Knowledge of an Agile Leader to enhance efficiency

An Agile leader plays a major role in the performance and output efficiency. Migrating to Agile does not only mean change of process. It means a big change in culture and mind-set, and that is mostly the tough part. People become comfortable with their existing processes. Also, it is very difficult for them to transition to a process that accepts and embraces change. Following an Agile process also means that some people will become redundant, because efficiency increases which leads to increase in productivity with less resources. Again, all the managers are trained in agile to control ownership and dictate terms. Agile believes in delegating responsibilities, which can again cause resentment among managers. For all these reasons, an Agile leaders needs to be proactive, and should follow the following parameters:

1. Foster an Agile culture: Agile practices such as high customer interaction, collaborative design and value driven delivery should be encouraged very early during the transition phase itself, so that it becomes a habit by the time 3 to 4 months pass. Then it gets internalized and becomes part of the team culture.
2. Hire a good Agile Coach: A good Agile coach guides, motivates and helps a team stay away from pitfalls. The past experience and track record of the Coach should be carefully evaluated and once chosen, he/she should be given 3 – 4 months to make an impact, because implementing Agile Processes take time.
3. Avoid a cookie cutter approach: Business scenarios are very dynamic now-a-days, with customers becoming more and more demanding and smart. Some experts are of the opinion that one flavour of Agile is a panacea for all the hurdles. But this is not a good approach, as it greatly restricts the processes’ impact, and also makes Agile less flexible. It also goes against the Agile principle of providing maximum value to the customer as the highest priority. The Agile Coach should evaluate all the factors within and outside the organization/team, and then recommend any one flavour of Agile, or a mix of different flavours. Customization is embraced in Agile and it should not matter which flavour is followed.
4. Equation with other managers: Here, the Coach or the Scrum Master should have the respect of all the stakeholders through his/her performance and people management skills, as the line managers do not directly report to the Coach. So, here it’s more about collaboration and trusting and respecting one another.

If the above mentioned parameters are followed, the Agile leader can successfully help his/her teams transition in Agile.

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Integrating Scrum and Kanban

Scrum and Kanban are the offspring of the agile methodology. The two methods may have different approaches, but are both rooted in the agile philosophy of software development. Scrum is useful in projects in which there will be periodic releases and Kanban comes handy in projects in which there will be frequent releases. Scrum is most often used for projects related to product development. Kanban is a useful visual project management tool and is helpful for production support. Now, when both these processes are combined, we get an upgraded process known as Scrumban, which encompasses the best practices of Scrum and Kanban. Scrumban is an enhanced and improved Scrum process.

Before we discuss how Scrum and Kanban are integrated in the Scrumban process, will have a quick look at some of the salient features of scrum and Kanban.
Implementing Scrum means:

• Breaking the entire organization into cross-functional several teams
• Breaking down the entire project into small chunks of well-defined deliverables
• Listing the chunks in terms of priority and estimating the amount of work required to complete each one of them
• Splitting time into short periods (iterations) where market-ready code is presented
• Working on the release plan based on the review and feedback after the iteration
• Enhancing the process with the help of retrospection after the iteration

Speaking of the workflow in scrum, the team plans and decides on the work that it will be completed in the upcoming sprint. Once decided, the sprint activities are finalized and are finished within the sprint duration, clearing the queue.

Now we will look at the features of Kanban:

• Breaking down work into items, writing each item on a card and then sticking it on a wall
• Using designated columns to show the placement of each item in the workflow
• Limiting the work in progress by allocating clear limits on the number of items that may be in progress at each workflow level
• Measuring the time needed to complete an item and trying to the lead time as predictable as possible

When it comes to the Kanban workflow, the limit on work in progress enables the team to change items in queues whenever it is needed. There’s no clearing the queue, and there is a continuous flow of work.

How are Scrum and Kanban integrated as Scrumban?

As a process, Scrumban employs the scrum principles. But along with it, it integrates Kanban tools for process improvement. Despite being used in different kinds of projects, the mechanics of Scrum and Kanban are compatible with each other. The addition of WIP limit and visual workflow to Scrum ensures that the process undergoes continuous improvement. The whole idea of planning in Scrumban is to fill vacant slots—if there is no item in a slot, then the vacancy will be filled with iteration planning. This results in decreasing the overhead of iteration planning. In a nutshell, Scrumban is Scrum in practice and Kanban in culture.

Integrating the two agile processes leads to several advantages in terms of quality, just-in-time delivery, short lead time, continuous improvement (also known as Kaizen in Kanban terminology), reducing waste and overall process improvement.

Though Scrumban is a relatively new approach in agile, it is gaining quite a lot of popularity and attention from industries that have to cater to both development and maintenance work.
Here are some areas where Scrumban can be implanted in order to achieve success:

• Projects related to maintenance
• Projects that require event -driven work
• Projects that are prone to programming errors
• Teams created to mainly work on developing new products

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