We all know most of these inherently, through our past experiences. Yes, we’ve learned them before. Unfortunately, when you’re neck deep kicking off a new Agile initiative, trying to communicate a lot of new information and deal with a plethora of questions and resistance, it’s all too easy to forget a few of these well-known, well-worn truths…
1. Understand the predominate organizational culture and plan accordingly.
Coming into a new project, take in the lay of the land. How is change managed in this environment Which aspects of Agile/Lean will be most likely to succeed and which will be most likely to fail? Its important to get some early wins under your belt to help the company on its way, so use the situation to your advantage.
2. Set expectations up-front regarding the client’s level of commitment to Agile/Lean.
Agile implementation is a company-wide initiative that requires buy-in at all levels. To help guage the client’s level of commitment ask is this an organizational or project-level initiative? Are they open to learning and applying all the basics or are they predisposed to cutting corners? Just because a client may not be all-in right away, doesn’t mean that a well executed agile project won’t help change their mind.
3. Make sure there is an executive or senior manager level champion.
Its hard to get everyone on board with change, so you’ll need a champion. This person should have influence over the team(s). The more influence your champion has, the more quickly you can begin to spread agile methodology.
4. Make sure management/leadership team are trained along with (if not ahead of) the rest of the team.
This can set the tone for everyone that “we’re all learning together.” After initial training, quickly assess level of comprehension and retention of concepts. Pay close attention to concepts/rules that are not readily accepted by the audience and re-enforce those early and often.
5. Pay attention to positive and negative Queues.
More often than not, employees will reveal their willingness to adopt. Do they have a “can do” attitude or is there a lot of “can’t do that here…” or “that won’t work for us…”
6. When encountering resistance to basic concepts and practices, consider these options:
Be prepared to explain the value behind each concept or practice – Why we do this, not just what or how. Try questioning the source of the resistance and ask them to propose positive alternatives. Always look to add value or eliminate waste; if you can’t say that something can do either, then you can probably omit it.
7. Promote self-directed teams and observe which teams/individuals embrace it and which ones don’t.
Every team is different, so tailor the approach for each team and individual reaction accordingly.
8. Look for tangible, practical correlations between their traditional methodology and organizational/team norms and the “new” Agile/Lean methodology and norms that it fosters.
Humans are in general averse to change. Help this by emphasizing some of the things that don’t change, as well as those that do, in order to provide balance and mitigate those “change overload” reactions.
9. Apply Agile/Lean principals practically in the training/mentoring process.
This means practice what you preach, applying and demonstrating Agile/Lean concepts in your own activities. You need to lead by example – Use yourself as an example when possible – i.e. inspect and adapt your own approach, style, training, etc. frequently and demonstrate that to the team.
While no Agile implementation is guarenteed to work, learning from these helpful lessons will certainly push your next attempt towards success. Of course, you can always call up the experts here at Genesis Consulting and let us handle all the difficult parts for you!
Transform your Organization with Enterprise Mobility
Mobility is the latest hot topic in the IT world. With iPhones, Android phones and tablets at everyone’s disposal, it has become vital for today’s business to be mobile.
Clearly the direction of many software companies such as SAP involves a large mobility push. So why use pre-made applications instead of custom builds? To answer that question, we need to first understand what is enterprise mobility and the road map to success.
So what IS Enterprise Mobility? Enterprise Mobility is about taking key business processes of an organization and optimizing them for new, mobile interfaces. For example, a time-keeping process in SAP may need to be accessible from an airport, or a remote conference room at the last minute. While it may seem simple, there are a laundry list of factors which can make or break a mobile implementation.
SAP Enterprise mobility strategy is important because you can take something that would normally tether someone to their desk, and cut the cord. It provides more flexibility (depending on the solution an organization is about to deploy) and makes it scalable and more productive. A relatively universal example of how enterprise mobile has made work more flexible and productive is e-mail. Where employees were once relegated to their desks, they can now receive and answer e-mails from managers and SAP alerts from their phones wherever they are. Availability is 24/7.
Without a well thought out strategy, however, many of the business transformation initiatives will fail and expectations may not be met. The strategy needs to include which platform an organization will support (iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, et al.). An organization needs to first pick the platform to remotely have a chance of success in their initiative. Once that’s determined an organization needs to determine its deployment strategy. Keeping in mind that any application may be modified a dozen times in a year, its important to have a good, agile plan in place. Ask which method of update is viable (Push or Pull)? Staying agile and utilizing support from your organization to support, maintain, and grow your mobile application is key to keeping it viable.
SAP has an extensive list of applications currently built to provide customers all the benefits of mobility. They have put this into a road map that can be delivered both inside and outside the organization. SAP, along with the help of a strong System Integrator, can then execute on the road map by taking the customers live on mobile apps. The only caveat is that SAP customers should use standard best SAP practices into their process. This will help lessen the burden of the total cost of ownership.
Enterprise Mobility is a pretty simple concept. With the right mobility strategy for an organization, many obstacles can be avoided. Mix that with the right deployment strategy and the willingness to use SAP’s best practices, one can make mobility the cornerstone initiative for their organization. Keep it simple and try not to customize. If an organization does, try to keep mobility in your sights during the design period so that design can be scalable when your organization needs to take that leap of faith to the mobility world.