Agile Way to Change Management

 

With the continuous and rapidly changing business and customer needs, the way of handling organizations and project management is also changing with every passing day. The agile way of project management is the most popular framework for managing projects. But various organizations use waterfall change management. Some of them are eagerly trying to introduce agile in already using traditional change management, or introduce change management into agile. Even change management in agile and change management moving from waterfall to agile, for organizations make its adoption and adjustment an important aspect.

Many will say why use change management when we are already updating for agile? The importance of change management can be explained as change is eternal and cannot be avoided, in business change management provides a constant pace and usage of change making a successful adoption of change. When it comes to agile, the iterative and faster nature of agile makes change management an important aspect of achieving results. The company's transition to agile becomes somewhat rocky and expensive in time and resources without an effective organization of change management.

In today’s article, we will discuss introducing change management in agile as it is the most chosen adaptation in organizations. Before going through the process let’s overlook on obstacles enterprises have to go through.

·       Absence of understanding and gratitude for change management

·       High ability for incremental change

·       Increase speed

·       Resistance of Organizational

·       Struggle with middle managers due to their resistance

·       Focus on the story causes negligence in the planning of operationalizing of product

Let's see how to achieve change management in agile.

When it comes to achieving change management and agile it means speeding up the traditional working. The mini waves of change are created to take place with the delivery of business change. These mini waves are only created when the organization has a well-developed methodology for leading its staff to change. To support people to go through a change in creating these mini waves requires some elements which are mentioned below.

Scope- Ensure to make a list of all to be changed and not changed things as a result of project deliverables. Change management in agile must have better communication where everyone is responsible for project delivery and the ones who are responsible for creating new ways are sharing a lot of information. This is needed to be done as change will affect the ones who are involved.

Stakeholder Analysis and Impact Assessment- Identification of who will change the way of working must be done to deliver the required change. To have the required result also ensures to have impact assessment for examining the data, metrics, standards, and processes it involves.

Change Message- Once the changes are ensured also make sure to ask the basic question of who needs to be indicated of these changes and how much the customer and suppliers need to know about the change.

Change Plan- List out all the changing activities that facilitate the impact of to involve in the change and capture it in the plan.

Training, Coaching and Readiness Assessment- To make it possible ensure to provide training and coaching to the people for transitioning them to a new way of working and also to have a readiness assessment to know that all the preparations have been completed.

To have the easy and effective implementation of iterative change management in agile below are some tips.

Embrace the Change and Adjust- Change management methodologies, acceptance criteria, and design requirements are constantly changing so it is necessary to embrace change and ensure to meet the user's requirement if not then adjust to change to meet the request.

Design Customer's Expectations- Instead of only going with written requirement design creation make customer informed about its application and functionality. Always ensure that the delivery of a product is within the customer’s requirement time and expectations then only it is a success.

From Start Emphasize on User Story- Always prioritize and go with higher value user stories from the start. A higher value means most valued and necessary for customers. This also helps in managing delays and changes early.

Review and Prioritize Changes- Product owners must always prioritize changes during code iterations for developers. By comparing with existing user stories they must also determine how developers will logically and effectively code them.

Keep Updated and Accurate User Stories- Product owners must always keep updated and accurate user stories and their acceptance data. It will avoid wrong code writing by the developer saving time and effort.

Handle Change Effectively- Instead of wasting days or weeks on managing and deciding on change, it is wise that product owners gather developers to discuss it and have decision-making quickly and effectively.

There is always room to improve that’s what the agile mindset also implies. As change management is not going anywhere soon it is wise to find an easy way to implement change and adopt it with other systems to achieve your goals swiftly and effectively.

We, at Advance Agility, are the new-age Agile Coaching, Consulting and IT services company. We enable end-to-end Digital Transformation. Agile execution is integral to our being. We are doing SAFe implementation with small, medium and large organization across the globe. Our vision is to be the leading Agile execution player globally. To keep adding value at every process stage. We are on a mission to empower our clients, move from concept to cash in the shortest sustainable lead time by adopting human centric approach to business agility. Embracing the change is in our DNA. Things that keep us apart are Quicker and Seamless execution with End-to-end gamut of services. Our Global presence and Stellar Track Record give us an edge over our competitor.

Connect with us at advanceagility.com to learn about SAFe and SAFe Implementation. We provide various SAFe certification courses along with DevOps, Scrum, Agile Coaching and more trainings. Write to us at contact@advanceagilty.com for any agile training or consulting needs. We are always looking for competent agile trainers as well. So if you are a good trainer or want to become one, do get in touch with us to that we can learn, grow and achieve together.