{"id":4761,"date":"2010-11-22T07:07:16","date_gmt":"2010-11-22T14:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=4761"},"modified":"2010-11-27T21:04:28","modified_gmt":"2010-11-28T04:04:28","slug":"why-should-we-be-agile-or-lean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=4761","title":{"rendered":"Why should we be Agile or Lean?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m on a plane destined for a city a couple of thousand miles <\/strong>away from home.\u00a0 The time away from phones and email allow me some reflection on what I\u2019m doing and why.\u00a0 And one of the things I\u2019m doing is advocating adoption of Agile development methods and Lean management principles.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
How long will your constructions last?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is a lot of pushback on these principles from consultants<\/strong> and managers who have not lived with them in real projects.\u00a0 And a certain amount of skepticism from business managers who don\u2019t want to embrace a new \u201cmethod of the decade\u201d fad just because it is becoming more widespread.\u00a0 I don\u2019t blame them.\u00a0 There are some good reasons for skepticism.<\/p>\n

First of all, any movement that has passionate followers <\/strong>and promoters tends to acquire a fringe element that pushes everyone to follow the trend, to get on board.\u00a0 And we all know that not 100% of projects, environments or companies a suitable candidates for an Agile conversion.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Sometimes they have extensive requirements-definition phases imposed on them from a contractor (such as the Federal government or the military).\u00a0 Sometimes they simply do not have the support of top management to revamp their operations in a way that requires changes in management style or procedures.<\/p>\n

Second, some companies have far-flung operations <\/strong>including offshore units, making effective implementation of Agile methods much more difficult.\u00a0 Rather than going through the motions of Agile or Scrum teams with vast time zone differences and incompatible local management style, they are better off using traditional project management tools and methods.<\/p>\n

Finally, it is threatening for some project managers,<\/strong> technical managers, or business managers to have to change their management activities and open them up for inspection by self-directed development teams.\u00a0 For example, one IT Director I worked with at a client company was known by his colleagues as \u201cThe Hammer\u201d because of his management style.\u00a0 He was not a candidate for participatory decision-making in a team.<\/p>\n

And yet, Agile and Lean transformations are worthwhile<\/strong> endeavors.\u00a0 How do I know?\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen development teams move from ordinary results into higher productivity; business managers move from fear of the new into embracing Agile because of the greater confidence they had in getting results on a predictable schedule; and companies move from asking what the heck is Agile to committing tens of millions in development money to Agile projects.<\/p>\n

I also recommend Agile transformations <\/strong>because of my own frustration with the failure of software development on the whole to improve significantly over the past 30 years.\u00a0 Sometimes, you have to make your own predictions about what is going to work, what is going to make things change for the better.<\/p>\n

I predict that ten years from now<\/strong>, we won\u2019t be discussing whether to go Agile or Lean, because everyone will be practicing them to some extent, and no one will have any doubts about the payoff.<\/p>\n

———————————————————————-<\/strong><\/p>\n

John Levy helps business managers who are frustrated by the lack of results<\/strong> they are getting from IT or Engineering.\u00a0 He specializes in rapidly getting high-tech teams to align with business strategy and to contribute to business success of the enterprise.<\/p>\n

John has been consulting for managers in industry for over 20 years.\u00a0 John\u2019s book on management for technology executives, <\/strong>Get Out of the Way<\/em>, was published in May 2010<\/strong>. http:\/\/bit.ly\/9pX1wS<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

For more information, please visit his website at http:\/\/johnlevyconsulting.com<\/a> ,<\/p>\n

Email him at info@johnlevyconsulting.com<\/a> , or call 415 663-1818.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a lot of skepticism about Agile and Lean among business managers for a lot of good reasons. It’s best that we understand these reasons, because they shouldn’t keep us from proceeding with Agile and Lean transformations of our companies and projects. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[202,146,203,84,38],"class_list":["post-4761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-miscellaneous","tag-agile","tag-engineering-management","tag-lean","tag-management","tag-project-management"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}