Agile Development sets the mindset of different members in
different ways which makes it difficult to adopt in true spirit. The perception
created through mere understanding of standard documents / processes defined in
various books as applicable to set of technical team for improving the time to
develop and productivity of the team. This leads either rejection or partial
adoption of agile principles / manifesto/ practices on the ground and more
detail can be found here.
To answer the road blocks I would like to highlight some of
the real life issues / observations of various members those will be part of
the agile process if implemented in a holistic approach. Some of the initial
resistance to agile adoption by staffs are as below.
1.
We have been working extra time through out to
make sure the delivery time line is met.
2.
There is likely to be reduction in staff count
after successful adoption, which will make our job at risk.
3.
The cost / benefit perceived through agile
process adoption works out to long gestation period for return with no guarantee
on viability.
4.
Available Technology / Tools makes the agile
process impossible for adoption.
5.
Agile process is a fancy process applicable in
specific environment or platform.
6.
Project size does not allow for adoption of agile
process as agile team with a scrum master, the size is restricted to 8-10 and
number of agile scrum master has an upper limit.
7.
List goes on …
In fact most of the reasons indicated above are views of
persons those who do not want change to take, which is typical type of “resistance
to change” for many reasons. There are senior executive such CEO / COO / CIO /
CTO who also share similar views those are averse to risk taking.
With the evolution of Digital economy, there are questions
being raised on the roles and responsibilities of each and how to minimize
overlapping to ensure that the industry trend is well understood to make the
corporate profitable at the most economical value to the customers.
There was a time when the customers were demanding for
implementation of EDI to their suppliers, vendors and partners to ensure that
the message exchange happens faster with minimum human intervention and error.
With this development, the ERP, CRM and core Enterprise applications were
integrated with EDI message and this is in practice as on date in many
enterprise.
In the similar note the customer are also evaluating the
suppliers , vendors and partners about the agile process in place to take care
of any requirement incorporation in the shortest possible time.
To start agile
process in development environment, the below mentioned top down approach
should be taken on priority to establish a holistic agile organization.
1.
Restructure your Organization:
a.
Make the Organization structure flat (horizontal
organization or delayering).
b.
Make the team reporting like a matrix
organization.
2.
Increase the Skillset of Employees
a.
Skillset of individual should be enhanced to a
point where self-responsibility and accountability comes automatically from the
employees rather than through enforcement or coercion.
b.
Multi-skilling should be enhanced to take care
of different demand of skillset at different stages of development of life
cycle.
3.
Select the right technology and Tools: This will
be covered in the next section and provide answer to many known problems and
issues.
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