September 11, 2019 // By Steve Engels
Agile excels because of two factors: it aligns business goals with delivery in a way that gives your organization the best chance to deliver product rapidly and it unlocks individual potential while fostering team member collaboration focused on sprint goals.
If your organization isn’t yet using Agile, rest easy. It’s not complicated to get started. Here are six reasons why the Agile path may be for you.
Success Will Snowball
Agile adoptions are successful because they build momentum for the change. The change itself is not the focus but rather the positive outcomes of the change. In showcasing the positive results, stakeholders will see and want the same for their projects. Additionally the initial Agile project teams become internal advocates and ambassadors for change.
Continuous Improvement Has Tremendous Upsides
Included in most Agile methodologies is a cadence called a retrospective. The goal is to look at your Agile implementation and identify those parts that are working well, so that the team can continue those good behaviors, and also identify those parts that are not working so well. These issues are documented, mitigated, and assigned to a team member to ensure positive action is taken. The result is a culture of continuous improvement, which has exponential benefits.
Empowerment Will Result
It is through the empowerment of the team to own the project that true potential of the team is unlocked. Agile is focused on frequent, quick deliveries, typically every two weeks. These deliveries are celebrated each sprint. Wins become the norm, not the exception. Agile roots out waste, such as ineffective meetings through constant retrospective reviews each sprint. The ability for team members to suggest process improvements and see those suggestions acted upon is a great morale booster.
Using The Cloud Can Speed Your Process
Cloud platforms give the Agile team the greatest potential for managing their environments. The ability to rapidly spin up Dev, Test and Stage environments without the need for external team dependencies provides the Agile team with control over their environments in a rapidly changing sprint. Also cloud deployments tend to be faster and smaller sobeing able to deploy faster with less material means less risk with better time to market. DevOps and Automation are key enablers to support the Agile process in this way and especially so in the cloud.
Us vs. Them Barriers Will Be Removed
Agile embraces a team mentality, breaking down barriers between IT and business and between company and vendor. With barriers removed, the team focuses on the goals of the business, their clients, and their product(s) in a totally collaborative, supportive and transparent way. This culture creates an environment capable of reaching new heights.
Learn how You can Fast Forward
No matter how mature your organization is with Agile, Magenic can help you move faster. Our Fast Forward Process is designed to help companies with any Agile methodology deliver software more efficiently, effectively, and quickly. Reach out to learn more.