agile for improving adaptability. They need to balance though, because one is good for production at scale, the other for exploring new designs and solutions.
Both are tried and tested approaches that maximise operational effectiveness.
The journey to achieving predictable and agile delivery is shorter and faster than you think.
Prioritisation resolves tensions and diverse demands by clarifying what matters most, right now:
Prioritisation helps people make decisions, at all levels.
Managers were written-out of the Agile movement yet they are crucial for improving Business Agility, by:
Technology managers support developers, who are "uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it."
Improving organisation-wide agility depends on managers at every level. Their curiosity and willingness to explore is crucial. Improvement emerges in its way, not from projects or plans.
The guiding principle is 'inspect and adapt'. Change the smallest thing you do now that could be done better. I guarantee you will look back and notice the transformation.
Another true story about the art of Agile Estimation About 14 months ago, I wrote this story card: We should sell estimation cards online, to offset the cost of producing them We gave it an estimate of 50 points as it seemed “do-able”, but no-one was exactly sure “how” to do it. Amazon was a […]
The work of the agile business analyst is never done is one of the conclusions reached in my first agile article for online journal InfoQ User Stories Are Placeholders for Requirements. At 3500 words plus five key take-away points, and with editorial and peer-review by the wonderful agile writer and educator Ben Linders, this was […]
You see, I thought I was the first agilist to make the connection between agile transformation models and organizational ambidexterity. Certainly, it seemed original when it emerged in conversation with my supervisor. In fact, it was Dr Alireza Javanmardi Kashan’s idea (better make it 13 signs), but it came from our conversation so we said […]
