We recently provided guidance to a consumer products and manufacturing company about implementing a scaled version of agile practice.
Here’s some of the guidance provided:
- Start small. Identify teams that have an affinity for agile ways of working, based either on the product they’re working on or their composition, then pilot team-level agile practice there. This will allow the transformation leaders to gauge how agile ways will be received in the organization, as well as generating a starting point for scaling.
- Treat different things differently. The manufacturing division will require a different approach, different framework, different tools from the software development teams. Other areas of the business will also need to go their own ways to some extent. One size does not fit all.
- Top-down and bottom-up. While piloting agile practice at the team level, it’s at least as important to examine leadership and hierarchy. Often, existing management structures no longer align with the products the company offers in the marketplace. They reflect earlier models and have not kept pace as the market and enterprise have evolved. If such misalignment persists, it will greatly impede agile teams as they battle dependencies that no longer need to exist.
- Don’t jump into a scaled agile framework. There are many risks and pitfalls in adopting frameworks such as SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) or DAD (Disciplined Agile Delivery) without solid preparation. While enterprises can greatly benefit from elements of these toolsets, it’s rare that the out-of-the-box version is suitable. Leveraging knowledge gained from pilot projects and analysis of corporate structure can help avoid going down a costly and time-consuming wrong path.
Is your organization considering adopting agile practice, or scaling up an existing implementation? Drop us an email for a free consultation: info@a6ile.com