Q: Can Agile be used outside software projects? For example Business Transformation? What methodology is best for such a project?
A: <<Becoming an agile business – an adaptive, responsive, and learning organization – is your true goal. Business agility requires true agility across all of your organization, not just software development, not just DevOps, and not just IT. There isn’t a single industry now that either isn’t dominated by agile businesses or isn’t under threat of disruption by new agile competitors. Not one.>> see more at https://www.pmi.org/disciplined-agile/books/exec-guide-to-da
Q: Is DA tool very commonly used in transformation?
The purpose of DA is to provide support to achieve business agility (an adaptive and efficient organization). Not only development, DevOps, and IT, but all organization areas (Enterprise Architecture, Portfolio Management, Security, Finance, Vendor Management and others). See the link from previous question.
Q: Do you have like a blueprint of how DA should be used as a tool?
There are some logical steps:
- Analyze your context: stable / changing requirements; high / low incertitude; scaling factors , specific to your context, that increase difficulties and complexity
- Select a development life-cycle from several agile-lean options (Agile, Lean-Kanban, Continuous Delivery, Exploratory)
- Decide what process capabilties you need to improve / support. Examples: Explore Scope, Improve Quality, Grow Team Members, Coordinate Actvities, Portfolio Management, Reuse Engineering, Security
- Use DA guidance to select from various options related to practices and way of working pereach selected process capability
You can use Scrum, XP, SAFE or Kanban and also use DA for more guidance, improvement and adapt to your concrete situation.
See solution delivery process capabilities
See enterprise level process capabilities
Q: Why is it so hard to put agile values into practice?
Unfortunately, too often the path chosen is wrong or “closed”. Agile aims to build / improve software development capabilities (or other areas).
How can you be wrong?
- Use word “mindset”, but don’t talk about agile values and principles
- “Method prison” – use only a small set of practices from a specific method
- Refuse to understand that Scrum is incomplete by definition and you need to add more practices
- Use only a too narrow Agile guidance and unprepared and un-experienced coaches
- Management directed agile adoption with a one size fit all approach
AGILE & LEAN 