Vikrant Mahajan

Founding members of Agile came together to launch a charter that would enable software product organizations to release fast and enable adoption of changing business paradigm late in release cycles. Most of the members were geeks who had poignantly faced challenges in traditional software world and therefore brainstormed to launch a methodology that was lean and adaptive.

While the manifesto lists down the intent, many have twisted the real meaning and simply go by letter but not spirit. Worse, most people consider the various ceremonies as the benchmark that they have become Agile while in reality it is just a glossy act.

In my years of experience working with various product teams, I have learned that following the manifesto is easy but making people follow the spirit of Agile is the toughest thing to do. Importantly, the leaders who decide to adopt agile or its many forms in their teams are only interested in making members follow the writ than inculcate the spirit of innovation, focus on automation or even embrace “risk" to experiment which is so essential to find creative solutions.

I'd like to highlight the key recipe that a team should have before they even embark upon the Agile journey or think of becoming a competitive product development team. Agile done wrong will make the team crawl instead of running in consistent sprints (literally).

1. Mediocre talent is best let off

It is well known that A-players are motivated, engaged and creative while some B-players and all C-players just do the job by following conventional means and wait to get paid. A team would reach the zenith of productivity and quality if it is self-organized. Like the basic economic principle of laissez-faire, where it is assumed that markets correct themselves to come to an equilibrium, it is similarly assumed that a team which is self-organized will find a way to self-correct when they falter.

Yes, it is easier said than done. Majority of the organizations in the world just can’t have A-players for they are few in number and also come at a high cost. However, the team needs to have a fine balance of A players and some B players who are motivated enough to learn from A players. The leader has an important role to identify such a group. If the leader can’t invest in such a team, it is better to finesse whatever current development practice is being used and stop dreaming of emulating successful agile product teams. It ain’t happening !!

2. Tune the mindset - Psychological training is as important as technical

I have seen leaders jump onto the bandwagon of agile or related practices without realizing what it takes to succeed in that space. The biggest entry barrier to adoption is the old “mindset” that takes time to accept an inherently fluidic, engaging and dynamic landscape of development that reboots itself whenever the business changes its needs, exposing bad design sooner than later.

Before adoption of new tools and processes, a psychological coaching to change the mindset needs to happen. The long term benefits should be clearly laid down even though in short term the teams may expose their vulnerabilities too often which shouldn’t be a cause to worry but seen as an opportunity to clear the muck which wasn’t exposed yet.

3. Manual testing should be the first thing to be thrown out

Very simply put, if you are not investing in automation and not making it mandatory for development and QA (if any) to only rely on automation cases, give up the thought of going truly agile right now. You are fooling yourself, your team and your executive team by using the word “agile”. If by doing daily standup, maintaining Sprint boards, backlogs etc. makes you think you are agile and will conquer the world, keep living in that dream.

It is better to invest upfront in automation and ensure consistent quality instead of saving on budget and thinking of it as a factor in slowing the product launch. The cost of collecting a huge technical debt is going to be so unbearable in the end that it will lead to bankruptcy which can't be paid off eventually.

4. Emphasis shouldn't be on merely following ceremonies but on doing every step with spirit of excellence

Ceremonies, by virtue of their name sound interesting but the real value is shown only when they are understood deeply. Every individual in their lives encounter a lot of ceremonies; investiture ceremonies to graduation ceremonies to marriage ceremonies to uncountable other ceremonies. However, the act itself is easy and exciting when it is taking place, but the reality strikes when it has actually happened.

Similarly, various agile ceremonies will remain entangled in their own definitions if the team doesn’t imbibe the true spirit of each ceremony. Every single act such as, daily standup, grooming, planning, retrospective, demos etc. is done to ensure there is collaboration, enough quality or requirement checks are in place, design is scaleable etc. to meet the eventual business need and immediately change direction if needed. However, if dissent voices are curbed, meetings happen just to tick off a checklist, collaboration is not encouraged, mistakes ignored Or most importantly, excellence is an afterthought, failure is a certainty.

In conclusion, it is important to understand that methodologies will come and go, they will continue to be rediscovered in various shape and form but in my view, above 4 core principles are necessary to be adopted by leaders as the first thought and not as an after thought. Too many times the emphasis is on mimicking the success of other groups by following the easy part but ignoring the mentality they adopted in the first place which cannot be documented but only understood.

Feel the spirit behind each successful organization or team and read the unwritten to gain similar heights else methodologies such as Agile or any other will only make you crawl and not sprint !!

Vikrant Mahajan

Herndon, Virginia, United States 9K followers 500+ connections

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About

Experience

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Education

IIM Bangalore

Honors & Awards

Appreciation of the Month - Sep 2012, Feb 2013, Aug 2013, Sep 2014

hCentive Inc

Quarterly Award - Nov 2014

hCentive Inc

Recommendations received

Sanjay Singh

Mary Good

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