This post is part of a series on Measuring and Managing Agile Maturity. Click here to start at the beginning.
Collaborating Discipline
We’ll start with the Collaborating Discipline, because without a cohesive team that works well together, there is a reasonably high business risk that an organization will struggle to achieve any true measure of either software or business agility. The key practices that comprise this collaborating agility discipline, and need to be assessed and measured, are:
- Cross-Functional Teams: Full complement of skills to “get the job done”
- Co-Located Teams: Enables frequent, real-time communication
- Small/Self-Managing Teams: Enables self-forming and self-directing teams
- Real Customer Involvement: Active business participation in the projects
- Stand-Up Meeting: Regular meetings to share progress against objectives
- Information Radiators: Provide graphic depiction of “current state”
- Sustainable Pace: Work productively at high-energy consistently
Assessing and measuring not only an organization’s business and technical skills, but also the interaction frequency and quality of information exchange, is a critical measure of an organization’s ability to achieve business agility. Information transparency and frequent communication are the cornerstones for this discipline.
Defining Discipline
Patterns are emerging in successful businesses regarding their ability to capture the real needs of their customers, and then carefully monitor and manage changes to these requirements to ensure the timely delivery of the highest priority requirements at the lowest costs. The key measurable practices that comprise this defining agility discipline and that need to be assessed and measured are:
- Estimating: Enables the team to predict how long its work will take
- Change Control: Managing rapid changes to source code
- User Stories: Forms the line items in the team’s plan
- Executable Requirements: Defining tests that demonstrate requirements
- Incremental Requirements: Allows the team a “quick start” with customers
- Ubiquitous Language: Helps team members understand each other
Assessing and measuring the ability to capture clear user requirements, predictably estimate the level of effort to deliver these requirement to the end user while embracing unavoidable change to both the requirements and their priorities are essential to achieving maturity against this discipline.