Agile Development Blog

I have always answered the question “Where does Agile not work?” with the answer: “We have customers in all forms, geographies, and technologies working in Agile. It works everywhere!“

Of course that is my Agile Convert persona coming screaming through…

In his article “Agile Processes Go Lean” on the Dr. Dobbs portal, Forrester analyst Dave West does a great job illustrating the true challenges and roadblocks in successful Agile adoption beyond the team. His research across numerous sources, collaboration with Tom Grant and ability to synthesize these concepts makes this article a must-read for executives in software development organizations.

Dave sums it up nicely:

“The problems, broadly, tend to be technical, cultural, or organizational. Technical problems relate to infrastructure, tools, and architecture, and are often the most visible of the changes involved. But many companies find the cultural and organizational issues are the hardest to resolve.”

“When a development organization uses the approach to transform itself, it often runs into problems with other parts of the company that haven’t undergone similar transformations. Clashes come with the business operations, governance, and organizational structures, among other areas. For example, hierarchical organizations may struggle with agile development’s quick, iterative review cycles and decision making.”

In the past few months, I’ve talked with Dave and Tom about the opportunities and success of large-scale and successful Agile adoptions (beyond single teams and beyond simple flow) using examples from our customers and even our own internal processes. I’m excited to see analysts tackle the meaty topic of scaling Agile and Lean with real data and customer stories.

Further Reading:

• Lean Webinar Q&A Part 3: Championing Agile
• Scaling Lean and Agile Development – Ask Bas and Craig
• What Are Your Favorite Resources for Lean and Agile?

On Thursday, March 19th, Dave West from Forrester Research and I will be doing a live webinar titled, “Scaling Agility with Lean: Proven Methods of Operational Efficiency.” It is part of a webinar series regarding “Using Agile to Cut Development Costs.” Our own Jean Tabaka and Global Logic’s Johnny Scarborough did the first webinar titled “Realizing the Promise of Agile: Creating Leaner, Meaner and Faster Product Development” and it is available via recording by registering at this same site.

In this week’s webinar, I am going to share a set of models that I  keep being asked about. These slides show the changes that happen in the enterprise stage gate model as your Agile adoption moves up and matures in the organization. To hear the explanation behind these slides and see Dave West’s work on Lean, please join us on the webinar.  The full slide deck will be available after the webinar.

Not to steal all of my thunder, but there are two things that interesting about this transition.

1. The Agile stage gates of 3.1/4.1 actually provide more governance control than the old gates.
2. The first and last gate are not going away in large organizations anytime soon. You just don’t start projects without budget and you do not make a gold master for production without blessing from operations or overall system testing.

Lastly, Dave’s observations about how these stage gate models require a Lean organization approach, should make for a great conversation. I hope you will join us.