I have compiled some guidelines for executives wishing to fully leverage their development teams whether they are reacting to a bottom-up request for agility or attempting to push agile top-down. Some guidelines are common sense, yet it is surprising how many times they are missed. Other guidelines are a radical departure from what you may be accustomed to – these will take you serious thought, assistance and experimentation to get comfortable with.
An Agile Executive…
On leadership
- Instills a common vision and purpose in all of members of their teams
- Creates a community of trust by empowering their teams and holding them accountable to deliver
- Creates an organizational culture for self-organizing and self-managing teams
- Leads their company by example through implementing agile methods on the organization
On development
- Recognizes that software development is an unpredictable and extraordinarily complex process
- Knows that you cannot predict the cost, schedule AND functionality of a software product
- Believes that software is best implemented by empirical rather than a planned process
- Develops a culture where developers have latitude in working with customers
On organization
- Staffs teams with sufficient dedicated experienced resources to accomplish their objectives
- Removes organizational impediments from their teams to keep them productive
- Places the developer at the focal point of the process giving them control and ownership
- Identifies champions and leverages their peer influence over other team members
- Understands that software development is a human process that is different in every organization and makes it difficult to plan organizational structure
On change
- Recognizes that transforming to an agile company is hard and requires patience and guidance
- Implements organizational and process changes piecemeal, taking small steps of success
- Focuses on ongoing repair rather than on forecasting and anticipation
- Knows that change upsets an organization and that positive change comes from consensus
- Eradicates bad attitudes and other negative behaviors before they multiply
On success
- Believes that the true measure of progress is working software and customer satisfaction
- Compensates their teams (and outstanding individuals) for successful projects