Context Considered: Focusing Agile Investments for a Better Return

Jim York
Apr 26, 2019
1:00 pm - 1:45 pm

Context Considered: Focusing Agile Investments for a Better Return

Abstract

“Organizations invest a lot of money, time, and energy in Agile. Arguably weíre decades into the Agile game. We should be pretty good with this Agile stuff by now. So why are we not consistently seeing good results? Why do some Agile initiatives fizzle out? Why do some organizations abandon Agile in favor of the next big fad? In other words, why are we not seeing the bang for the buck?

Maybe it ís because we can’t see the trees for the forest. Yes, I know it’s typically the other way around. What I mean is that we are so caught up in Agile as an idea that we donít focus our investments on the relevant parts of Agile that matter most to that which we wish to achieve. Agile ain’t cheap. So why invest in those parts that don’t matter? The trick is to identify which do.

Jim York shares insights on how to target your Agile investments for better return.”

Learning Objectives

“This workshop connects intentionality, experimentation, and adaption using the Agile Fluency Model, focusing on the interaction between leadership and the self-organizing team.

At the conclusion of this workshop, the participants will be able to:

  • List 3 critical success factors for getting better results from their agile investment
  • Establish context for strategic improvement
  • Describe how to use self-organization to check for alignment of team goals with strategic organizational improvement goals

Session Outline:

Why does context matter?

  • Three critical success factors for getting better results from your agile investment – setting context
  • checking alignment
  • re-aligning based on feedback

How to set context

  • Invoking the Agile Manifesto’s first value: checking alignment by valuing individuals and interactions over process and tools
  • (Re-)charting a path to organizational improvement: adjusting course based on feedback”

When/Where Presented Before

“Iíve presented variations of this session at the Global Scrum GatheringÆ Prague 2015; Washington DC Scrum Userís Group; Agile Professionals; QAI Global Institute Quest Conference; and Agile Leadership Network (ALN), Washington, DC.

Sample of my speaking style: https://www.dropbox.com/s/poayhr457hd9v0k/Jim York Speaking Style.mp4?dl=0”