Agile Coaches' Corner The Challenges of Bringing Agile into a Non-Agile Environment with Scott Riley
Today’s guest is Scott Riley, a colleague of Dan Neumann’s and a Delivery Leader at AgileThought. As a Delivery Lead, Scott wears multiple hats and is responsible for the successful delivery or implementation of projects. If anything goes wrong during a project, it is Scott’s job to be able to identify what that issue is and remedy it.
In this episode, Dan and Scott are discussing the challenges of bringing agile into a non-agile environment. They talk about the challenges they generally see in work environments transitioned to agile, misconceptions they often hear around agility, the concerns and struggles they often see as organizations are in their agile journey, how to overcome these challenges, what makes for a successful agile organization, and how AgileThought works with organizations that are getting started on their agile journey.
Key Takeaways
Misconceptions Scott often hears around agility:
That being creative, quick, or clever is all it takes to be agile
If there are no rules in place that means you’re being agile
That agile should be implemented because ‘it’s just the new way of doing things’ rather than to solve a problem the organization is facing
Challenges Scott sees in organizations that are in a place of pre-agile adoption:
That there’s no foresight into scalability
They’re not paying attention to how they can sustain things, longterm
Challenges of bringing agile into a non-agile environment:
Fear of change from the organization
That they only bring in aspects of the framework without implementing it fully
That the organization is confused about what is agility from having multiple consultants from different organizations
How to overcome these challenges:
Help the organization and its members to become extremely familiar with the principles of agile
Make sure it’s the path this organization actually wants to go down, by asking the important questions (such as, “Why agile?” and “What problem are we addressing?”)
Do the coordination but not to the detriment of people’s sanity
Concerns and struggles Scott often sees as organizations are in their agile journey:
Struggles with cross-team communication that turns into a game of telephone
Building something with an assumption rather than the true knowledge of what it should be
The uncertainty of self-organizing teams
For a successful agile organization:
It’s important to have a true understanding of the Agile Manifesto and all of its principles
You need open channels of communications between business people and developers who work together daily
Make sure that conversations don’t lead to misdirection
Teach members how to collaborate and bring every decision into a team process
How AgileThought works with organizations that approach them to have a conversation about their agile journey or to improve their agility:
We help by facilitating conversations
We determine where their baseline is and where they want to go
We provide an assessment and then move forward with that
Mentioned in this Episode:
Agile Coaches’ Corner Ep. 19: “Eric Landes on Kanban Metrics in the Scrum Framework”
Agile Coaches’ Corner Ep. 22: “The Role of Managers in Agile Organizations with Esther Derby”
Agile + DevOps East (in Orlando, FL)
Scott Riley’s Book Pick:
Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland, by Dave Barry
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