The Agile Consultant

clear, and contractually documented, the consultant can begin evaluation of the current state. We'll present consultants with Agile Maturity tools that will aid in the analysis and diagnoses of the client enterprise's state of agile readiness

Chapter 6. Develop a Plan Based on the state of agile readiness found, the consultant will develop a plan for preparing and guiding the journey to agility. For many clients, this begins with training and coaching for executive-level influencers, while in others it requires the consultant to be fully engaged in the daily development process. The Agile Transition Plan should be a written deliverable that documents the findings of the Agile Readiness evaluation, the plan to transition the organization, the role and responsibility of the consultant, and the accountable actions expected from the client. We'll review several examples of completed Transition Plans and discuss why they were the right fit for the specific client's needs and expectations

Part Three: The Agile Consultant's Skills Chapter 7. Understand the Business Context Agile is a strategic concept, not just a tactical method for improving software development. It requires organizations to think about the portfolio of projects that are expected to deliver the strategic advantage the organization seeks. Agile consultants must bring an understanding of the business context in which their clients make decisions about projects, portfolios, and agile development. We'll review methods and resources that consultants can use to sharpen their general business skills and understanding of the specific clients marketplace

Chapter 8. Typical and Not-So-Typical Corporate Diagnoses Change resistance and a hierarchical command structure are typical elements of many enterprises migrating to agile. Less typical cultural and organizational elements, such as the particular client company's history, personalities, and development methods are also key influences in the success of a transition. The agile consultant must be prepared to understand these circumstances and address them within the particular client culture. We'll offer tips on observing, documenting, and planning, to address these issues

Chapter 9. Using Facilitation Skills Unlike 'top-down' project management techniques, agile consultants and their teams must facilitate meetings. From the daily standup meeting to the project and release planning sessions, agile consultants must demonstrate and train their teams to manage meetings, conversations, and working sessions to ensure participation and get to a shared result. We'll review the basic set of facilitation skills and offer readers a short course in these essential skills and their relationship to agile development

Chapter 10. Understanding and Executing Change Management Change management, the art of influencing, persuading, and coaching organizations to change some of their defining characteristics, is a discipline in itself. Building the momentum required, overcoming inertia, and motivating folks to change ingrained methods of doing their job, requires a unique set of skills. We'll look at the latest ideas in change management, including ideas that have been generated from the agile community. We'll guide consultants to approaching the change-management discipline with some tools and best practices from successful agile transitions

Chapter 11. Developing Effective Teams Among the foundation principals of agile, the concept of self-directed teams is often the most controversial. For organizations to migrate from a hierarchical, 'top-down' management approach to a peer-managed, collaborative process is challenging. Organizations migrating to agile move to a management structure that trusts teams to make their own schedules, devise their own best ways of working, and remain motivated. For agile consultants the challenge is two-fold; to coach the executive team as they transition from a 'command-and-control' mindset to self-led teams, and to mentor and demonstrate to the team what 'self-direction' means. We'll talk about some findings from 'state of agile' studies, and we'll discuss strategies for creating productive self-led teams.   Chapter 12. Agile Domain Expertise It should be obvious that agile consultants, apart from the general consulting skills outlined above, require agile-specific experience, knowledge, and insight. Agile consultants are expected to be competent scrum masters, must have a deep understanding of agile concepts and language, and must be able to coach teams through the daily process of managing an agile development shop. We'll present a basic bibliography to help consultants get broad and deep in agile concepts, and we'll discuss other avenues of learning and experience

Part Four: Coaching the Development Team Chapter 13. Self-Organization: Teams Leading Themselves Self-organizing teams, those that make their own decisions about how to organize, how to apportion work, and how to technically deliver that work, are central to the agile philosophy. Self-leadership illustrates agile's collaborative decision process, and it enables technical resources to decide for themselves how to achieve their objectives. For firms that are accustomed to highly structured product development life-cycles, and to hierarchical command structures, the idea of self-organization can be hard to swallow. Managers are challenged with 'letting go' and allowing the team to find its own culture. Many teams, used to being told 'what, when, and how much,' struggle with accepting the accountability and analysis required to being a self-led unit. These chapters outline the changes required of the development team, the actual 'doers,' for whom agile is not a concept but a recipe for working every day. Highlighting our experience with many teams making this transition, we'll present some facilitation techniques, some training exercises, and some daily tips to help teams take responsibility for their destiny and become high-performance collaborative units

Chapter 14. Role Confusion An obstacle for many newly agile teams is mapping existing roles to the new roles called for by agile. Is a scrum master the same as a project manager? If not, how is it different? Do we still use business analysts to work with users to define requirements, or is that a role of the team now? Is there still a dedicated quality control function, and what should I make of the 'test-driven design' that many agile teams promote? Who is the product owner? The strong agile consultant can help client organizations transition their teams into the new roles required of them. We'll clarify the evolution of these roles and techniques for helping teams migrate into them

Chapter 15: New Development and Project Methods Just as consultants need to understand the new language and practices of agile, teams need to learn and adapt to agile methods in order to deliver to their potential. We'll help agile consultants get their migrating teams on track to deep agile process and methodology expertise so they can participate and lead agile programs successfully.   Part Five: Coaching the Enterprise Note: Many agile consultants engage at the developer and team level and ignore the strategic, executive level. Without changes in portfolio management, funding, scheduling, and product acceptance methods, agile applied at the developer level has limited benefit. This section advises the consultant on how to sell the idea, to senior executives, that the agile mindset needs to permeate all areas of the company and not just product and software development. They need to embrace the training, persuasion, and funding requirements that enable agile methods and help executives become agile leaders rather than agile resisters

Chapter 16: Resistance and Momentum Resistance and momentum are the determining factors in any enterprise change. Through united resistance, stakeholders can kill a transition project. With well-built momentum, executives, leaders, and advocates can enable stakeholders to embrace change because they believe in the benefits to come. Agile consultants help their clients understand and employ these forces

Chapter 17: Who Owns the Product?

There is a distinct role for a product owner in agile methodologies. The product owner represents the business's interest in the developing product. Agile consultants who can help clients select and coach strong product owners can add value and ensure their transition projects are focused towards the emerging needs of the business. We'll see the attributes of good product owners and the accountability agile calls for

Chapter 18: What does 'Deep Collaboration' Mean? IT development has often been a series of 'thrown over the wall' communications. Clients create their specifications, with no input from development, who is viewed as a vendor rather than a partner. Specifications and work products are thrown across the gap. Agile is built on the principle of individuals and interactions, and customer collaboration throughout the development process. Convincing busy, accomplished individuals to change long-standing practices is challenging. We'll discuss techniques that agile consultants can use to help teams achieve high levels of participation

Chapter 19. Committing to an Unknown The defining challenge of agile adoption is acceptance of two core ideas of agile: that useful results can emerge from the repeated interaction of the business and the developers, and that companies can learn to live with unknown, undefined outcomes that 'emerge' or 'evolve' rather than being planned. By beginning the engagement from this foundation level, consultants build the shared vision that drives future action.     Part Six: Coaching Executives   Chapter 20: Agile Strategy Agile adoption usually begins 'bottom up,' when a team of developers decides they want to finally try this new idea. When successful, it can spread through networks of agreeable teams and business partners. Successful team-based adoption can catch leadership by surprise. Agile consultants must advise clients to be aware that agile adoption will reach the strategic level; the question will be, are they ready?

Chapter 21: The Executive Commitment Executive commitment to agile adoption is a key success factor. As we discussed, the movement to agile involves deep structural changes and an unprecedented level of trust. We'll illustrate some proven techniques for helping leadership take personal ownership of the agile migration, and how they can act effectively as influencers, advocates, and coaches

Chapter 22. Aligning Strategy, Development, and Sales As agile permeates the enterprise, the consensus of sales and marketing teams becomes critical; they need to relearn product release timing, and often participate in the product development effort more deeply than previously. We'll explore the role of the agile consultant in gaining consensus and guiding marketing teams through their new responsibilities in the development cycle

Part Seven: Becoming Agile   Chapter 23. Adapting Agile Jim Highsmith, one of the pioneers of agile, prefers to call it 'adaptive development.' I'm an advocate of this language, as it tells one of the most important stories about agile: it's different for every player. Every enterprise will be somewhere on the spectrum of agility and stability, using the best ideas from both traditional and agile approaches. Helping find the right balance for clients is one of the most important role for agile consultants. They have the breadth of exposure and experience to help clients build their own, hybrid method of development that fits their culture

Chapter 24. Measuring Agility Agile development has generated some original thinking in regard to measuring the results of development efforts. By measuring value, as seen by the client, rather than measuring tasks against a plan or 'lines of code,' we gain the ability to present metrics to clients that illustrate real productivity in solving business challenges. We'll review some of the new tools and techniques that agile teams use to generate new metrics

Chapter 25. Improving Agility Every organization's path to agile maturity is unique and individual. Some organizations prefer to build an in-house training function, constantly refreshing the knowledge of its teams, while others prefer to incrementally add inexperienced members to agile teams to give them a 'rookie season.' Many do both or try other techniques. We'll review improvement paths that organizations take to keep enhancing their agility.  

Conclusion: Towards the Agile Enterprise The conclusion ties all of these ideas together, leaving the reader with a unified approach to guiding agile transitions and helping teams achieve the productivity benefits of agile strategies.