Suggested Leadership Actions

In the next chapter, I will introduce the course’s first key principle: Inspect and Adapt. As you’ll see, I find the phrase “Inspect and Adapt” a useful shorthand for an appropriate, effective focus in Agile development. Agile teams and the leaders of Agile teams should regularly investigate and evolve most factors in their efforts. This principle is so important that I have included “Suggested Leadership Actions”—organized into Inspect and Adapt activities—at the end of each chapter.

Use these prompts to look into the realities of your teams’ work and interactions and to choose modifications that might lead to improvements for your teams.

Inspect

• Reflect on the degree to which you’ve previously considered Agile to be an all-or-nothing proposition. To what degree has that affected your approach to improving management and technical practices?

• Talk to at least three technical leaders in your organization. Ask them what they mean by “Agile.” Ask them what specific practices they are referring to. To what degree do your technical leaders agree on what Agile means? Do they agree on what is not Agile?

• Talk to non-technical leaders about what Agile means to them. How do they perceive the boundary or interface between their work and your software teams?

• Review your project portfolio in terms of the emphases described in the previous lesson’s table. Rate your projects on each factor, with 1 being entirely Sequential and 5 being entirely Agile.

Adapt

• Write down a preliminary approach to drawing the “Agile boundary” in your organization.
• Write a list of questions to answer as you read the rest of this course.