There are two person’s posts on the topic of agile change management and enterprise agility. I have to reply to both of them based on their opinion about this topic. I have to provide my opinion about their post. The minimum number of words required for each person’s post is 400-450 words each.
Discussion 5 – How Agility Improves Performance
How Agility Improves Performance
Person 1 post: Bhandari
Implementation of the Agile in any organization regardless of the size of the team or the organization, the business should always look for ways to improve its performance. Agile serves not only as a tool to produce quality products and services on time through project management practices, but also to develop an Agile mindset throughout a business as a whole (Alexander, 2019). Agile being an iterative and incremental approach to project management helps keep up with the business demand and helps the manager to have greater control over the projects. On top of it, the agile framework focuses on delivering quality and value to the business or customers within the budget or duration constraints improving overall performance.
In an agile project, testing is considered is an integral part that results in a quality product. Also, the customers are involved throughout the life cycle of projects helping in building a quality product. With the quality ingrained in the product, the team and the organization do not have to spend extra resources and time fixing unnecessary bugs or faults in the product. This in turn reduces the overall wastage of resources and makes the team more performant. In addition, customers are always involved in an agile project. Since customers are always in the loop, the product delivered to the customer has an actual value which also minimizes the resource waste. Agile also ensures better predictability and accurate estimation based on timely review. The overall performance of the team increases as the accuracy of the predictability increases. Because of the smaller iteration, the risks factor are identified early and are usually mitigated in small pieces. This reduces the need of salvaging a big chunk of the project which can be costly for an organization. Compared with traditional approaches such as waterfall, product development teams get more environmental and organizational support, can spend more time
focusing on their work, and can contribute to the continuous improvement of the process (Layton et al., 2020).
The performance of the team dramatically increases when the team is able to deliver a product with higher business value. Since customers are regularly involved in an agile project, the requirements or the development process can easily be sorted and prioritized. This helps the team to deliver high-value items which are built in the core of an Agile Manifesto.
Organizations that link employee goals to business priorities, invest in managers’ capabilities and differentiate rewards for the extremes of performance are 84 percent more likely to have performance-management approaches that their employees perceive and recognize as being fair (Darino et al., 2019). The agile project enforces these traits. In addition, the quality assurance teams and the experts are more likely to coordinate across the teams in an organization. Also, the teams across the organization are required to coordinate whenever required to deliver products. In the end, the ability to measure performance helps to improve it. The agile approach brings transparency to the performance indicators. Also, the collaboration that agile emphasizes is crucial in performance improvement. The co-located team that is highlighted by one of the principles of the agile manifesto definitely improves on collaboration and communication, resulting in a more productive team.
Though the agile approach itself helps improve the performance of the team and throughout the organization, individual members of the team or the agile practitioner can help improve it even more. For an instance, a team member that is open to testing new ideas is more performant. A team that is efficient in handling ambiguity can help focus on their goals and prioritize the most valued items and invest in them accordingly. The team that takes pride in their product and their work also helps improve efficiency.
Reference:
Alexander, M. (2019, August 21). 10 ways adopting Agile can improve business performance. TechRepublic. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-ways-adopting-agile-can-improve-business-performance/.
Darino, L., Sieberer, M., Vos, A., & Williams, O. (2019, April 29). Performance management in agile organizations. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/performance-management-in-agile-organizations.
Layton, M., Ostermiller, S. J., & Kynaston, D. J. (2020). Agile project management for dummies. For Dummies.
Person 2 post: Justus
Agile projects are successful three times more often than non-agile projects, according to the 2011 CHAOS report from the Standish Group. The report goes so far as to say; the agile process is the universal remedy for software development project failure. Software applications developed through the agile process have three times the success rate of the traditional waterfall method and a much lower percentage of time and cost overruns. (Cohn, 2017)
Carilli (2013) states that many organizations embraced the Waterfall method early on due to its strengths of being manageable, allowing for more control than earlier, and provided comprehensive documentation for future enhancements. However, it became apparent that it had its own new set of weaknesses, including an inflexibility to adapt to change, an emphasis on individual actions versus the cumulative efforts of the teams and others.
Having the scope is determined at the beginning of the project, and those fixed requirements cascaded throughout the life cycle was a problem in waterfall projects. Waterfall does not accommodate the changing needs and priorities of the organization, resulting in projects that were either unsuccessful in meeting business needs. (Carilli, 2013)
Many agile teams and organizations are successful because of following and practicing the twelve agile principles. The twelve principles behind the agile manifesto are as follows: The twelve principles behind the agile manifesto are as follows:
1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery
of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
References
Carilli, J. F. (2013). Transitioning to agile: ten success strategies. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2013—North America, New Orleans, LA. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
Cohn, M. (2017, December 22). 2011 CHAOS Report Says Agile is More Successful Than Waterfall. Mountain Goat Software. https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/agile-succeeds-three-times-more-often-than-waterfall.
Principles behind the Agile Manifesto. (n.d.). https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html.
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