A methodology meets its limits when it meets people - Alistair Cockburn

Sanjay Kumar on Linkedin

Adopting #Scrum is NOT the primary goal, nor is adopting #Kanban or #SAFe. Not even #Agile.

The primary goal is to generate #better business outcomes in a predictable and sustainable manner, followed closely by creating a work environment that motivates people towards excellence and helps them grow professionally.

Agile (and the chosen process) is the enabler for these goals, not the goal in itself. In other words,#Process must subordinate to #Outcomes, not the other way around.

If it does not, feel free to switch, customize or evolve your current process. If you do not, your agility may be severely limited... DOES NOT matter what fancy name you call it.

Agile Transformation Woes

1. Inadequate or poorly defined reference.
2. Poorly designed training program.
3. Disconnect between old and new models.
4. Inability to choose the right candidate projects.
5. Forcing agile to initiatives that could go waterfall.
6. Ignoring the business, vendor and support teams as part of the transformation.
7. Not providing a career path for Project Managers, Business Analysts, Software Testers or leaving it to the judgement of individual teams.
8. Management using agile to drive their own agenda.
9. Management using agile metrics to compare and drive teams.
10. 
    

The impact of inadequate and dysfunctional training on Agile transformation process: A Grounded Theory study

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0950584914001281

This research discovered that inadequate and dysfunctional training was one of the critical issues that affected Agile transformation process. This study shows that comprehensive and functional training is not often provided to support Agile transformation. This paper shows the primary causes of inadequate and dysfunctional training, its adverse consequences on the transformation process, and the heuristic and ad-hoc treatments as the strategies used by Agile teams to cope with this challenge.

Conclusion

Comprehensive training is important in Agile transformation process. Inadequate and dysfunctional training causes several challenges and problems for software companies and development teams when moving to Agile. Several ad-hoc strategies identified by this study can be employed to help software teams and companies facing similar problems.

[Most recent experience proves this...]

Sprint Retrospective Anti patterns
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1. There is no Retro
2. Retro is cancelled or postponed
3. Rushed retrospective
4. What should remain within the room during discussions goes out
5. Team members whine instead of constructive discussion. These contribute to the bias that agile is not working
6. Team does not check for items from previous retro.
7. PO absent for retrospectives
8. Not all team members participate.
9. No minutes / notes during retro
10. Retros are endless cycles of blame, fingerpointing, failure
11. Bullying
12. Stakeholders participate in retros (they aren't supposed to).
13. No adequate space; rooms booked adhoc
14. Line managers participate
15. Someone outside team requests for peek into retros.