5 Reasons Why Being Agile Is More Important Than Being Perfect for Innovation
I must agree that all my projects that leverage Agile practices produce Customers and Employees that are much more ENERGIZED and ENGAGED. By continuously releasing features and functionality – your project stays “top of mind” and “talked about” with your sponsors and customers.
A great example would be several of the projects in my current program where we have created a prioritized backlog of features we believe meet our customer’s needs. Which was done after a 2-3 month planning and analysis phase that outlined the resource, budget, technology, and architectural needs for our sponsors.
We are now putting a release roadmap together for iterative releases on a 4 week cycle. And the developers and testers are using daily standups during each iterative development cycle to keep a handle on progress, obsticles, and continuously adjusting the backlog for future releases.
A great article I read this weekend talked about the 5 Reasons Agile is much more important than being Perfect for being innovative, including:
1. Speed Wins
2. Perfection equals 2nd place
3. Who’s perfection is it anyways
4. It energizes your employees
5. It energizes your customers
Click here for the full article on OPENForum
Agile Open Southern California Conference 2011 (Sep 15-16)
THEME: People, Principles and Performance
WHEN: Thursday and Friday, September 15 & 16
WHERE: University of California, Irvine
What is Agile Open California?
You don’t want to miss this! Imagine an event where experienced Agile practitioners and newcomers alike come together for two days to discuss, examine and otherwise brainstorm the most timely and relevant topics in Agile development today.
Agile Open California is a coalition of agile practitioners and advocates intent on providing an opportunity for learning, networking and growth to the Agile community in California and to others who are interested.
What Will I Get?
- A 2-day conference pass – up to 24 sessions to choose from each day
- Continental breakfast and lunch both days
- A networking reception on Monday evening
- Free Agile Alliance 1-year Membership - a $100 value! With your registration and attendance, you can receive a free one-year membership in the Agile Alliance, which is a $100 dollar value. Just check the option when you purchase your ticket!
Read more
Agile / Lean / Waterfall in the same Project – Is that possible?
I was asked recently:
“Do you believe Agile and Lean methods can be used along side traditional waterfall in the same project ?”
I quickly answered,
“YES I do – and I’ve done it with amazing results”
Agile methodology evangelists often find it difficult to obtain management support.
They are often seen as trying to implement dramatic changes. Or trying to fix something that is not broken. Agile requires that developers, managers and users alike must change the way they work and think – when I’ve found that people resist change – especially change that they don’t understand.
XP practices is an example of this: where pair programming, test-first design, continuous integration, and an on-site customer can seem like almost impossible changes to implement.
So is there another way to become Agile?
Agile 101: Laying the Foundation for Agile Development
If you want a great introduction to Agile Development, then check out this series by VersionOne.
1. Agile Basics [request recording]
What is Agile? How is Agile different? Why does Agile work? This webcast will explore the origins of Agile, the definition of Agile, how Agile differs from the way you work today and most important why Agile works. This information will then be applied to the business environment today.
The attendee will leave the webinar with the following:
- An understanding of the Prindipals and Values of Agile
- Knowledge of the difference of Agile -v- current woring methods
- An understanding of the beefits of Agile in today’s business environment
Read more
NEW RECORDING – Lean/Agile project controls for Project Managers
Every project manager can successfully integrate agile in a waterfall environment to improve project predictability, cost effectiveness and ultimately project and professional success.
.
Agile was once considered a fad
by project management professionals.
In the 10 years since the agile manifesto was written agile has matured; it has moved from being a core methodology and from small software companies to the point where it is used, to some extent, in a majority of enterprise organizations today. Agile isn’t a silver bullet for every context though and agile methods need to adapt to the changing contexts of the enterprise.
This webinar will examine how project managers can successfully apply Agile to their projects in an enterprise context.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Why we struggle Agile in an Enterprise
- Mapping project controls to agile project metrics for improved project control and reporting than on plan driven projects: Scope, Schedule and Budget.
- Three approaches to creating a Gantt chart for an agile project
- How to handle external dependencies
- Nine principles for bringing a little bit of agile into any project
Global Town Hall Meeting for Lean / Kanban Practitioners with David J. Anderson (July 13)
July 13, 2011 (10 am Pacific Time PDT)
A Webinar with a difference: YOU TALK, David Anderson will listen and respond to your real life questions.
Ask questions about real-life chalenges for implementing Lean/Kanban and world renouwned Kanban expert David J. Anderson will respond with real-life suggestions / help !
If you are implementing Kanban or are evaluating Kanban, haven’t you wished you could quickly and easily ask all the tough questions and get answers to them instantly? Better still, get to learn from others like you while they share their experience so you get to hear multiple perspectives to your challenges? THIS is your chance to do so.
Lean-Agile for Executives & Management
Do you want to know how to talk to your executives and management about the value of Agility and transitioning organizations to Lean-Agile methods?
Then you will want to listen to this excellent recording with Alan Shalloway, CEO of NetObjectives, that will discuss:
- How executives think – what they care about – or not care about
- What questions do they ask?
- How does Agility address their concerns and questions
- What should I say to them?
- and more….
Creating a Core Team to Increase Agile Buy-In
A popular question I’m getting from many Agilista Readers is…
How can I get buy-in from my company to go Agile?
And one of the most common answers is to….
Start with a “Core Team”
So who makes up this Core Team? Greg Smith, author of Becoming Agile in an Imperfect World said it so well recently. and this is what he and I teach in workshops that we do together: Read more
WEBINAR – The Agile PMP (6/21)
June 21, 2011 (9 – 10am PDT)
Many of today’s accredited Project Management Professionals (PMPs) are finding themselves leading and managing Agile development teams, only to find that many of the tools and techniques applied when utilizing a traditional project management approach no longer work as effectively or at all. In order to do more than survive in this iterative development environment, today’s PMP must employ additional project management tools and techniques to effectively lead their teams and deliver their projects.
This hour long webinar will explore how today’s PMP can easily and successfully make the transition to an effective Agile PMP.
PDU: 1
COST: Free
WEBINAR RECORDING – Radical Management: Making the Entire Organization Agile
Organizations today face a crisis. The crisis is of long standing and its signs are widespread. Productivity is one-quarter of 1965 levels. Innovation continues to decline. Workers are disgruntled. Customers are frustrated. Brands are unraveling. Executive turnover is accelerating. In the last 25 years, startups created 40 million jobs in the US, while established firms created almost none. Traditional management is broken.
The principles described in this webinar show how Agile thinking can respond to the crisis and be applied to the overall management of any organization so as to inspire high productivity, continuous innovation, deep job satisfaction and client delight.
Let’s Connect!
My Speaking Engagements …..
-Apr 18: TOYOTA HQ: Start Using Agile|Lean in your Projects Today
-Nov 10: HOW TO PLAN, MANAGE, and TRACK ITERATIONS (ProjectTimes)
-Dec 16: DEALING WITH THE TOP 10 ISSUES DURING & AFTER AN ITERATION (ProjectTimes)
-Jan 13: AGILE REQUIREMENT GATHERING & DOCUMENTATION - BEYOND USER STORIES (ProjectTimes)
-Feb 10: DEALING WITH THE TOP 10 ISSUES IN AGILE ADOPTION (ProjectTimes)
Some Agile User-Groups and Links…
