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Agile for Executives (1 day workshop)

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What is Agile?

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It seems that everyone has a different idea about what Agile means.  You can’t move forward until you achieve a common vision.  Then you can choose how to make Agile work for your teams. 

Agile is not a single methodology.  Agile is an umbrella heading that defines a philosophy with foundational principles to follow that help us solve the problems faced in the complexity of software development.  We will explore the core principles and introduce some of the methodologies that are based on these principles.  We will connect the ‘Why of Agile’ to the ‘What of Agile’ showing how the ‘What’ helps you accomplish the ‘Why’ and providing the basis for tailoring Agile practices to your specific needs.

 

Adopting Agile – What is the Path to Adoption?

 

Why is it so hard to do Agile?  Because Agile is fundamentally different than a traditional SDLC.  Your management team is probably used to the traditional approach: Big Requirements Definition upfront – Create the Plan – and then develop the software according to these pre-defined requirements, following the Plan.  Agile follows a path of Progressive Elaboration of requirements.  This requires major mindset shifts. 

We will discuss the impact of this non-traditional Agile approach on your organization.  We will introduce the pre-project discovery steps that lead up to investing budget in an Agile project, and discuss how progress and status tracking is different.  Based on all of this, we will define the path to Agile Adoption in your organization.

 

A Flexible Workshop

The Agile Executive Workshop is Agile in approach.  We focus on meeting the needs of the group of executives and leaders taking the class.  The base material of this class could be covered in as little as ½ day but ASPE has a wide curriculum covering many aspects of Agile.  Within the standard 1-day allocated for this class, other Agile topics can be explored according the needs and desires of the participants.  Your Agile instructor will have deep knowledge of the subject and be able to go down paths of interest as determined by the class participants or determined prior to the class running.

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Limited only by the amount of time available, some additional topics that can be explored include:

 

  • Scaling Agile to large enterprises and applications

  • Managing Distributed Agile Teams

  • Deeper dive into a specific Agile method (e.g. Lean, Scrum, Kanban or Extreme Programming  - XP)

  • Automated Testing (an Agile enabler)

  • Relative Estimating using Story Points

  • Pitfalls to avoid in an Agile implementation

  • Agile Project Management

  • Creating an Agile Adoption Roadmap

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  1. Defining the Challenges of Software Development

    • Making the Case for Change

    • What is the problem Agile is trying to solve?

  2. Defining the Agile Proposition

    • Why Agile

    • The Agile Paradigm

    • Agile Basics

    • Agile Manifesto and Principles

    • Agile Methodologies

    • Five Levels of Agile Planning

    • Agile Benefits — including industry data, survey results and personal experience

  3. The Path to Agile Adoption

    • Dealing with Barriers to Agile Adoption

    • An Agile Organization

    • Driving Investment Decisions with Agile

    • The path to successful Agile adoption

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