Agility Scales take a specific topic or decision area and illustrate that there is a range of decision-making options. These options range from purely hierarchical (management-driven) decisions to purely networked (employee-driven) decisions.
Element
Description
Concept Overview
Agility Scales is a framework and tool designed to assess and develop an individual’s agility, particularly in the context of agile and adaptive work environments. It offers a structured approach to measure and enhance personal agility, focusing on key behavioral traits and practices that contribute to success in agile settings.
Framework Elements
Agility Scales comprises several key elements, including:1. Behavioral Traits: Identifying and understanding specific behaviors associated with agility.2. Assessment: Employing assessment tools to evaluate one’s agility.3. Feedback: Providing feedback and insights based on the assessment results.4. Development Plans: Creating personalized plans to improve agility.
Behavioral Traits
Agility Scales defines various behavioral traits linked to agility, such as adaptability, collaboration, empathy, communication, problem-solving, and self-awareness. These traits serve as indicators of an individual’s agility and can be assessed and developed using the framework.
Assessment
Agility Scales offers assessments or surveys designed to gauge an individual’s agility. These assessments typically involve self-evaluation or feedback from peers, managers, or teammates. The results provide insights into one’s strengths and areas for improvement in relation to agile practices and behaviors.
Feedback
Based on the assessment results, individuals receive feedback and recommendations. This feedback highlights their agility profile, emphasizing where they excel and where there is room for growth. Constructive feedback is crucial for individuals to gain a deeper understanding of their agility and how to enhance it.
Development Plans
Agility Scales aids in creating personalized development plans. These plans outline actionable steps and strategies to improve agility in specific areas. They serve as a roadmap for individuals to enhance their skills and behaviors, ultimately contributing to their effectiveness in agile contexts.
Agile Environments
Agility Scales is particularly relevant in agile work environments, such as software development teams practicing Scrum or Kanban. However, its principles and practices can be applied to various domains and industries where adaptability, collaboration, and responsiveness are essential for success.
Benefits
– Enhanced Agility: Agility Scales helps individuals become more agile and adaptable, improving their ability to thrive in dynamic work settings.- Improved Team Dynamics: When team members enhance their agility, it positively impacts collaboration and teamwork within agile teams.- Personal Growth: The framework supports personal development and self-awareness, fostering continuous improvement.- Organizational Agility: By developing agile individuals, organizations can become more agile at scale, responding effectively to changing market conditions.
Drawbacks
– Subjectivity: Assessments and feedback in Agility Scales may have a subjective component, as they rely on self-assessment and the perceptions of others.- Resource Intensive: Implementing the framework may require time and resources for assessments, feedback sessions, and individual development plans.- Limited to Agile Contexts: While agility is valuable beyond agile settings, Agility Scales is primarily designed for use in such contexts.- Overemphasis on Traits: The framework may place a strong emphasis on specific behavioral traits, potentially overlooking other critical skills or qualities.
Examples
– An agile software development team uses Agility Scales to assess and improve their agility, enhancing their ability to respond to changing customer needs.- A project manager seeks to become more agile in decision-making and problem-solving, utilizing the framework to identify areas for growth.- A human resources department applies Agility Scales to foster greater adaptability and collaboration among team members, aligning with the organization’s agile transformation efforts.
In many organizations with a hierarchical management style, decision-making tends to be performed in a slow and bureaucratic manner by the chosen few. In this context, efficiency could be improved by involving employees in important decisions regarding purpose and strategy.
However, it would be unwise to suggest that management should delegate all decision-making to their subordinates. Indeed, employees who work without direction and make decisions without relevant experience also contribute to inefficiency within a business.
This begs the question: which decisions should be management driven and which should be driven by employees?
Core components of Agility Scales
Agility Scales work on the assumption that a balance must be struck between:
The centralized decision-making of management, favors specialization, exploitation, efficiency, and hierarchy.
The de-centralized decision-making of employees favors generalization, exploration, networking, and effectivity.
This balance is highly contextual. It is specific to the needs of the business or more accurately, to the needs of individual teams or departments within the business.
Defining context for Agility Scales
To successfully respond to change, the business must first understand the context in which change needs to be made.
If the change requires a general increase in effectivity, then employees or project teams should delegate fewer decisions to upper management. However, if the context calls for more efficiency or specialist advice, upper management should take on most of the decision-making responsibility.
In some contexts, a blend of each form of decision-making and its inherent qualities will be required. What’s important is that the business is consistently moving between each end of the spectrum.
Ultimately, this helps an organization develop agile and innovative principles and characteristics.
Specific applications of Agility Scales
Agility Scales can be used in many different business contexts:
The formation of teams, groups, business units, or departments. How are these teams formed? Who takes initiative for team creation and who decides when a team has been finalized? How much autonomy do these teams have?
Leadership. Will the leader be responsible for the actions of a group and be directly accountable to superiors? Alternatively, will individual team members assume leadership responsibilities when required without a formal title or interference from higher up?
Purpose. Is the purpose of the organization clearly defined, with all employees required to work toward a singular goal? Or are individuals given freedom and flexibility to work toward a goal or purpose they have designated for themselves?
Boundaries. This context describes the point where the work of one team ends and the work of another team begins. For example, who approves the installation or purchase of new tools or equipment? Which team will focus on iOS, and which will focus on Android? Who will decide if the regional sales team needs to be expanded or reduced because of urban sprawl?
When to Use Agility Scales:
Agility Scales is valuable in various scenarios:
Organizational Transformation: Use it to guide organizational transformations aimed at enhancing agility and adaptability.
Complex Problem Solving: Apply Agility Scales when dealing with complex and uncertain challenges that require innovative solutions.
Team Development: Foster team development and collaboration by implementing Agility Scales practices.
Change Management: Utilize it in change management initiatives to facilitate smoother transitions.
Agile Software Development: Incorporate Agility Scales principles in agile software development processes.
How to Implement Agility Scales Effectively:
To effectively implement Agility Scales, consider the following steps:
Leadership Commitment: Gain commitment from leadership to embrace agility and provide support throughout the organization.
Assessment and Training: Assess the organization’s current state of agility and provide training and education to employees.
Cross-Functional Teams: Encourage cross-functional teams and self-organization to enhance collaboration and innovation.
Visual Tools: Implement visual management tools and practices to enhance transparency and communication.
Experimentation: Encourage experimentation and a fail-forward approach to learning.
Feedback Loops: Establish feedback loops for continuous improvement and adaptation.
Measurement and Metrics: Develop metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor progress and outcomes.
Drawbacks and Limitations of Agility Scales:
While Agility Scales offers significant benefits, it also has certain drawbacks and limitations:
Cultural Change: Implementing Agility Scales may require a significant cultural shift, which can be met with resistance.
Resource Intensity: The process of adopting Agility Scales may demand substantial time, resources, and training.
Not a One-Size-Fits-All: Agility Scales may not be suitable for all organizations, particularly those with rigid structures or highly regulated environments.
Resistance to Change: Employees may resist changes associated with Agility Scales, especially if they perceive them as disruptive.
What to Expect from Implementing Agility Scales:
Implementing Agility Scales can lead to several outcomes and benefits:
Enhanced Agility: Expect to see improved organizational agility and adaptability in the face of change and uncertainty.
Innovation: Foster a culture of innovation and experimentation, resulting in creative solutions and new opportunities.
Improved Collaboration: Promote collaboration and cross-functional teamwork, breaking down silos and improving communication.
Learning Culture: Create a culture of continuous learning and improvement, where employees embrace challenges as opportunities for growth.
Enhanced Customer Focus: Agility Scales encourages a human-centered approach, leading to better understanding and meeting customer needs.
Related Business Frameworks:
Scrum: Scrum is an agile framework for managing and delivering complex projects, often used in software development and aligned with Agility Scales principles.
Kanban: Kanban is a visual management tool and methodology that enhances workflow visibility and aligns with visual management aspects of Agility Scales.
Design Thinking: Design Thinking focuses on human-centered design and problem-solving, aligning with the human-centered design principle of Agility Scales.
Lean Startup: Lean Startup principles emphasize experimentation, iterative product development, and learning, which are in line with Agility Scales’ emphasis on continuous learning and experimentation.
SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework): SAFe is a framework for scaling agile and lean practices in large organizations, providing a structure for aligning with Agility Scales principles.
Conclusion:
Agility Scales represents a comprehensive framework and approach for enhancing organizational agility and adaptability. Its principles of complexity awareness, agility mindset, and continuous learning align with the demands of the modern business environment.
While acknowledging potential challenges and resource intensity, many organizations embrace Agility Scales to navigate complexity, foster innovation, and thrive in an era of rapid change and uncertainty.
CaseStudies
Team Formation:
Scenario: A software development company is forming project teams for a new product development phase.
Application of Agility Scales:
Hierarchical Approach: In this scenario, the management decides on the composition of project teams, assigning team members based on their specialization and expertise. Management’s decision is considered final, and teams have little autonomy in team formation.
Networked Approach: Alternatively, the company could adopt a networked approach, where employees are given the freedom to self-organize into project teams. Team members have the autonomy to decide who they want to work with based on their interests and expertise.
Balanced Approach: To strike a balance, the company may involve both management and employees in team formation. Management can provide guidelines and objectives, while employees have a say in choosing their team members within those boundaries.
Leadership:
Scenario: A startup is deciding how leadership roles will be assigned within project teams.
Application of Agility Scales:
Hierarchical Approach: In a more hierarchical setting, the startup might appoint formal leaders for each project team. These leaders have clear responsibilities and are directly accountable to higher-ups for team actions.
Networked Approach: In a networked approach, leadership emerges organically within the teams. Individuals take on leadership roles when needed, regardless of formal titles or interference from higher management.
Balanced Approach: To maintain a balance, the startup could designate formal leaders but allow team members to assume leadership responsibilities when it makes sense. Leadership can be flexible and adaptive, depending on the project’s needs.
Purpose:
Scenario: A nonprofit organization is defining its overarching purpose and goals.
Application of Agility Scales:
Hierarchical Approach: In a more hierarchical nonprofit, the leadership team sets a singular, well-defined purpose for the organization. All employees are expected to work toward this central goal.
Networked Approach: In a networked nonprofit, employees have the freedom to work toward purposes they designate for themselves. Each team or individual might have its own unique objectives and missions.
Balanced Approach: To strike a balance, the nonprofit may define a core purpose that aligns with its mission but allows teams or individuals some flexibility to pursue sub-purposes or initiatives that contribute to the larger goal.
Boundaries:
Scenario: A large corporation with multiple product divisions is deciding how to allocate resources for new product development.
Application of Agility Scales:
Hierarchical Approach: In a more hierarchical structure, decisions regarding resource allocation and product focus are made at the top levels of management. Divisions receive directives on what products to develop, and boundaries between divisions are strictly defined.
Networked Approach: In a networked approach, divisions and product teams have greater autonomy. They can propose their own projects and resource allocations, with less interference from upper management.
Balanced Approach: To maintain a balance, the corporation may involve both management and product teams in resource allocation decisions. Management sets high-level priorities, while teams have some say in how resources are distributed within those priorities.
Key takeaways:
Agility Scales encompass decision-making options ranging from purely hierarchical (management driven) to purely networked (employee-driven) decisions.
Agility Scales help a business respond to change in an agile fashion by continuously moving along a spectrum according to the context of change itself.
Agility Scales are useful in a variety of contexts, including team formation, leadership, boundary setting, and purpose.
Key Highlights
Understanding Agility Scales:
Agility Scales emphasizes that decision-making within organizations varies on a spectrum, from management-driven to employee-driven decisions.
In hierarchical management styles, decisions are often slow and bureaucratic, involving only a select few. However, efficiency can be improved by involving employees in crucial decisions regarding purpose and strategy.
A balance is necessary between centralized management-driven decisions (specialization, efficiency, hierarchy) and decentralized employee-driven decisions (generalization, exploration, networking, effectivity).
The appropriate balance depends on the context of the business, teams, or departments within the organization.
Defining Context for Agility Scales:
To effectively respond to change, organizations need to understand the context in which change is required.
Depending on whether the context requires increased effectivity, efficiency, or specialist advice, decisions should lean more towards management-driven or employee-driven approaches.
In some cases, a blend of both decision-making approaches may be necessary to suit the context.
Specific Applications of Agility Scales:
Agility Scales can be applied to various business contexts:
Team formation: Who initiates team creation, and how much autonomy do teams have?
Leadership: Will formal leaders be accountable, or can leadership emerge from team members?
Purpose: Is the organization’s purpose singular, or do individuals have the freedom to pursue self-designated goals?
Boundaries: How are work boundaries between teams defined, and who decides on resource allocation or team expansion/reduction?
Key Takeaways:
Agility Scales cover a range of decision-making options, from management-driven to employee-driven.
These scales help organizations respond agilely to change by adjusting their decision-making approach based on the context of the change.
Agility Scales find relevance in various contexts within a business, such as team formation, leadership, purpose, and setting boundaries.
Related Frameworks
Description
When to Apply
Agility Scales
An approach that focuses on developing agile mindset and behaviors across an organization by providing personalized learning experiences, coaching, and feedback. It aims to foster adaptability, collaboration, and innovation.
When transitioning to agile methodologies, fostering organizational agility, and cultivating agile mindset and behaviors among teams and individuals, promoting collaboration, adaptability, and innovation, and enabling continuous learning and improvement through personalized learning experiences, coaching, and feedback.
Lean Manufacturing
Focuses on maximizing customer value while minimizing waste through the systematic elimination of non-value-added activities.
When optimizing manufacturing or business processes, reducing waste and inefficiencies, or enhancing productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction by adopting lean principles and practices, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and employee empowerment, and streamlining workflows to achieve operational excellence and sustain competitive advantage in dynamic and demanding business environments.
Six Sigma
A data-driven approach for improving the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing causes of defects and minimizing variability.
When seeking to reduce defects, errors, and variation in processes, improve quality and customer satisfaction, enhance operational efficiency, and achieve consistent, predictable results through statistical analysis and problem-solving methodologies.
Total Quality Management (TQM)
A management approach that aims to embed quality principles and processes throughout the organization to meet or exceed customer expectations.
When aiming to improve product quality, customer satisfaction, and organizational performance by fostering a culture of continuous improvement, employee involvement, and customer focus, and implementing quality management techniques such as process optimization, customer feedback mechanisms, and performance measurement systems.
Kaizen
Encourages small, incremental changes in processes and systems to improve efficiency and quality.
When striving for continuous improvement, employee engagement, and problem-solving at all levels of the organization by implementing small, incremental changes to processes, systems, and workflows, fostering a culture of experimentation, learning, and adaptability, and addressing inefficiencies, bottlenecks, and opportunities for improvement on an ongoing basis.
Just-in-Time (JIT)
A production strategy that aims to minimize inventory levels and eliminate waste by producing goods only when they are needed, thereby reducing lead times and storage costs.
When aiming to reduce inventory costs, minimize waste, and improve production efficiency by synchronizing production with customer demand, implementing pull-based production systems, reducing setup times, and optimizing material flow and production processes to achieve shorter lead times, lower costs, and improved responsiveness to customer needs.
Poka-Yoke
Involves designing processes or equipment to prevent errors or defects from occurring.
When seeking to prevent errors, defects, and mistakes in processes and operations by implementing foolproofing mechanisms, error-proofing devices, and mistake-proofing techniques, reducing rework and waste, improving product quality and reliability, and enhancing overall process efficiency and effectiveness.
Kanban
A visual scheduling system that helps manage workflow by signaling when to produce or replenish items based on actual demand.
When needing to visualize and manage workflow, improve efficiency and flow, and reduce inventory and lead times by implementing a visual and pull-basedscheduling system, enabling better coordination and communication between teams, and facilitating continuous improvement and adaptation to changing customer demand and market conditions.
Theory of Constraints (TOC)
Focuses on identifying the most significant limiting factor (constraint) in a system and systematically improving it to achieve overall organizational goals.
When aiming to identify and eliminate bottlenecks and constraints in processes, optimize resource utilization, and achieve system-wide improvements in productivity, throughput, and profitability by applying TOC principles, implementing continuous improvement initiatives, and aligning operations with strategic objectives and customer needs.
5S Methodology
A systematic approach for organizing and standardizing the workplace to improve efficiency, safety, and productivity by eliminating waste and maintaining an orderly environment.
When seeking to organize and standardize the workplace, improve efficiency, safety, and productivity, and foster a culture of cleanliness, discipline, and continuous improvement by implementing 5S principles and practices, establishing visual controls, and promoting employee involvement and ownership of the work environment and processes.
AIOps is the application of artificial intelligence to IT operations. It has become particularly useful for modern IT management in hybridized, distributed, and dynamic environments. AIOps has become a key operational component of modern digital-based organizations, built around software and algorithms.
Agile started as a lightweight development method compared to heavyweight software development, which is the core paradigm of the previous decades of software development. By 2001 the Manifesto for Agile Software Development was born as a set of principles that defined the new paradigm for software development as a continuous iteration. This would also influence the way of doing business.
Agile Program Management is a means of managing, planning, and coordinating interrelated work in such a way that value delivery is emphasized for all key stakeholders. Agile Program Management (AgilePgM) is a disciplined yet flexible agile approach to managing transformational change within an organization.
Agile project management (APM) is a strategy that breaks large projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. In the APM methodology, each project is completed in small sections – often referred to as iterations. Each iteration is completed according to its project life cycle, beginning with the initial design and progressing to testing and then quality assurance.
Agile Modeling (AM) is a methodology for modeling and documenting software-based systems. Agile Modeling is critical to the rapid and continuous delivery of software. It is a collection of values, principles, and practices that guide effective, lightweight software modeling.
Agile Business Analysis (AgileBA) is certification in the form of guidance and training for business analysts seeking to work in agile environments. To support this shift, AgileBA also helps the business analyst relate Agile projects to a wider organizational mission or strategy. To ensure that analysts have the necessary skills and expertise, AgileBA certification was developed.
Agile leadership is the embodiment of agile manifesto principles by a manager or management team. Agile leadership impacts two important levels of a business. The structural level defines the roles, responsibilities, and key performance indicators. The behavioral level describes the actions leaders exhibit to others based on agile principles.
The andon system alerts managerial, maintenance, or other staff of a production process problem. The alert itself can be activated manually with a button or pull cord, but it can also be activated automatically by production equipment. Most Andon boards utilize three colored lights similar to a traffic signal: green (no errors), yellow or amber (problem identified, or quality check needed), and red (production stopped due to unidentified issue).
Bimodal Portfolio Management (BimodalPfM) helps an organization manage both agile and traditional portfolios concurrently. Bimodal Portfolio Management – sometimes referred to as bimodal development – was coined by research and advisory company Gartner. The firm argued that many agile organizations still needed to run some aspects of their operations using traditional delivery models.
Business innovation is about creating new opportunities for an organization to reinvent its core offerings, revenue streams, and enhance the value proposition for existing or new customers, thus renewing its whole business model. Business innovation springs by understanding the structure of the market, thus adapting or anticipating those changes.
Business modelinnovation is about increasing the success of an organization with existing products and technologies by crafting a compelling value proposition able to propel a new business model to scale up customers and create a lasting competitive advantage. And it all starts by mastering the key customers.
A consumer brand company like Procter & Gamble (P&G) defines “Constructive Disruption” as: a willingness to change, adapt, and create new trends and technologies that will shape our industry for the future. According to P&G, it moves around four pillars: lean innovation, brand building, supply chain, and digitalization & data analytics.
That is a process that requires a continuous feedback loop to develop a valuable product and build a viable business model. Continuous innovation is a mindset where products and services are designed and delivered to tune them around the customers’ problem and not the technical solution of its founders.
A design sprint is a proven five-day process where critical business questions are answered through speedy design and prototyping, focusing on the end-user. A design sprint starts with a weekly challenge that should finish with a prototype, test at the end, and therefore a lesson learned to be iterated.
Tim Brown, Executive Chair of IDEO, defined design thinking as “a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” Therefore, desirability, feasibility, and viability are balanced to solve critical problems.
DevOps refers to a series of practices performed to perform automated software development processes. It is a conjugation of the term “development” and “operations” to emphasize how functions integrate across IT teams. DevOps strategies promote seamless building, testing, and deployment of products. It aims to bridge a gap between development and operations teams to streamline the development altogether.
Product discovery is a critical part of agile methodologies, as its aim is to ensure that products customers love are built. Product discovery involves learning through a raft of methods, including design thinking, lean start-up, and A/B testing to name a few. Dual Track Agile is an agile methodology containing two separate tracks: the “discovery” track and the “delivery” track.
eXtreme Programming was developed in the late 1990s by Ken Beck, Ron Jeffries, and Ward Cunningham. During this time, the trio was working on the Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System (C3) to help manage the company payroll system. eXtreme Programming (XP) is a software development methodology. It is designed to improve software quality and the ability of software to adapt to changing customer needs.
Feature-Driven Development is a pragmatic software process that is client and architecture-centric. Feature-Driven Development (FDD) is an agile software development model that organizes workflow according to which features need to be developed next.
A Gemba Walk is a fundamental component of lean management. It describes the personal observation of work to learn more about it. Gemba is a Japanese word that loosely translates as “the real place”, or in business, “the place where value is created”. The Gemba Walk as a concept was created by Taiichi Ohno, the father of the Toyota Production System of lean manufacturing. Ohno wanted to encourage management executives to leave their offices and see where the real work happened. This, he hoped, would build relationships between employees with vastly different skillsets and build trust.
GIST Planning is a relatively easy and lightweight agile approach to product planning that favors autonomous working. GIST Planning is a lean and agile methodology that was created by former Google product manager Itamar Gilad. GIST Planning seeks to address this situation by creating lightweight plans that are responsive and adaptable to change. GIST Planning also improves team velocity, autonomy, and alignment by reducing the pervasive influence of management. It consists of four blocks: goals, ideas, step-projects, and tasks.
The ICE Scoring Model is an agile methodology that prioritizes features using data according to three components: impact, confidence, and ease of implementation. The ICE Scoring Model was initially created by author and growth expert Sean Ellis to help companies expand. Today, the model is broadly used to prioritize projects, features, initiatives, and rollouts. It is ideally suited for early-stage product development where there is a continuous flow of ideas and momentum must be maintained.
An innovation funnel is a tool or process ensuring only the best ideas are executed. In a metaphorical sense, the funnel screens innovative ideas for viability so that only the best products, processes, or business models are launched to the market. An innovation funnel provides a framework for the screening and testing of innovative ideas for viability.
According to how well defined is the problem and how well defined the domain, we have four main types of innovations: basic research (problem and domain or not well defined); breakthrough innovation (domain is not well defined, the problem is well defined); sustaining innovation (both problem and domain are well defined); and disruptive innovation (domain is well defined, the problem is not well defined).
The innovation loop is a methodology/framework derived from the Bell Labs, which produced innovation at scale throughout the 20th century. They learned how to leverage a hybrid innovation management model based on science, invention, engineering, and manufacturing at scale. By leveraging individual genius, creativity, and small/large groups.
The Agile methodology has been primarily thought of for software development (and other business disciplines have also adopted it). Lean thinking is a process improvement technique where teams prioritize the value streams to improve it continuously. Both methodologies look at the customer as the key driver to improvement and waste reduction. Both methodologies look at improvement as something continuous.
A startup company is a high-tech business that tries to build a scalable business model in tech-driven industries. A startup company usually follows a lean methodology, where continuous innovation, driven by built-in viral loops is the rule. Thus, driving growth and building network effects as a consequence of this strategy.
As pointed out by Eric Ries, a minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort through a cycle of build, measure, learn; that is the foundation of the lean startup methodology.
Kanban is a lean manufacturing framework first developed by Toyota in the late 1940s. The Kanban framework is a means of visualizing work as it moves through identifying potential bottlenecks. It does that through a process called just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing to optimize engineering processes, speed up manufacturing products, and improve the go-to-market strategy.
Jidoka was first used in 1896 by Sakichi Toyoda, who invented a textile loom that would stop automatically when it encountered a defective thread. Jidoka is a Japanese term used in lean manufacturing. The term describes a scenario where machines cease operating without human intervention when a problem or defect is discovered.
The PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle was first proposed by American physicist and engineer Walter A. Shewhart in the 1920s. The PDCA cycle is a continuous process and product improvement method and an essential component of the lean manufacturing philosophy.
RAD was first introduced by author and consultant James Martin in 1991. Martin recognized and then took advantage of the endless malleability of software in designing development models. Rapid Application Development (RAD) is a methodology focusing on delivering rapidly through continuous feedback and frequent iterations.
Retrospective analyses are held after a project to determine what worked well and what did not. They are also conducted at the end of an iteration in Agile project management. Agile practitioners call these meetings retrospectives or retros. They are an effective way to check the pulse of a project team, reflect on the work performed to date, and reach a consensus on how to tackle the next sprint cycle. These are the five stages of a retrospective analysis for effective Agile project management: set the stage, gather the data, generate insights, decide on the next steps, and close the retrospective.
Scaled Agile Lean Development (ScALeD) helps businesses discover a balanced approach to agile transition and scaling questions. The ScALed approach helps businesses successfully respond to change. Inspired by a combination of lean and agile values, ScALed is practitioner-based and can be completed through various agile frameworks and practices.
The SMED (single minute exchange of die) method is a lean production framework to reduce waste and increase production efficiency. The SMED method is a framework for reducing the time associated with completing an equipment changeover.
The Spotify Model is an autonomous approach to scaling agile, focusing on culture communication, accountability, and quality. The Spotify model was first recognized in 2012 after Henrik Kniberg, and Anders Ivarsson released a white paper detailing how streaming company Spotify approached agility. Therefore, the Spotify model represents an evolution of agile.
As the name suggests, TDD is a test-driven technique for delivering high-quality software rapidly and sustainably. It is an iterative approach based on the idea that a failing test should be written before any code for a feature or function is written. Test-Driven Development (TDD) is an approach to software development that relies on very short development cycles.
Timeboxing is a simple yet powerful time-management technique for improving productivity. Timeboxing describes the process of proactively scheduling a block of time to spend on a task in the future. It was first described by author James Martin in a book about agile software development.
Scrum is a methodology co-created by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland for effective team collaboration on complex products. Scrum was primarily thought for software development projects to deliver new software capability every 2-4 weeks. It is a sub-group of agile also used in project management to improve startups’ productivity.
Scrumban is a project management framework that is a hybrid of two popular agile methodologies: Scrum and Kanban. Scrumban is a popular approach to helping businesses focus on the right strategic tasks while simultaneously strengthening their processes.
Scrum anti-patterns describe any attractive, easy-to-implement solution that ultimately makes a problem worse. Therefore, these are the practice not to follow to prevent issues from emerging. Some classic examples of scrum anti-patterns comprise absent product owners, pre-assigned tickets (making individuals work in isolation), and discounting retrospectives (where review meetings are not useful to really make improvements).
Scrum at Scale (Scrum@Scale) is a framework that Scrum teams use to address complex problems and deliver high-value products. Scrum at Scale was created through a joint venture between the Scrum Alliance and Scrum Inc. The joint venture was overseen by Jeff Sutherland, a co-creator of Scrum and one of the principal authors of the Agile Manifesto.
Six Sigma is a data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating errors or defects in a product, service, or process. Six Sigma was developed by Motorola as a management approach based on quality fundamentals in the early 1980s. A decade later, it was popularized by General Electric who estimated that the methodology saved them $12 billion in the first five years of operation.
Stretch objectives describe any task an agile team plans to complete without expressly committing to do so. Teams incorporate stretch objectives during a Sprint or Program Increment (PI) as part of Scaled Agile. They are used when the agile team is unsure of its capacity to attain an objective. Therefore, stretch objectives are instead outcomes that, while extremely desirable, are not the difference between the success or failure of each sprint.
The Toyota Production System (TPS) is an early form of lean manufacturing created by auto-manufacturer Toyota. Created by the Toyota Motor Corporation in the 1940s and 50s, the Toyota Production System seeks to manufacture vehicles ordered by customers most quickly and efficiently possible.
The Total Quality Management (TQM) framework is a technique based on the premise that employees continuously work on their ability to provide value to customers. Importantly, the word “total” means that all employees are involved in the process – regardless of whether they work in development, production, or fulfillment.
The waterfall model was first described by Herbert D. Benington in 1956 during a presentation about the software used in radar imaging during the Cold War. Since there were no knowledge-based, creative software development strategies at the time, the waterfall method became standard practice. The waterfall model is a linear and sequential project management framework.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
