Learning on Agile #1
After several months of learning about the Scaled Agile Framework — from attending classes and taking exam, to weekly coaching sessions and actually leading an Agile Release Train, I’ve started keeping a journal to capture all my lessons learnt, reflection and questions so far.
I thought it’d be great to share them here with my Linkedin connections so that it may benefit some of you who are on the same learning journey, and I could learn from your experiences too! especially the Agile concept appears to be much more widely adopted in IT projects than in the other business processes such as sales & marketing, HR, etc.
My first takeaway from these few months was that there’s misconception towards ‘Agile’ which is often used as a synonym for ‘Fast’. It’s often misinterpreted as a way of doing things that prioritise speed over quality, governance and control.
Indeed efficiency is a big part of the Agile concept. However there’s also very well-structured processes and disciplines that go with the pursuit of efficiency. For example, there are regular sessions (known as Programme Increment Planning) where product development ideas are presented, with the business value and efforts estimated fo each of them, so that the cross-functional team have a clear and aligned development roadmap.
Quality is another key focus. After each product is developed, there’s assessment on the actual value delivered vs what was expected, to ensure that customers’ expectation is met and business benefits realised. In fact, the absence of proper quality control would mean there’s more re-work to fix the defects, which will in turn lower the overall efficiency.
How can they complete the cleaning of a shinkansen bullet train properly within 7 minutes?
The secret all lies in the structured process and quality control behind it.
Will be back and share more from my Agile learning journey!
