The Agile Report

I'm not part of the group that has been steering our workplace towards an Agile methodology. I haven't participated in the training nor read any of the books. I don't advocate one methodology over another. I have read the Agile Manifesto and read the Principles of Agile Software. I have been experiencing the changes and observing the happenings. And so I feel that I can provide a different insight or set of observations. I've posted before on these observations, but I figure it is time to devote another post just to some current observations.

Things seemed to have moved quite well since the feature teams were formed. At the beginning, the biggest worry seemed to be that there may be resistance to the inter-disciplinary nature of the teams and I think a lot of effort went towards avoiding that. Turned out to be a non-issue - I can't think of any team that has any real issues with that. I don't know all the teams, but I think real problems would have stood out by now.

Communication has been a bigger issue. Communication between teams and between the teams and other entities (customers or product owners). Problem is pretty vague - specifically it seems to be something that has been overlooked, not done "wrong". Up to now, the teams have been working on getting the process right, being comfortable with themselves and trying to produce. Now, as some hard deadlines loom, short-comings are revealing themselves.

I think that the pressure and immediacy of certain milestones is pushing our Agile environment to the next level (whatever that is). I think that communication is the problem and that getting through this next little while will improve communication. It will also be a lesson in what and when to communicate, so that the right information is exchanged sooner.

This additional pressure also highlights communication issues between teams - people are feeling the heat and may cast aspersions too easily. Again everything I have observed has been cleared up with a few quick conversations.

So the bottom line: pressure seems to be rising, but the teams are rising with it. The result will be improved teams.