Agile: More than a Methodology. It’s a Mindset

Traci Adedeji, CPCU, CSPO, ARM, API, AIDA is the current President-Elect of the CPCU Society – Rhode Island Chapter (RICPCU).  She has worked in the insurance industry for 30 years, primarily in underwriting and project leadership roles.  She currently works at AIPSO as Program Lead in the Insurance Operations department, where her responsibilities include working as Product Owner on software development projects.  In addition to her work on the board of RICPCU, Traci serves on the Society’s Annual Meeting committee.

Agile:  More than a Methodology.  It’s a Mindset
by Traci Adedeji, CPCU, CSPO, ARM, API, AIDA

Technology continues to move at a faster pace day by day.  We know that to comply with change, being agile as an individual is important.  In technology, a similar theory could be applied.  Understand the meaning of Agile, develop your mindset by knowing the challenges and then move the project to successful completion with the tools around you.

What is “Agile”

Agile is a project management methodology that takes an iterative approach to software development. An insurance company’s policy administration system is the engine that helps keep the organization moving forward.  For years companies used a Waterfall methodology for software development that involved a linear approach.  In a Waterfall project, Business Analysts document an exhaustive list of requirements.  Systems Analysts then translate those requirements into technical requirements that are handed off to Developers.  The newly designed system is then tested and deployed.  The biggest benefit of a Waterfall approach can also be its biggest detriment.  It is a siloed approach that can become a bit like the game of Telephone that many of us played as children.  The limited collaboration across functional areas can cause the message to be altered in translation with each hand off, with the final product being different from what was intended originally. It is also possible that the business needs have changed between the time the requirements were drafted and the time the product is deployed.  Agile methodology addresses this challenge with a collaborative, iterative approach to software development.  

The Agile Manifesto is the brainchild of a group of 17 software developers in February of 2001.[i]  It promulgates 12 principles:

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery
   of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Businesspeople and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need and trust them to get the job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

Scrum is one popular framework used to implement the Agile methodology.  A Scrum Team is comprised of representatives of both the business and technical sides of the organization who work together toward a commonly understood goal.  Instead of Developers who code in a vacuum, a Scrum Team is collaborative, cross-functional and self-directed. The team’s work is guided by the business value that is to be delivered, and that is the measure of success.   The project lifecycle moves forward in increments of at least one but not less than four weeks, called Sprints.  The framework involves ceremonies that are designed to assist with the Agile transformation and allow the team to operate under a model of continuous improvement. The ceremonies involved in a sprint are:

• Sprint Planning during which the team determines a sprint goal – what business value do they want to deliver by the end of the sprint?
• The Daily Scrum is a brief meeting during which each member of the Development Team shares what they intend to work on that day and identifies any impediments to accomplishing that work
• The Sprint Review takes place at the end of the sprint and is an opportunity for the team to showcase the work done in the sprint.  This ceremony includes the stakeholders and provides an opportunity for them to provide feedback regarding the increment of work.
• The Sprint Retrospective also takes place at the end of the sprint.  During this ceremony, the Scrum Team evaluates their performance during the sprint.  They discuss what worked well, what did not work well, and they collaboratively find solutions for what did not work well.  This exercise allows the team to recalibrate at regular intervals so that the team matures and increases the speed and efficiency with which they work.

An Agile project works from a backlog that represents the work that needs to be done in order to deliver functionality to the users.  The work is represented in the form of user stories, that each identifies a small, independent piece of functionality. 

Rather than organizing all the items in the backlog at one time, a team member identified as the Product Owner prioritizes the backlog after collaborating with the team.  This ongoing exercise identifies the functionality that delivers the highest level of business value to the organization at that time.  Ideally, that functionality is deployed as soon as it is completed, allowing the organization to realize the benefit of the new functionality right away instead of waiting until all functionality has been completely developed.  It also allows users to provide meaningful feedback regarding the increment, in order that it might be improved upon, and that knowledge be used to inform the development of future functionality.

An Agile Mindset

Organizations that have adopted the Agile methodology embrace the three pillars of Agile; transparency, inspection and adaptation.[ii]  Transparency is critical to the success of any project.  It means building a level of trust within the team so that people feel supported and empowered.  It is important to have a healthy level of risk tolerance that allows people to fail forward. Inspection takes place at every step along the way via the sprint ceremonies, so that any issues that jeopardize the health of the project are identified right away.  This supports the final pillar – adaptation.  The incremental approach of an Agile project manages risk by allowing the team to pivot as needed, before having gone too far to turn back

Challenges to an Agile Transformation

In some cases, the very thing that makes people good at their jobs is the thing that presents the greatest challenge in an Agile transformation.  Analysts are by definition, analytical; being detail-oriented and thorough.  Many Developers will traditionally code strictly to the requirements they are given.  These qualities are laudable in a Waterfall project, but stifle the necessary cross-functionality, collaboration and creativity that are important to the success of an Agile project. Agile requires that the business provide guidance on “what” they need and trust the development team to figure out “how” to give it to them.  This allows for design thinking on the part of the Development Team and leads to a better result. This freedom can sometimes lead to delivery of that one piece of functionality that the business had not asked for but now wonders how they ever lived without.

An organization that wishes to undergo an Agile transformation will face the same change adoption challenges as those faced with other types of transformations.  One challenge is the level of enterprise-wide commitment to the transformation.  Top-down commitment from organizational leadership is necessary in order that the proper resources are available. The leadership sets the tone and supports the team by assisting with another challenge – individual commitment to the transformation.  In an Agile project, there is no hierarchy.  No one person is more important than the project.  In order to get the best product, input from all team members is not just welcome, but necessary.  This collaborative approach is difficult for people who are accustomed to being “in charge” under other project management methodologies. That difficulty is born of fear – fear of giving up control, and fear of losing the regard derived from being ‘in charge”.  Therefore, it is important that the team grow a culture of trust and open communication.  That culture must be supported by the organization to have its best chance of success.

One simple way to begin building trust within the team is to develop a team working agreement.  This is a living document that captures how the team wishes to function.  It can capture logistical details like the length of the sprints and the composition of the team.  It can also capture sentiment about how the team commits to communicating with each other.  This document should be reviewed at each retrospective and modified as needed.

Conclusion

An organization may not have the luxury of executing a robust, independent change adoption strategy for their Agile transformation.  It is likely that any training must take place while the project work is underway.  So just as the project work has moved away from extensive planning before action, so must the implementation of change adoption efforts.  The solution some organizations have found is to hire an Agile Coach.  This person or firm’s sole purpose is to be a resource to the organization as they navigate their transformation.  Another solution is to leverage free resources from organizations like Scrum Alliance and Agile Alliance.  

An Agile mindset is one that takes time to gel within an organization.  But the organization that embraces it cultivates people who are creative, empowered, resilient and committed to the success of the organization.  Understanding the challenges and reconsidering an organizational position through Agile will allow for optimal success for not only the organization but the associates as well.