- 4.1 Goals of Agile Process Maturity
- 4.2 Why Is Agile Process Improvement Important?
- 4.3 Where Do I Start?
- 4.4 Understanding Agile Process Maturity
- 4.5 Applying the Principles
- 4.6 Recognition by the Agile Community
- 4.7 Consensus within the Agile Community
- 4.8 What Agile Process Maturity Is Not
- 4.9 What Does an Immature Agile Process Look Like?
- 4.10 Problems with Agile
- 4.11 Waterfall Pitfalls
- 4.12 The Items on the Right
- 4.13 Agile Coexisting with Non-Agile
- 4.14 IT Governance
- 4.15 ALM and the Agile Principles
- 4.16 Agile as a Repeatable Process
- 4.17 Deming and Quality Management
- 4.18 Agile Maturity in the Enterprise
- 4.19 Continuous Process Improvement
- 4.20 Measuring the ALM
- 4.21 Vendor Management
- 4.22 Hardware Development
- 4.23 Conclusion
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
4.3 Where Do I Start?
The toughest part of implementing mature agile processes is figuring out where to start. I usually start by assessing existing practices and fully understand what works well and what needs to be improved. It is common for me to find that some practices work just fine in one organization that I would have expected were the source of problems. I find that sometimes less-than-perfect processes and procedures may not really be the pain point that one would expect—usually because of the organizational culture. Obviously, trying to fix something that isn’t broken will not be very successful, and you will likely find that you do not have much credibility with the key stakeholders if they just don’t feel that you are focused on solving the most important problems. In these situations, I communicate my concerns and then focus on what they want me to work on, although I know that they will come back to me and ask for help when things go wrong.
Getting started with agile process maturity is certainly an essential first step. Being successful with agile ALM requires that you understand what agile process maturity is all about.