Agility – Agile Ways

AI Boosts Simple Agility

This blog explores the integration of AI with “Simple Agility”, offering practical insights for organizations seeking to enhance their agile transformation journey through intelligent technologies.

This approach is about leveraging ideas from methodologies originally developed for manufacturing applied to knowledge work: Lean is about efficiency, Flow is about optimisation, and Theory of Constraints about improvement.

Agile is an empty box

Agile has lost its soul. The soul lingers about finding a new home.

Explaining simple agility

In most agile implementations I’ve been involved with, the following sequence is the most evident one “chose methodology – train/follow by the book – check for agility”, a typical push approach by which it is quite difficult to make sense as it is not necessarily suited to the organization’s operational reality.

The good, the bad, the ugly – Part 2

The latest years as agility consultant and coach I came across some other particular cases which I have approached through the same lens as the cases in my previous post of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Simple agility

Simple agility is based on the understanding of some basic agility fundamentals and easing these into the team/organization ways of working. Making sense out of these fundamentals is the key to durable agility.

Wishful lies

SCENARIO

The organization has adopted new ways of working

Management needs info in order to commit, outwards and upwards.

The inevitable chain of guesses begins – time, scope and cost commitments.

Popularizing agility

If I was asked to simplify agility concepts to make sure absolute beginners (including detractors) could buy into the organization’s new ways of working, I would first avoid using the word agile (and lean too).

Team agility litmus test

Agility is all about priority, simplification, cooperation, ownership, value delivery, feedback, and continuous improvement. The test could help teams assess their agility and identify areas that may provide improvements.

The dynamics of value generation through needs

Needs define value, needs generate value add activities, and needs drive flow efficiency.

An agile transformation in an hour.

If I was asked to transform an organisation to new ways of working (WoW); agility being the key word; and I was given an hour to complete the task ….

Initiative to value delivery flow

Business as well as technical initiatives flow through the value streams and the respective workflows in order to generate value outcomes.

Value stream, workflow, teams, and feedback loops

These concepts are all intimately related within the flow of value, as the value stream guides the way, workflows organize activities, the teams make value happen, and feedback loops allows for adjustment and pivoting.

The dual loop of needs and outcomes

The relationship among teams is a continuous dual loop of needs and outcomes, the basic links bettween the workflows of a value stream.

The lean/agile fabric

This is about how lean and agile principles come together in support of an ecosystem that allows the organization and its teams to express new ways of work (WoW).

The good, the bad, and the ugly

While examining an agility initiative and implementation look out for good, bad and ugly practices and conditions that are affecting the agile environment.

Outcome of an agile transition

The evolution towards agility is achieved through an iterative and adaptive approach: the why it should be done, is backed up by the because it needs to be done, in order to define the how to do it.

Agile on a Page

Product Backlog Evolution

The Product Backlog (PBL) is an artifact, a collection of items (PBI’s) that describe the product value proposition and capabilities. It consists of large items that represent an idea (epics), other items that make the idea work (features) and value items that enable these to function (user stories).

Agile basics

Agile is about being able to adapt and respond to change quickly, and agility is constantly questioning how to improve the way you work and implementing incremental changes.

Category: Agility