When I look across the numerous Agile deployment efforts, I
see a lower rate of success in achieving the business benefits than I would expect.
May I suggest that in order to improve the odds of achieving Agile
success and gaining the business results it can bring, there are three success
factors. The first is that the Agile change must be thought of an organizational
level change. The second is that the
Agile change must focus on getting the mind Agile-ready. This is emphasized in the article Are
you Ready for you Agile Journey.
And the third is that in order to bridge the gap between the Agile
values and principles to Agile methods and practices, people need to be well educated in
ways to build more customer value, optimize the flow of work, and increase quality with feedback loops.
The current level of Agile education tends to be limited to
2-days of training and a variety of books.
I think most people will acknowledge that 2 days of Agile training does
not provide enough learning. On the
other hand, reading lots of books takes a lot of time and are often not aligned
with each other. The other challenge
with some of the Agile education is that it is often focused only on implementing
the mechanics.
What is missing from many Agile transformations is an Agile
Education Engine that helps you truly understand and embrace Agile and helps
bridge the gap between Agile Values and Principles and the Agile methods and
practices. This will help folks better
understand how to understand, embrace, and implement Agile and move beyond
simply following the Agile mechanics of the methods and practices. The Agile Education Engine can help ready the
mind for an effective transformation.
One of the best Agile education engines that I have seen is
the material found in the Value Flow Quality
(VFQ) work-based education system. VFQ
provides a set of well-researched topics that are easily digested in the form
of readings, case studies, activities, and experiments. It provides students with the ability to study
a little, then experiment a little within their own context (aka, project or
team). The benefit of the VFQ work-based learning system is that it
helps people apply their newly learned skills on the job when they need them. This bodes very well for the learners
because, they can learn at their own pace and as they are trying to implement
the Agile values, principles, and practices.
Some topics that VFQ offers are: Why Change, Optimizing
Flow, Feedback, Requirements, Prioritization, Trade-offs, Understanding your
Customer, Delivering Early and Often, Teams, Motivation, Attacking your Queues,
Work in Progress, Trade-offs, and more.
Each topic includes a number of techniques that will help you achieve
the business outcomes you are looking for.
The VFQ materials will provide you with knowledge on Value Stream
Mapping, Story Mapping, Cost of Delay, 6 Prisms and much more.
In addition, VFQ really helps you get to the state of “being
Agile”. It moves you away from thinking
about the mechanics. Instead, it
provides you a layer of knowledge in a critical thinking manner to ensure you apply the principles and
behaviors to the practices to gain the outcomes that you want. Finally,
applying the VFQ education is also an excellent way to kick-start an Agile
transformation. This way, the Agile
champions for the transformation and teams are armed with a variety of
different ways to bring Agile to the organization.
If you find yourself struggling with getting a good baseline of Agile education,
then consider the Value
Flow Quality (VFQ) work-based learning system. It will help you bridge the gap between the
Agile values and principles and Agile methods so
that you bring the Agile mindset to bear as you start or continue your Agile
journey.
