Introducing Scrum at Your Organization

A Bad Prescription

I am often asked for advice on how to either introduce Scrum and agile at an organization, or how to roll-out from a given implementation of a team or teams to a broader level, such as program or division level.  While there is much to be said on this topic, it is best to start off with the imperative that there is no prescriptive approach that will work for everyone. There are many approaches, some successful despite being counter to standard recommendations. There are important contextual variations, such as company culture, personalities, recent experiences and history, project storyline and product market space that may all play an important part in how to roll out agile in your organization. This section will review some of those aspects, tools you can use, and then get to general recommendations.

Simply, here are the most important points that I have seen be effective:

1.     Ask why management wants to go agile. What is the win for them? Define success together. Rally co-creates Agile Success Plans at the beginning of customer engagements.

a.     Look at Geoffrey Moore’s adoption curve and mark where you think the company sits. Based on that, what is that group’s standard view of risk?

2.     Looking for the natural law win for those involved. Whether backers, decision makers or influential, be sure that you’re aware of or find out what would make this transition a win for each person. Along the way, you should find out, or uncover, what their concerns are (fear, uncertainty and doubt).

a.     Take a look at George Schlitz’s presentation on Mapping the Agile Battlefield for a deeper look at this area.

b.     The book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There is a coaching-view towards helping managers succeed in change situations like these.

3.     Remember that your agile roll-out plan and effort in itself should be agile. Plan it, and then routinely assess what’s working and not working in it, and adjust.

a.     Organization change is not complicated, it’s complex. Look at the Cynefin model and remember to gather data, especially people and process narratives and then determine what to do next.

If your company isn’t agile yet, but you want management to consider adopting agile, consider selling it based on the success of other well known companies. That might lighten their risk.