Understanding agility

Being agile describes the ability to act flexibly and adaptably. At company level, this means that organizations gain the ability to react quickly to unforeseeable events and new requirements. In agile teams, rigid approaches are abandoned in favor of iterative work, whereby processes and workflows are constantly improved and adapted. The basic agile concept was formulated in 2001 by a group of 17 renowned software developers and set out in the Agile Manifesto. It describes the rules of conduct and values of agile teams under the four guidelines:

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

2. Functioning software via comprehensive documentation

3. Collaboration with the customer via contract negotiation

4. Responding to change more than following a plan

You can view the complete Agile Manifesto here. Don’t forget the addition under the manifesto: “This means that although we consider the values on the right-hand side to be important,
we value the values on the left more highly.”

Implementing agility in your organization

Of course, an agile transformation does not happen overnight. Making an entire organization changeable can take several years, depending on its size, and yet it is never complete. After all, agility is characterized by continuously developing processes over time and avoiding standstills. It is therefore important to start with small steps and continuously scale agile practices within the company. A culture of experimentation should be created in which it is not a shame to make mistakes, but rather to see them as an opportunity to learn.

Agile practices and framework conditions

There are different agile practices and frameworks, the most common being Scrum and Kanban. Each defines its own rules and guidelines, which is why it makes sense as an organization to find the best individual solution and choose the right approach for you. Both are characterized by short work cycles, also known as sprints, in which constant attention is paid to planning and implementing tasks at regular intervals and evaluating them at the end. This means that months or years are not invested in a project only to find out at launch that the requirements have changed over the course of the project and the product no longer meets the customer’s needs. Agile projects are characterized by close collaboration with other teams and feedback loops. In this way, the product is constantly iteratively tested and continuously developed.

Management of agile teams  

Building and managing agile teams can be challenging at first, but it is essential for the success of an agile transformation. The core element of agile teams is their self-organized way of working, i.e. away from the top-down approach in which the management level dictates who has to do which tasks and towards the free organization of work within a firmly defined framework.

Although the framework is “predetermined”, the teams themselves decide how to organize themselves within it. After all, the responsible experts in the team know best which tasks they need to complete in order to achieve their goal and what characterizes good work in their area. Self-organizing teams not only have the advantage of eliminating bottlenecks caused by endless coordination processes, they also take responsibility for their work results (e.g. a product or service) and act on the basis of their own expertise.

Ideally, over time, all teams within the company will develop according to agile approaches, so that nothing stands in the way of cross-functional work between teams. This means that colleagues with different specialist skills can quickly come together to work on a product. Especially for new projects in as yet unknown areas, it can make sense to restructure individual teams so that the members are put together in such a way that all skills are bundled in order to achieve the desired goal.

The path to agility: challenging but commendable

An agile transformation is a comprehensive, complex and sometimes bumpy process. Teaching teams or even entire companies to work agilely is like fixing an airplane in flight – it requires precision, experience and sometimes courage. But one thing is certain: the path to agility is time-consuming, but the results are worth it. We are happy to support you in introducing agile techniques in your company, regardless of whether you have 10, 100 or 1000 employees. As an experienced consultancy, we support companies in mastering the transition to agility.

If you are curious and want to learn more about agility right away, we have a very special treat for you! At our Nerd Academy, we offer you the “Fundamentals of Agility” course (in German) completely free of charge. Simply create an account and start your learning journey on agility right away.

The post Mastering Agility first appeared on Nerd Republic.

This helps to gain a fairly complete overview and is also easy to remember (5 C’s). Each of these five topics with the underlying factors is basically a relevant adjusting screw to promote the performance of your team or group. And here comes the clue or the particular difficulty: depending on whether you are dealing with a group or a team, individual factors are relevant in different ways.

So what’s behind the 4Cs?

Hang on, that’s only four!

You saw that correctly. The last C should be considered separately, as it describes a competence to influence the other 4Cs in a positive way. Or as it is called in Management 3.0:

“Simply put, Collaborative Leadership is creating and maintaining a system that includes all people involved in a project, organization, or team”

From the Management 3.0 course

Team performance factors: Context

First, let’s take a closer look at the context, which basically describes the overarching framework conditions, i.e. the organizational environment in which a team works. Of course, there are many organizational factors, but we will only describe a small selection of them here. Perhaps you can think of other factors under context that are particularly relevant for your company or your specific team.

Culture

Corporate culture refers to the shared values, beliefs, behaviors, practices and symbols that make up a company. It is the way in which the people in the company work together and how the company presents itself.

Vision & Mission

The clear definition of vision and mission creates an important common basis for action and decision-making within the team. If all team members share and understand the vision and mission of the company, they can better align their individual tasks and goals.

Roles

The concept of “roles” refers to the specific tasks, responsibilities and authorities that individual employees have within an organization. Each role has specific requirements associated with it and requires certain skills, abilities and behaviors to be performed successfully.

Team performance factors: Composition

Composition relates to the specific composition of the team or group. You need to have the “right people on board” to drive things forward and achieve top performance. Like context, composition is the foundation for building a truly successful and consistently high-performing team.

In order to manage the composition of the team effectively, you (or the person in a leadership role) and the team should take a closer look at the following factors, among others, and reflect on them critically:

Team size

Unfortunately, a magic formula for the perfect team size has not yet been found. Study results here are also rather controversial. Some studies have shown, for example, that smaller groups tend to perform better as they find it easier to communicate effectively and make decisions.

However, there are also other studies that show that larger groups are better able to generate a greater diversity of ideas and perspectives and solve more complex problems. This is where the keyword “cognitive diversity” comes into play.

Skills & abilities

Generally speaking and without taking other factors into account, the more skills and abilities the individual members have, the more successful a team is likely to be. A team of highly talented and trained software developers is more likely to become a real high performance team than a team whose members are more moderately blessed.

Motivation

There are numerous research findings that prove that motivation has a significant influence on the performance of a team. Motivated employees tend to perform better, show more commitment and stay with the company longer.

Team performance factors: Competencies

Successful teams have certain competencies, some of which exist independently of the individual team members and are embedded in the team’s formal and informal processes – in other words, the team’s own, very specific way of working. Let’s take a closer look at some of the underlying factors:

Trust & Psychological Safety

Although these two factors are not conceptually one and the same and we will treat them separately throughout the course, they have very similar effects on team performance and are often treated as one and the same construct in practice. Both Trust and Psychological Safety are an important factor in team collaboration and coordination and, when high, lead to higher satisfaction, motivation and effectiveness, among other things.

Communication, decision-making & conflict management

Some studies have shown that effective communication that offers clear and open opportunities for exchange and solves problems quickly contributes to higher satisfaction and motivation and therefore also to higher performance. Other studies have shown that unclear or faulty communication can lead to conflict and confusion and therefore affect team performance.

Team performance factors: Change

Change describes the team’s ability to adapt and/or change.

High-performance teams must constantly change with the context and its conditions in order to be successful in the long term. A winning formula that works today may not work tomorrow. After all, even last year’s NBA champion is not automatically guaranteed to win the title this year!

Factors related to context, composition, and competencies may need to change to enable the team to achieve new goals successfully over and over again. A team that is capable of continuously reviewing its performance and understanding its strengths and weaknesses can gain insights essential for developing an action plan for continuous improvement.

This “change management” is, in this sense, a kind of meta-competence that draws from the factors of the other areas—context, composition, and competencies—but significantly goes beyond them. You can imagine this in relation to yourself: anyone who has ever seriously tried to make a significant change knows that it is a tremendous effort requiring access to a wide range of internal and external resources.

Factors of Team Performance: Collaborative Leadership

Yay, the final section of this chapter! Let’s keep it short and sweet—final sprint. The concept of Collaborative Leadership is based on the belief that together we can be smarter, more creative, and more competent than any one of us alone, especially when tackling the novel, complex, and multifaceted problems businesses face today.

Collaborative Leadership teams are often seen as far more creative, adaptable, and capable compared to those operating under other leadership styles.

Let’s recall the four C’s we discussed earlier. A leader who succeeds in managing the system rather than the employees prepares their team to tackle the complex, modern challenges of today.

And now?

We’ve taken a closer look at the various factors that influence team performance and how they can be broadly categorized.

The content of this blog is an excerpt from our self-paced course on High-Performance Teams. If you want to learn more about the 4 or 5 C’s, you can find the course here (in German).

But we’ve got a special treat for you: our brand-new Team Dojo! The Team Dojo is a tailored concept designed to improve your team. This concept is based on the 4C model described here. Step by step, we guide you and your team toward continuous improvement.

The post Factors in team performance: the four C’s first appeared on Nerd Republic.

Setting

The game is played in two rounds. The team has a set time limit and must implement a customer request within this time. In the first round, only the project manager has information about the customer request and must guide the specialists in the team. In the second round, the role of the project manager is dissolved and the team is cross-functional. The team realizes that it is much faster in the second round or even finally implements the request in contrast to the first round.

Round 1

Name a project manager in round 1. At the start of the game, they will receive a picture with a product requirement from you. Geometric shapes are placed differently on the picture.

The remaining people in the team are assigned fixed roles. For example, there may be a role of “red circles”, “blue triangles”, “green rectangles”, etc. This depends somewhat on which shapes you use and how you organize yourself. Again, the roles are fixed. Think of them like job descriptions. Everyone has fixed tasks and is only allowed to do them. If you have more roles than people in the passage, one person can also take on two. Then the person can move both shapes.

The team does not know the overall view of the product. The task of the project manager is now to use communication to guide the team to use the forms of the role to recreate the specification exactly.

About halfway through, you enter a change request. There are slight color changes and shifts in the product. Project management must now communicate these and have them adjusted. Again, make sure that attention is paid to detail. In this round, you will notice a lot of communication, which is then centralized to project management. There may be moments when you are overwhelmed.

Individuals will want to help others, but this is difficult to do as they have no view of the product. Through “boredom”, they try to create tasks for themselves, such as “making everything a little nicer on the back”. It is very likely that the team will not finish. That’s ok so far. Follow up with a very short debriefing and teaser short questions such as: “How did you feel?”, “What was a challenge?” “How did the change request go?”, ‘What happens with multiple change requests?’. The aim here is to mentally anchor a few pillars to make it easier to come back to them in the final meeting.

Round 2

Now initiate that we remove the project management. Of course, this is for structural reasons and not personal ones. To be successful now, we need full transparency and a team that has built up cross-functionality. So we are also dissolving the rigid positions. All people can now move all shapes and, if you are remote, color them. Start right in. It’s a great moment to see how quickly the team organizes itself in the timeframe. If you do this before the timeframe, there is often too much discussion until the perfect setting is in place. This goes against the idea of an explorative approach. It’s better to take the following thought into the debriefing: “You have organized yourselves very quickly. If we had another product now, how would you want to improve yourselves in the context of a retro?”

The change request then of course goes to the entire team. In the second round, you will also see that the team now has a better view of the quality thanks to the transparency. In round 1, it is difficult to understand whether “the triangle is at two-thirds height, slightly tilted towards the blue rectangle”. With transparency, this is now possible and there are always one or two people who voluntarily do another check at the end and go through everything before the product is handed in.

You will certainly notice numerous differences between the two rounds, which you can match to the current situation in the team. The centralization of information about project management, the importance of transparency, improving quality, increasing speed, learning together, the fundamental need to learn and the responsiveness to change are perhaps the most important points…

And yes, it is of course also possible to criticize this game. Depending on the attitude of the group, it could be emphasized “But it’s different in reality”. Yes, that is true. It is a game. It exaggerates and doesn’t make System 1 look good. But in a simplified way, there are many truths behind it and it makes it clear which levers help us to succeed.

In addition to the basic idea, let’s take a look at a few accompanying tips.

The Change Request

Here again clearly emphasized: No project runs as it should. Not even ours. In both projects, there will be a change request from the customer in the course of implementation. This is then forwarded to the project management or, in the second round, to the team. The team then has to respond and adapt the product accordingly.

Remote and on-site

The game is possible in both formats. Unfortunately, hybrid is not. If you play the game on site, you need to make sure you have the right materials with you. We use a load of differently colored pieces of paper in different geometric shapes. In preparation, you puzzle four pictures (two per round) and photograph them.

The whole thing can be done remotely with collaboration tools such as Miro or Mural. You can also prepare four images here. Invest some time in making sure you know how to use the tool. It would be annoying if the debriefing only revealed that the tool was stupid. The setting can take a little more time in the remote. It depends on how experienced the team is in using the tool. There can also be challenges in placing colors correctly. We usually let remote teams color the shapes themselves. This is a bit more fun and more difficult.

On site you have blue cards, online the triangle can be colored in three types of blue. It’s up to you whether you note this in the debriefing (“You chose the wrong colors too often in round 1”) or include it right away (“You can ignore color nuances”).

Material

The material does not have to be counted precisely. With a view to the debriefing, you can also arrange it so that a role is not called up at all. The person with the “blue circles” role then waits in round 1 until they are called on, but nothing happens. In round 2, this person is free due to the elimination of the permanent positions and can contribute the resource to the team. This is not possible in round 1 because the “job description” does not provide for it. You can also point out that in round 1, the competence to switch may not be available. In round 2, we will only be successful if we invest in learning. Cross-functionality is not a sure-fire success, but requires continuous development and learning.

Also make sure you have a timer and, if necessary, glue if the slips of paper don’t have an adhesive surface. However, we have also had it laid on the floor very well.

Group size and time limit

The game works well with six or more people and is still feasible up to around ten people. Anything more than that can have negative side effects (as is always the case with teams of more than ten). If you have 12 participants, it’s worth thinking about two teams, and certainly with 14. Of course, you should also adapt the name of the game. For example, the 10 musketeers.

Adjust your time limit for completing the mission to the size of the group. It is also perfectly fine if the group is not successful in the first round. The important thing is that they complete the task in the second round. Experience has shown that the team needs around 1/3 to ½ of the time from round 1 in the second round, but this is completely dependent on your project task. Small groups are a little stressed with three minutes, but should get through in four. Larger groups are good at four to five minutes. However, you will quickly build up experience here. Allow time for preparation and debriefing. You can also intervene a little in the time with the change request. So decide when to place this as well as possible.

Have fun!

We hope you enjoy trying it out. If you notice that we have forgotten something in this description, please let us know. Together we can make the game even better for everyone. Just write us a short message at hello@nerdrepublic.de

The post The six musketeers – one for all and all for one first appeared on Nerd Republic.

Generation Z and their understanding of work

A key element in understanding Generation Z’s approach to work is their pursuit of flexibility. Traditional 9-to-5 work models are increasingly seen as outdated. Generation Z values flexible working hours and the ability to work from various locations. The line between professional and personal life is becoming blurred, and work-life balance is gaining importance.

Another important aspect is the pursuit of meaningful work. For Generation Z, work is not just about earning money but also about contributing to society and the environment. Companies that pursue clear social and environmental values are seen as attractive, as they align with Generation Z’s ethical standards.

Generation Z is tech-savvy and expects the seamless use of digital technologies and tools in the workplace. The integration of innovative technologies, modern work methods, and a digital communication culture, particularly through social media, are decisive factors for them as Digital Natives when choosing an employer. The opportunity to work with cutting-edge technology holds great importance for them and significantly influences their work preferences.

Diversity and inclusion are other important topics. Generation Z actively advocates for a diverse and inclusive work environment. Companies that embed these values in their corporate culture and promote respect for individual differences are perceived as attractive.

The willingness for continuous learning also shapes their understanding of work. Ongoing personal and professional development is a given for them, and companies that offer opportunities for training and skill development are preferred employers.

Expanding horizons through New Work

Many of the aspects mentioned above, which Generation Z associates with work, are also encapsulated under the term New Work. The concept of New Work represents the transformation of the world of work and turns traditional ideas upside down. It is not just a change but rather a revolution aimed at making the workplace more human-centered, flexible, and innovative.

At its core, New Work is about breaking down rigid hierarchies and entrenched structures. The traditional understanding of work, based on fixed office hours, clear hierarchies, and monolithic organizational structures, is giving way to a more flexible, dynamic, and participatory work culture. The focus is on the individual with their skills, needs, and talents. Flexible working hours, remote work, creative freedom, and self-managed teams are just a few cornerstones of New Work. Companies that embrace this concept recognize the importance of work-life balance, personal development, and a corporate culture based on trust and collaboration. Modern technologies play a crucial role by facilitating networking and exchange.

New Work reflects the demands of Generation Z in a revolutionary concept of a new world of work. This concept is accompanied by an agile work culture.

The cultivation of an agile work culture

Agility is more than just flexibility; it is an attitude focused on adaptability, collaboration, and continuous innovation. In an agile work culture, rigid structures and outdated processes are a thing of the past. The focus is on the ability to quickly adapt to new circumstances. Teams are flexible, self-managed, and able to respond swiftly to changing demands. This requires not only an open attitude toward change but also a culture of trust, where employees are encouraged to share their ideas and think creatively.

Collaboration plays a central role. In agile teams, colleagues work together across disciplines, regularly exchange ideas, and share their knowledge. Communication is not just seen as a means to an end, but as a driving force for collective success. The development of a culture of failure also plays a role, where mistakes are viewed as opportunities for growth and improvement.

Innovation is the result of this agile way of working. The ability to quickly respond to customer needs, generate new ideas, and develop innovative solutions becomes a competitive advantage. An agile organization identifies opportunities early, proactively manages risks, and thus creates the foundation for sustainable success in a dynamic business world.

The cultivation of an agile work culture is therefore not just a step towards contemporary management, but a strategic decision that lays the foundation for long-term resilience and competitiveness. It is the path to a work environment where change is not feared but seen as an opportunity – a culture that understands and actively shapes the pulse of the times.

Conclusion

The entry of Generation Z into the workforce marks a profound shift in expectations and demands placed on employers. The pursuit of flexibility, meaningful work, technological innovation, and an inclusive work environment are central elements that shape this young generation. The concept of New Work emerges as a guiding framework for a work environment that not only meets the needs of Generation Z but also revolutionizes traditional notions of work.

The integration of New Work principles, which promote flexibility, collaboration, and individual development, becomes a key competitive advantage. Generation Z sees this new work culture not only as an opportunity for personal growth but also as the foundation for a meaningful career.

The cultivation of an agile work culture, focused on adaptability, collaboration, and continuous innovation, highlights the evolutionary nature of these changes. In such an environment, not only are individual skills fostered, but a corporate culture is also created that views change as an opportunity and lays the foundation for long-term resilience.

For companies, this means not only staying technologically up to date but also creating an organizational culture that places the potential and demands of Generation Z at the center. The path to a modern work environment requires not only a willingness to change but also the ability to understand and actively shape the needs of young employees. In this synthesis of flexibility, meaningful work, and innovation lies the key to a successful generational shift in the workforce.

The post What requirements does Generation Z place on their work? first appeared on Nerd Republic.

In this article, we want to give you some help with choosing a SAFe course based on our experience. To do this, we have sorted the courses into three categories for you and presented them in an overview. You will also find our tips and experiences for each course.

Our overview of SAFe course selection

We are conceptually quite comfortable with this representation in the course structure. On the X-axis, you can position yourself based on your experience with topics like Lean and Agile. Above that, you’ll see the “string of pearls” representing the courses. You’ll notice that courses like Leading SAFe, Product Owner/Product Manager, and SAFe for Teams are the classic entry-level courses. These provide a gentle introduction to the topic.

The Lean Portfolio Management course or the Advanced Scrum Master course, for example, are classified as “Advanced” courses by Scaled Agile Inc. These delve deeper into the subject, and you’ll only truly enjoy them if you’re already familiar with the framework.

Along the Y-axis, you’ll find the three categories: “People,” “Roles,” and “Functions.” This division is meant to provide you with some guidance when searching for courses. In the “Roles” swimlane, for instance, you’ll find courses aimed at specific roles, such as Scrum Master or Product Owner. The “Functions” swimlane, on the other hand, includes courses that are not tied to a role but rather to a function. Makes sense, right?

These courses are designed for functional and task areas that involve multiple roles or for individuals who do not have a specific role in SAFe (for example, our “old” PMO). The third category is the “People” swimlane. These courses are aimed at a broader audience and focus on foundational skills. Let’s take a closer look at the individual courses:

Leading SAFe

This course is ideal for getting started with the framework and provides a concise, comprehensive overview. It’s helpful if you already have basic knowledge of Agility and Lean. In the Leading SAFe course, the ten SAFe principles are discussed in detail. The course also includes a brief side-step into Lean Portfolio Management. For a long time, the course was overloaded with information, but it has since been streamlined and is now more digestible.

SAFe for Teams

This course is designed for team members, particularly when it’s immediately followed by the joint ART launch and the first PI Planning session. The goal is for teams to experience and practice the mechanisms of agile collaboration together. For this reason, it’s also the only course that can be conducted with up to 125 participants. However, not every team member is required to take this course.

If you haven’t specifically planned the ART launch within the organization, the SAFe for Teams course might not be the best option for team members. This course doesn’t go into sufficient depth on individual topics. For a general introduction to SAFe for a team member, the Leading SAFe or POPM course might also be helpful. This is especially true for non-developer teams, where elements like TDD and BDD can feel somewhat out of place.

Product Owner/Product Manager

This course places a stronger focus on the role of the Product Owner, while the role of the Product Manager is only touched upon.

The POPM course provides a general overview of the framework and the individual events within iterations. Tools and techniques specific to Product Managers are primarily covered in the APM course (which, in turn, focuses less on the framework). Due to its broad perspective, the POPM course is also an excellent entry point into SAFe—even for non-Product Owners. There’s no need to feel intimidated here!

Unlike Leading SAFe (our second “entry-level tip”), the principles are not covered in as much depth, and it lacks a brief look into Lean Portfolio Management (LPM). However, it places greater emphasis on Scrum and the events within iterations.

By the way, you don’t need a Product Owner course from Scrum.org to navigate this course effectively. However, taking one isn’t a bad idea, as the POPM course focuses more on SAFe as a whole rather than the specifics and techniques of the Product Owner role.

Agile Product Management

This course offers less general information about SAFe but significantly more on tools and techniques in the area of product management (for PMs). The content is also relevant for Product Owners. For a long time, the course felt somewhat like the “neglected child” of SAFe. In the “Product” series, it hasn’t been able to deliver the depth and added value that colleagues in the product management field need.

Creating a persona is not always sufficient in this context. With SAFe 6.0, the course has received an update, and some of the outdated elements have been streamlined. However, for seasoned PMs, it might feel a bit too superficial. For someone just starting with SAFe, this course is less suitable due to its niche focus and deep dive approach.

SAFe Scrum Master

The SAFe Scrum Master course can be difficult to grasp. If you’ve never worked with Scrum before, it might not be the best course to introduce you to the Scrum Master role. However, you don’t necessarily need to have already completed a Scrum Master course with Scrum.org or Scrum Alliance.

Spending some time in a Scrum team will have provided you with the basic knowledge, and now your next step might be to become a Scrum Master in a SAFe environment. Since this course focuses a lot on team development and the do’s and don’ts of being a Scrum Master during iterations, we believe it’s not the best entry point into SAFe for a general audience. The Leading SAFe or POPM courses are better positioned for that. The exception, of course, is if you want to become a Scrum Master in a team or are already in that role. In that case, you’ll learn a lot about SAFe here and can combine it with interactive discussions on Scrum.

SAFe DevOps

DevOps is not a new framework for IT professionals. It’s about adopting a mindset, culture, and a set of practices and tools successfully. Therefore, DevOps is a fundamental topic for everyone in a SAFe organization. The course also has a strong focus on Lean. Overall, it is (unfortunately) still considered quite niche and is relatively rarely booked or offered. However, it can definitely be very helpful and expand your personal skill set in a valuable way. In general, it’s a good course.

SAFe for Architect

This role-based course, as the name suggests, has a strong focus on architects. You won’t be learning about classic IT architecture, such as security, technology, or information here. Instead, it focuses on how SAFe principles can help in building your architecture. You’ll learn what an Architectural Runway is and how it can support the Agile Release Train. Additionally, you’ll understand how architects collaborate across the different levels of SAFe.

Lean Portfolio Management

The SAFe LPM course goes into great depth. Essentially, it starts at the top left of the SAFe framework map in LPM and then progresses horizontally to the right. This course delves deeply into business agility and agile portfolio management. Broad content on SAFe is not typically covered here. It’s extremely helpful if you have prior SAFe experience and have acquired foundational knowledge about an Agile Release Train or PI Planning through a POPM or Leading SAFe course.

We also have positive examples of participants who jumped directly into the LPM course. However, it requires a certain level of frustration tolerance to cope with a lack of knowledge about a few things. In our LPM Academy course, we’ve included some refresher topics to help address this challenge.

Starting with LPM is possible, especially if you come from another course or bring some experience with you, but it’s certainly better if you have that foundation. Overall, the SAFe LPM course is very refreshing and is usually conducted in a smaller group.

SAFe Advanced Scrum Master

This course thrives on group dialogue and experience sharing. At this point, it’s only marginally about SAFe or Scrum in general. In the SAFe Advanced Scrum Master course, we focus on your experiences with team metrics, discuss Scrum antipatterns, and provide tips on how to create an environment for a high-performance team.

This course is also well-suited if you’ve already completed a Scrum Master certification and have solid SAFe experience in your organization. In the basic SAFe Scrum Master course, you might find yourself “bored.” If your SAFe experience isn’t yet solid, it’s also an option to take Leading SAFe followed by the Advanced Scrum Master course. This approach, with the brief dive into LPM and the principles from Leading SAFe, will provide significant added value and broaden your perspective. It also helps move you out of the Scrum-focused area where you may already have enough knowledge and gives you more SAFe-specific insights.

Isn’t there something missing?

Yes! A few courses are missing from our overview. Here you’ll find our information on these.

?? Agile Software Engineering (ASE) ??

As of today (Jan 24), the Agile Software Engineering (ASE) course doesn’t have a clear update perspective for SAFe 6.0. Let’s see what Scaled Agile Inc. has planned in that regard. The ASE training is implemented well in-house. Here, you won’t learn the basics of coding (please bring that knowledge with you!), but rather how agile methods approach the entire process. Topics include Test-Driven Development (TDD) and Behavior-Driven Development (BDD). Additionally, the course links these topics with architecture and DevOps. The course doesn’t go deeply into the fundamentals of SAFe, so it’s often paired with a SAFe for Teams course. If you’re not involved in the software field, this course probably won’t be your favorite.

?? Release Train Engineer (RTE) ??

No Release Train Engineer course at Nerd Republic? According to Scaled Agile Inc.’s regulations, the RTE course can only be offered publicly by Gold SPCT partners. Gold partners are allowed to offer the course in-house (plus a few additional details). In a previous life, we conducted the course several times.

We’ve decided against the Gold partnership for now, which is why the course isn’t available. HOWEVER, while it is a role-based course, its design is meant for experienced RTEs to engage in content exchange. If only new RTEs without role experience are present, it can be a bit underwhelming. If you’re new to the role, the SAFe Advanced Scrum Master course can offer significant added value. The RTE course is best suited if you’ve already been in the role for at least a year. At that point, you’ll bring a lot of experience to the table and can benefit from others’ insights as well.

?? SAFe Practice Consultant (SPC) ??

Like the RTE, the SPC (SAFe Program Consultant) course can only be conducted by Gold SPCT partners (the “T” stands for Trainer). In Germany, there are a few providers with different reputations. Just see which one suits you best. A remote course abroad could also be an option.

The course is a four-day course, but depending on the provider, it is sometimes extended to five days remotely – it can be quite intensive. The first two days (out of the four total) essentially cover the Leading SAFe course. While trainers will certainly focus on the SPC perspective and provide guidance on how to deliver the course, if you already have Leading SAFe, it might feel a bit repetitive. And no, you can’t credit an existing Leading SAFe course for this. In our view, the SAFe system falls a bit short here.

Do you have your SAFe course?

Has this overview helped you, and have you found your perfect SAFe course? Perfect! You can find our SAFe certification courses at our Nerd Academy. We offer the courses as open training sessions both onsite and remotely. Of course, all courses can also be booked as in-house training.

All courses on the Nerd Academy come with plenty of information, additional bonus material, and exciting self-learning formats.

If something is missing or you have any other questions, feel free to send us a message. You can reach us at: hello@nerdrepublic.de

We hope this overview has helped clarify your SAFe course selection.

The post Which SAFe course? first appeared on Nerd Republic.

The time has come to spill the beans. The theme of the December issue of Neue Narrative is “Focus.” This issue is particularly exciting for us, as we are participating as an issue partner this time (*happy*). In our preparations, we asked ourselves: “Focus – what else do we want to pass on to you?” We rummaged around in our heads and BOOM, we pulled out an idea! Our game “The Focus Awakens” – and that’s exactly what we’d like to introduce to you now.

Have fun with it!

P.S.: Click here to go directly to the issues of Neue Narrative (it’s in German though)

A game for self-use and your organization

We live in a time full of distractions. We encounter this on a corporate level as well as on a personal level. A call here, a project there and another project and another – all of which are considered urgent. At the same time, we are flying back and forth, trying to fulfill our roles.

The laudation goes to those who manage to keep as many balls in the air as possible at the same time. Perhaps you still remember the assessment center exercises from previous years and in particular the post basket exercise. You are sitting at your desk and have a post basket. Tasks trickle in slowly and then faster and faster: Do the laundry, take the child to nursery, prepare the boss’s speech, cook lunch, call Mr. Smith and send Mrs. Meyers the figures. The aim was to find out how many balls can be juggled under stress and how well and effectively the tasks can be organized.

From a lean perspective, this honestly makes little sense, as it produces considerable task switching costs. It is better to concentrate on a few things and work through them one after the other.

To underline this, we would like to introduce you to our game “The Focus Awakens. “Our” should be put in brackets. A few years ago, we had the opportunity to get to know and experience this ourselves as part of a workshop and have carried it with us ever since.
You can play the game on your own, but it also works great in your team and in your organization. Herewith we pass it on like a good book.

Preparation

There are two rounds to the game. You need one sheet of paper and use the front and back, or you can use two different sheets. It is important that you cannot peek at the sheet from round one in round two. In addition to a pen, have a stopwatch or your cell phone ready.

Please draw the following table twice on your paper (it doesn’t have to be pretty).

Round 1

With the stopwatch in your hand, you start round one and start timing.

Please go through column by column and fill them in as quickly as you can. In column one, write the letters A to J from top to bottom in alphabetical order. At the bottom, go to the next column and write the numbers from 1 to 10. At the bottom, go to the next column and write down the letters in reverse order from J to A. Do the same in the next column from 10-1. In the last column, write down the letters “Republico!” one after the other.

At the very end, stop the time and write it down on the sheet. Please remember: “Built in Quality”. We want to make our customers happy. Of course, fast is great, but error-free is even better.

Schematically, the whole thing should look something like this:

Round 2

First, turn your sheet over or remove it from your line of sight. In the second round, we don’t go through column by column, but row by row. Your first line will be A-1-J-10-R and you will jump to the next one on your own. Basically like a typewriter. You do the whole thing again with the stopwatch and stop the time when you reach the bottom right.

And by the way: “Built in Quality” also applies here! Quickly, but not at the expense of quality. Schematically, it looks like this:

Evaluation

Now is the moment when we hope that the light bulb moment has occurred. However, we have already played the game many times in our courses and are in good spirits. Take a moment and think about the result. Why did it go so quickly in round one and not round two? Why was quality perhaps more of a challenge in round two? Can you transfer this to your work environment? Your working day?

Here’s a little benchmarking for your peace of mind. In round one, many take around 30-35 seconds. The record in one course was 17 seconds. In lap two, the time is usually around 1:35 minutes. The gap is naturally bigger here and typically ranges from 1:15-1:50 minutes.

This is due in particular to the aforementioned key-switching costs. It costs us an incredible amount of energy to go back and forth between tasks. The same applies to companies. There is often a lack of focus and it feels as if we have to and want to do everything at the same time. In the Kanban system, there is the wonderful phrase: “Start finishing, stop starting”. Methodically, for example, you would create limits in an organization for the amount of work that can be done in parallel.

Another interesting observation: we deliver the same product in both rounds. Both times, a customer receives a slip of paper from us with the numbers and letters filled in. However, we are considerably faster in round one. Not because we get bonus payments or someone cracks the whip. We are faster simply because we keep our focus and do the work differently.

True to the motto: “Work smarter, not harder!”

If you fancy more games of this kind, we recommend our Agile Warm-Up course. In this entertaining one-day course, we playfully demonstrate what agility is all about and why it can be so much fun:

The post The Focus Awakens first appeared on Nerd Republic.

“We as a team know how things are going! We have a good view of what we’ve achieved and what we haven’t, and if we also collect metrics now, it all takes away from our working time for important features. We don’t really see what it brings us. It’s best if we get this in a nice dashboard and are not burdened with the survey in the first place.”

One of these sentences, or sometimes all of them, are often used when we talk to teams about metrics. Occasionally, the meaning is clear, but the starting point is missing and the whole topic ends up somewhere at the bottom of the priority list. One of those “we should really do that now” issues. If only the project wasn’t so pressing.

Roger Federer

Let’s start with a little quiz.

From 1999 to 2002, tennis player Roger Federer made it from the top 1000 to the top 10 list of men’s tennis. How many weeks in the following 19 years (until 2021) was Federer NOT in the top 10?

And we’ll leave you with another question:

How long do you think he was without a coach during this time?

*littleMomentWithElevatorMusic…..

The answer to the first question: 12 weeks

The answer to the second question: There were short periods in 2004, 2008 and 2009.

Did you guess correctly? 12 weeks in 19 years is an honest word, isn’t it? Roger Federer is rightly one of the best players of all time. (By the way, you can find an article about his “fall” from the top 10 here. After a career like that, it just hurts and pains everywhere at some point).

Here you can find an overview of his rankings over the years:

What about the second question? Were you able to guess correctly here? That’s really surprising at first, isn’t it? After all, we can all agree that Roger Federer knows how to hold a tennis racket and get a clean topspin over the net.

So why does he need a coach? Federer relied on Ivan Ljubicic as his coach for many years. He is also only two years older than Federer. Why do we mention that? There is always the stereotype that coaches are old and players are young. This is due to our socialization of a parent-child relationship. But that’s exactly what we want to make clear.

By the way: Federer is not an isolated case. This phenomenon (age and coach despite top performance) can be seen thousands of times; of course also in team sports! (Or does anyone doubt that the Real Madrid team doesn’t know how to kick a ball?)

Internal and external control loops

Good agile teams (as well as athletes, sports teams and orchestras) know the importance of the inner and outer control loop. This model originates from sports science and describes, for example, the perception of movement sequences.

The athlete has an inner circle in which their own perception is compared with the demand and with how they “know” and “do” it. For example, how do you hold the club head? How do you move in the long jump, how do you perceive a game situation and go into the transition game, etc.?

In addition, there is a trainer who operates the outer control loop. How was the club head held from the coach’s perspective? How was the positional play? Were there perception errors in the inner control loop? Successful athletes and teams have coordinated these control loops and brought them into balance.

For this reason, it is also important to rely on metrics. They help to back up these control loops with data. In agile, the role of coach is often performed by a scrum master or an internal/external coach. The belief that teams are already functioning well and the internal control loop is sufficient can end fatally. High-performance teams rely on this system as they are aware of potential perception errors and actively overcome them.

Agile teams should start introducing metrics as support at an early stage. This is not about the “KPI set”. In other words, it’s not about the question “What do we need to achieve for our boss to say we’ve done a good job?” It’s about asking yourself: “What metrics do we want to collect in order to improve as a team? Where do we have potential perception errors? Where should we collect metrics because an objective statement on this could significantly change the way we work?

The set of metrics will and should change over time. However, there should always be one available to help you make better decisions. If you want to delve a little deeper into sports science, you can find a more detailed description of the model here (according to Meinel/Schnabel, by the way).

Retrospecives

There is one thing we don’t want to leave unsaid at this point. Perhaps you and your team are involved in Scrum and you will certainly be aware that retrospectives are an essential event. It is not uncommon for teams to experience a certain amount of frustration with the retrospective. The whole thing always feels like group therapy where the coach is too small.

Scrum Master says: “The Vegas rule applies. Everything that is said here in the retro stays in the retro”. This is an attempt to build a safe space. This is followed by a request to say where the shoe pinches. The expectation is that everyone will now jump down each other’s throats under the protection of Vegas to finally get everything out on the table. And if there is nothing? “Do we need the retro? – No, not really in this sprint”

Sounds familiar? Now imagine you have metrics. You have an external control loop that draws your attention to things and motivates you to jump even further? Even more story points, even less waste, even more accurate estimation… whatever. Solving that is another topic. The fact is: metrics give you a lever that lifts retro out of the grubby corner of group psychiatry. They make you want to try things out and see what effect it has on the metrics.

“Great tip Nerd Republic!”
Yes – that’s why you’re here

More on team metrics?

Want to learn more about metrics for agile teams? No problem!

We have created a complete course that introduces you to the topic with articles like these, templates and tutorial videos.

You can find our Academy self-study course here:

The post Why do teams need metrics? first appeared on Nerd Republic.

In this blog post, we look at the concept of agile contracting, its importance in complex environments, different models of agile contracting, performance measurement, success factors and positive examples that illustrate its effectiveness.

What are typical contracts between supplier and contractor?

Conventional contracts between suppliers and contractors are often based on a fixed scope, a fixed price and a fixed timeframe. These contracts set out clear expectations in terms of deliverables, costs and deadlines. However, for complex projects where requirements are likely to change, strict adherence to these contracts can lead to inefficiencies and missed opportunities. Agile contracting recognizes this limitation and offers an alternative approach that encourages collaboration, iterative development and continuous improvement.

Why is agile contracting necessary in a complex environment?

In complex environments where requirements are constantly changing and uncertainty prevails, agile contracting provides the flexibility to adapt and respond effectively. It embraces the principles of agile project management and allows for incremental iterations, early feedback and constant communication between supplier and contractor. By introducing agile contracting, companies can better control risk, reduce time to market and increase customer satisfaction.

What commissioning models are available?

There are various procurement models that companies can use depending on their specific needs and circumstances. However, these have disadvantages that cannot be ignored, especially in a complex environment. Some of the most common models are:

1. Time and Materials (T&M): This model allows flexibility in terms of scope and timing. The provider is paid based on the time and effort invested and the cost of the materials used. This model is suitable when requirements are uncertain or likely to change. The challenge with Time & Materials contracts is that the risk is solely with the provider. Systemically, the impulse can arise with the contractor: “Contract is signed, money is coming, content is secondary for now”. Clients tend to shy away from the Time & Materials approach in its traditional form.
2. Fixed budget: In this model, the provider and contractor agree on a fixed budget for the project. The scope and schedule can still be flexible, allowing for iterations and adjustments as needed. The provider is responsible for delivering the project within the agreed budget. In this system, we have a shift of risk to the provider’s side. The provider has a fixed budget on which the service is provided. In a complex environment, however, this can be very difficult. In order to reduce the (financial) risk, the provider will therefore include sufficient margin in the calculation. The client may therefore pay more than is actually necessary.
3. Result-Oriented: In this model, the focus is on achieving a specific outcome or business value. The provider and contractor work together to define the desired outcomes, and the provider is paid based on the achievement of those outcomes. This model encourages collaboration and shared responsibility. From an agile contracting perspective, this is probably the most sensible option. However, successful implementation requires control mechanisms as well as motivators that are in harmony.
4. Initial Approach and Iterative Development: This model focuses on early collaboration between suppliers and contractors to define the initial approach and set the direction of the project. Project trust has already been developed here, based on the results-oriented approach, for example. Iterative development, characterized by several short iterations, ensures continuous feedback and allows for adjustments based on changing requirements.

Is it possible to calculate performance using relative effort?

Performance in Agile Contracting is not only measured by traditional metrics such as adherence to schedule or budget. Instead, Agile Contracting focuses on adding value by meeting user needs and achieving project goals. Key performance indicators include customer satisfaction, cycle time reduction and the number of features delivered per iteration. These metrics provide a holistic overview of project performance and enable continuous improvement.

However, in agile contracting, it is not uncommon for performance to be calculated using metrics that are in line with agile principles. Two common metrics that are (unfortunately) used in agile contracting are Agile Function Points (AFP) and Story Points.

Agile Function Points (AFP) measure the functional scope of deliverables, taking into account factors such as complexity, user interactions and business value. Story points, on the other hand, estimate the relative effort required to complete a user story or task. These metrics are often used as a basis for evaluating progress, productivity and quality of work during the project.

However, they are not conflict-free. If the evaluation is based on story points, for example, there is a systemic motivation to get as little work as possible into as many story points as possible. This is the contractor’s lever to work positively on their own margin. In order to reduce inflation, there is usually a lot of potential for conflict in communication. This puts a strain on the joint partnership.

What are the most important factors for successful agile procurement?

Successful agile contracting requires a combination of factors, including:

1. Clear Expectations and Alignment: Setting clear expectations, defining project goals and aligning them with the company’s strategic goals form the basis for successful agile contracting. Both sides should define the actual goal together.
2. Clear and Open Communication: Effective communication between the provider and the contractor is crucial. Regular meetings, feedback sessions and transparent reporting ensure that stakeholders are aligned and any concerns and issues are addressed promptly.
3. Collaboration and Trust: Agile contracting thrives on collaboration and trust. Both parties should work together as a team, share responsibility and utilize each other’s expertise to achieve successful results.
4. Flexibility and Adaptability: Agile contracting is open to change and promotes adaptability. Both the provider and the contractor should be prepared to adjust plans, requirements and schedules as needed.
5. Definition of Done: A clear definition of the term “Done” ensures that both parties agree on the expected results, quality standards and acceptance criteria.
6. Joint Supervisory Bodies: In order to be able to proceed in a “results-oriented” manner in the contract, joint control bodies are necessary. For example, a sprint system can be used in which the upcoming work is planned and then jointly reviewed.
7. Predictability Of Sales: The contractor needs a certain degree of predictability of sales. If the client also has the option of terminating the collaboration prematurely, this should not be done ad hoc but with an agreed lead time. This also helps with the processing and handover of previous expenses.

In this setting, a system is created which, on the one hand, takes into account the necessary flexibility of a complex environment and, on the other hand, harmonizes the distribution of risk between contractor and client. The contractor has a certain degree of financial security as well as the motivation to deliver good work. The client, on the other hand, has the flexibility to terminate a project prematurely if the work is not good. In addition, mechanisms are built in to make the effort flexible.

What are the positive examples?

Many companies have successfully introduced and benefited from agile contracting. One such example is a software development company that adopted an agile contracting approach for a complex project. Through flexibility and collaboration, the company was able to deliver high-quality software within a shorter timeframe and exceed the client’s expectations. The iterative nature of agile contracting allowed for continuous feedback and adjustments, resulting in a product that met the evolving needs of the end users.

Conclusion

Agile contracting offers a refreshing alternative to traditional contracts in complex environments. Through flexibility, collaboration and adaptability, companies can overcome uncertainties, manage risks and achieve successful outcomes. Agile contracting models provide a framework that can be tailored to specific project requirements. With clear communication, collaboration and a shared understanding of performance metrics, organizations can be successful in their agile contracting efforts. Whether you’re a vendor or a contractor, it’s worth looking into agile contracting to develop a common initial approach and possibly adopt it.

The post Agile Contracting first appeared on Nerd Republic.

Business hypotheses

First, a brief outline of business hypotheses. A key milestone for companies on their path to SAFe business agility is the shift from traditional projects to epics as business hypotheses. Traditional project planning is characterized by a previously agreed scope. The required resources and time are then derived from this. It is possible to change the scope after the project has started, but this costs additional resources and time. In traditional project management, lagging indicators are used to determine whether a project is successful. These lag behind the event (lagging) and are hard results. They are usually measured in terms of return on investment, turnover, profit or sales figures.

In the agile world, we accept that it is impossible to look into the future with certainty. We don’t think about projects, we think about products and work with hypotheses that have to be continuously validated or falsified. From the very beginning of our work, we say goodbye to a fixed scope. We deliver product increments in small iterations and decide how the product is to be further developed, taking into account the time factor. The decision-making process is guided by leading indicators, which measure forward as soft results (leading).

Leading Indicator

Organizations are used to working with lagging indicators when implementing new products via projects. Products are developed over a long period of time and their value is only assessed on the basis of hard facts once they have been launched on the market. Leading Indicators, on the other hand, focus on what needs to happen for us to generate satisfactory Lagging Indicators with valuable products.

Let’s take the example of an online store that specializes in the sale of keys. If the turnover in our online store is our lagging indicator, we can only measure this with a time delay to our actions. A number of decisions and processes have to take place beforehand so that the customer buys the product and we generate any sales at all. For example, we need traffic on our site, a conversion and leads in order to persuade the customer to make a purchase decision and thus generate sales. These are our leading indicators. If we hypothesize that “people want to buy coloured keys with an engraved name in the online store”, we should not invest two years to produce keys in 400 different colors. Instead, we should take an iterative approach. In other words, start with a small online store offering red, green and blue keys. As we gradually develop the store – and our product – we always keep an eye on the leading indicators and try to validate or falsify our further developments as early and continuously as possible.

This approach represents a challenge. It involves actively examining our business hypothesis. We ask for drivers of our hypothesis that we can measure and that allow us to draw logical conclusions about cause and effect.

And now to the soccer game…

So much for the brief theory of leading and lagging indicators. Now we come to the real problem. How do both types of indicators manifest themselves in the real world? Let’s take a look at this using the example of a soccer match.

In classic project management, we would say: “Put the better team on the field and you will win.” Although there are teams that have a knack for winning, this statement is not a 100% logical conclusion. The lagging indicator would be the final score. The team wins 2:0, in which case our “best team” project runs as planned. Unfortunately, soccer also operates in a complex environment and things usually turn out differently than planned (otherwise it wouldn’t be any fun).

The coach must therefore work with leading indicators during the game, as there is no logical sequence of “better team = win”. During the game, the coach looks at different metrics. They take a look at tackling behavior, number of passes played, number of fouls, shots on goal, etc. None of these indicators leads logically to a win. In other words, no team wins simply because it has played more passes or won more duels. Rather, it is a constant search for combinations of indicators (e.g. tackles, shots on goal and passes received) that allow the outcome of the game to be predicted as reliably as possible.

In the business world, the kick-off can be understood as the first release. Then it’s time to let it run. Of course, the leading indicators in the first five minutes of the game are not valid enough. What conclusions should you be able to draw from zero goals scored? It’s the same with epics. They need some time to take effect. We have to give the market time to react. Over the course of the first half, the metrics become more concentrated and the coach has the opportunity for a retrospective, also known as a half-time break, in which they can make specific adjustments to their team’s play. They have a set of leading indicators at their disposal for this purpose. This objective data is combined with subjective impressions of the coach (or business owner) and the next half-time (or iteration) is planned.

Do we go in with an extra striker? Do we change the system of play? Do we change a player or do we let the ball run a little longer after the pressing phase? These are all changes that we can introduce into the ongoing experiment. This is not an end in itself, we provoke changes in our leading indicators that lead us to victory.

As in soccer, it sometimes happens in the development process that the desired result is not achieved. We believe in a new feature and are convinced that it will increase traffic to our site. But nothing happens after the release. We don’t see anything in the indicators. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the feature is bad. Maybe we added it at the wrong time or maybe it’s placed in such a way that the customer can’t find it. Not every substitution makes the wild card goal. Often enough, the viewer wonders what this change has achieved.

After the game, the players answer the reporters’ questions. The classic question is always: “What did you plan to do after half-time?”. Depending on the outcome of the game, the answer is formed and, especially in the case of a defeat, the answer is “We had a lot in mind, but we couldn’t bring it onto the field”.

A soccer match is a complex environment, especially when our opponent simply doesn’t want to play the way we thought they would. This has a lot in common with our complex business environment. We have to take a hypothesis-driven approach in our environment and constantly plan and conduct micro-experiments. Relying solely on downstream indicators is no longer enough. In order to make good decisions quickly, it is important to identify the right set of leading indicators. This does not mean that we will win every game, but it does give us the ability to react to constantly changing basic assumptions.

Want to learn more about Leading and Lagging Indicators? Why not attend one of our SAFe LPM courses at the Nerd Academy. We will be happy to show you how hypothesis-driven products are developed in lean portfolio management using epics. How your soccer team, in my case Borussia Mönchengladbach, will continue to (or ever…) be successful, we will unfortunately not be able to clarify.

The post Leading & Lagging Indicator first appeared on Nerd Republic.

Definition of agility

Agility is a term that is often used in relation to the world of work. It is derived from the Latin word ‘agilis’, which means agile, quick and skilful. In the corporate context, being agile therefore refers to an organisation’s ability to react quickly and effectively to change and adapt to new circumstances. It can manifest itself in various ways, such as the ability to develop new products or services quickly or to optimise processes. In addition, agile business organisation can also include a company’s ability to react quickly to customer needs or market trends.

Agile working is based on four basic principles:

Today’s world is characterised by a fast pace. New developments are emerging at a rapid pace, which means that uncertainties and risks are also increasing. Companies that are agile have a better chance of remaining competitive and adapting to new circumstances. They work and act faster, which is a considerable advantage, especially in crisis situations. Agile companies are also able to react quickly to customer needs and adapt to changing market conditions.

By using agility to improve sales results, companies can achieve higher profits and market share. By streamlining processes and optimising marketing strategies, they can increase the sales rate of their products or services while reducing shipping or manufacturing costs. In addition, by using agile tools, you can better understand your customers’ needs and wants before trying to sell them something else.

How can my company become agile?

Obviously, there is no single formula for making a company agile. Agility is a continuous process that is orientated towards the individual needs and goals of the company. Nevertheless, there are some steps that organisations can take to become more agile:

1. Define a clear vision and goals: A clear vision and goals give the company direction and help with decision-making. They should be short-term and long-term and make the company’s progress measurable.
2. Establish flexible processes and structures: Agile processes and structures enable the company to react and adapt quickly to changes. This includes, for example, the introduction of agile methods such as Scrum or Kanban.
3. Promote a culture of agility: An agile culture relies on people working together, promoting learning and the ability to adapt to change. This also includes the willingness to allow mistakes and learn from them.
4. Empower and support employees: Agility requires a high degree of responsibility and initiative from employees. Companies should therefore empower and support their employees by giving them the necessary resources and freedom.
5. Keep customer needs in focus: Agile companies are able to react quickly to customer needs and adapt to changing market conditions. This also includes regularly incorporating customer feedback into the decision-making process.

Moreover, external experts can assist with introducing agility into the company. Some examples include:

• The Agile Coach: An Agile Coach is a person who supports the company in introducing and implementing agility. They can assist with selecting the right agile methods, introducing agile processes and structures, and training employees.
• Agile Consulting: Agile consulting firms offer support for introducing agility within the company. They can assist with selecting suitable agile methods, implementing agile processes and structures, and training employees.
• Agile Training: There are many training courses and certifications in the field of agility that can support companies in adopting agile practices. Examples include Scrum Master certification or the use of the SAFe® framework.

It is important to note that agility is a continuous process, and companies must constantly work on their processes and structures to remain agile. There is no “done” when it comes to agility.

The post What actually is agility? More than just a buzzword? first appeared on Nerd Republic.