Introduction to the Agile Methodology for Non-IT Teams
Agile Methodology adoption is on the rise. From a mere 37% in 2020 to 86% in 2021, the spike in agile adoption has left the business world stunned.
Be it Scrum, SAFe, or LeSS, agile frameworks have been in growing demand than ever before.
With a sizable number of organizations keen on introducing Agile to non-IT teams, here’s a guide that will help if you too want to test the waters.
What is Agile Methodology?
Agile is a time-bound Agile Project Management methodology that follows an iterative approach that builds software in increments from the start till the completion of the project.
It breaks down the larger project into phases and then builds the requirements in timeboxed iterations which typically last 2-4 weeks.
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Ways to introduce Agile to Non-IT Teams
Here are 4 ways that will help you simplify the agile introduction to your non-IT teams-
- Educate the team about the values and benefits of agile
The four agile values form the base for the Agile framework.
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
As for the benefits of Agile, teams that use Agile have reported excellent product quality, decreased risk, easy to monitor progress, high level project control, and enhanced project predictability.
- Define the roles and responsibilities
Since non-IT teams will be overwhelmed with the use of Agile terms, here’s a non-IT definition of roles.
- Agile Leader – The person responsible for the team’s transformation and delivery
- Stakeholders – Internal and external members who have authority over feature requests and priorities
- Team – The team members are a functional specialist
The Agile Leader is the person who will lead the Agile Transformation while stakeholders are the members who seek approval for deliverables and the purpose.
- Create a task backlog
A backlog is a list of tasks for all the members of the team that is updating regularly. It can either be a physical whiteboard or a virtual kanban board. The backlog must be accessible to all members of the team.
It should highlight priorities and their order of implementation. It is ranked in a way that it is self-explanatory and can be done with minimal or no help.
The Agile Leader needs to regularly maintain and manage the backlog.
- Create a agile process
There are Scrum events which are a process of how product iterations are built in increments. Here is a 3 step agile process for non IT teams to follow-
- Agile leaders utilize their team’s skills and interactions with stakeholders to collect priorities and identify work demand. Each priority is then put into a list or ‘backlog,’ prioritized, and individually broken down into smaller pieces of work called ‘tasks.’
- The Team selects the most important tasks and decides how much of those can be completed over the next cycle and then they agree upon it.
- Each day, the team spends about 15 minutes discussing what’s been accomplished or what’s still outstanding. The team spends a large portion of their time reading and writing internal documentation for things like defining the goals of a specific project, defining whether or not the project is on schedule, or providing instructions on how to reconcile accounts if someone else is working on that aspect of the business.
- When the project is nearing its end, each member spends some quality time thinking about what went well and what didn’t. Additionally, the team discusses ways of increasing effectiveness for the next release by reading through customer feedback, analyzing the cycle’s performance, discussing ideas and making plans to implement any new necessities that might have arisen.
- Keep your Agile cycles steady and sustainable
The Agile Leader has to ensure that every Agile Cycle produces a satisfactory business value. The pace should be steady and sustainable without making the team stressed or burn out.
With smooth Agile cycles, you will be able to-
- Meet the expectations of the stakeholders
- Roll out a formal prioritization process
- Discuss and determine the business value
- Offer predictions on delivery dates
- Be adaptive to changes
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Why choose Agilemania as your training partner
Agilemania was born out of passion for Agile principles and a dedication to excellence that its founders’ have always had in delivering value to their clients.
At the same time, Agilemania has dedicated coaches who have deep expertise when it comes to transforming teams along the principles of Agile.
This means that not only can you be assured original contributions from Agilemania’s team members, but you’ll also be working with partners who have built a reputation over the years as the definitive leaders in this field, especially in South & Southeast Asia where they’re gaining widespread traction, but no less so in markets such as the US and Europes.
We provide customized solutions for special problems. We believe every industry and company is unique, and hence there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.
Agilemania is led by a team of highly trained and experienced Agile coaches. Each has helped manage numerous transformation and organizational shifts, enabling their customers to meet or exceed their business goals. We also have an in-house trainer whose degree is foundational to Lean/Agile principles; she understands the mind and body that cultivate potential in individuals, teams, and ultimately organizations.
Another milestone we’re proud of is the 4.9 rating on Trustpilot for Agilemania which proves the excellence in our expertise.
