“We’ve been ‘agile’ for 3 months. I still have no idea what’s going on.” That’s the cleaned up version from a conversation I had with an executive from a client I worked with.
Companies transitioning to Agile are usually not prepared for the visibility that Agile creates. In a more traditional organization it’s easy to bubble-up status reports that paint a better picture of a project as they work their way up the organizational hierarchy. Information from the trenches doesn’t always make it to the people who want it and for good reason sometimes.
Managers can be hesitant to have their bosses see what’s really happening in the trenches out of personal safety. That’s a fancy way of saying “holy cow, if Bill sees this, I’m fired.”. Organizations aren’t always prepared for the, sometimes brutal, visibility Agile creates and more often than not the visibility created is limited to the team through their Scrum or Kanban boards. In larger organizations it can be challenging to see what’s happening across multiple teams, projects or products.
So how can your organization benefit from complete visibility while helping people in your organization feel safe?
I’ll be speaking at LSSC’11 in Long Beach California on Thursday May 5 at 3:15pm (pending any schedule changes) about how to make your Agile Transition and Organizational Progress visible with big visible charts. In this session you’ll experience:
– how Agile Coaches make what they’re doing visible
– how to make visible multi-team projects and products
– what ‘agile safari’ is
– real examples of using visible techniques in large and small organizations
– how big visible charts gets people collaborating
– how the teams and management are ‘kept honest’ about what they are doing
– what I learned by applying this technique in 2 different environments
Being visible is more than just arts and crafts and, to quote a client “a lotta sh*t on the walls“. It’s about creating an environment that helps organizations succeed by seeing data that matters in real time.
Who this talk is for:
This talk is for managers, agile coaches and team members who are working in a company that is transitioning to agile. Whether your just starting or in the middle of your transition, you’ll see techniques I’ve tried, which ones works, which ones didn’t and real-world examples of how to use them.