The Agile Consultant

Learn the agile philosophy of lean processes, incremental delivery, deep client participation, decentralized authority, and just-in-time planning to bring speed, creativity, empowerment and increased productivity to product development. This book is your guide to becoming the go-to advisor for the enterprise agile transition. Many organizations have brought in agile coaches and achieved great progress in software development productivity, only to find teams slipping back into old methods as they encounter enterprise resistance and dysfunction. The consultative skills required to engage at the enterprise level differ greatly from those needed to coach teams in agile practices. Agile coaches and consultants need to up their game to successfully partner with executives, managers, and PMOs to evolve from traditional methods to a lean, agile mindset. The Agile Consultant, by former Intel Worldwide Project Management Director and agile expert Rick Freedman, author of Amazon best-seller The IT Consultant, shows how to overcome transition challenges and move beyond team-level practice coaching to guide the entire organization to enterprise agility. Agile methods are displacing traditional, process-heavy project management techniques, and are poised to migrate from software development to the rest of IT, and to the entire enterprise. Agile’s rapid adoption proves a simple truth: agility works! Agile methods are here to stay, and will continue to expand within the organization. Enterprises are rapidly moving beyond agile development to agile IT, agile marketing, and agile strategic planning. Enterprises need agile coaches and consultants to guide them towards achieving the benefits of agility. What You'll Learn Instill effective agile practices across the enterprise Coach teams, managers, and executives in learning, adopting, and practicing lean and agile strategies Diagnose the roadblocks and obstacles most organizations encounter during the transition to agile Use recognized change-management techniques to guide the enterprise to agility while minimizing disruption and resistance Navigate the many challenges that can derail the transition to agility Demonstrate the critical mix of facilitation, interpersonal, and relationship skills to help organizations succeed with agile Guide the corporate culture toward agility from the top down and the bottom up Evolve from old school project management thinking to a lean, agile mindset Who This Book Is For Besides IT consultants, The Agile Consultant will also appeal to developer teams, internal IT staffers and their managers, and to executives leading the transition to agile development.

Since the release of the “Agile Manifesto” in 2001, Forrester Research reports that a majority of IT shops have now adopted some agile practices. This rapid adoption proves a simple truth: agile works—especially compared with the documentation-heavy, slow project management methods of the past. Why? The agile philosophy of innovation, incremental development, deep client participation, decentralized authority, and just-in-time development brings speed, time-saving creativity, and increased productivity to product development. But the widespread adoption of agile methods doesn’t mean organizations are getting all the benefits agile can provide. As with any rapid migration, agile has brought resistance and challenges that can be difficult to overcome. The Agile Consultant, by former Intel worldwide project management director and agile expert Rick Freedman, shows how to overcome challenges and roadblocks so organizations realize all the benefits agile methods can provide. The Agile Consultant will explain not just the basics of the agile thinking, but it will explain how to: Instill effective agile practices in an organization Diagnose problems most organizations encounter during the transition to agile Eliminate the many roadblocks that can otherwise derail a move to agile Acquire and provide the right mix of facilitation, interpersonal, and relationship skills to help organizations succeed with agile Help the corporate culture swing toward agile without too much turbulence Coach others in learning, adopting, and practicing agile methods Eliminate “old school” project management thinking Agile methods are here to stay, and most organizations will need a coach/consultant to get the benefits agile promises. The Agile Consultant shows you how to become the go-to coach for all things agile.

Since the release of the “Agile Manifesto” in 2001, Forrester Research reports that a majority of IT shops have now adopted some agile practices. This rapid adoption proves a simple truth: agile works—especially compared with the documentation-heavy, slow project management methods of the past. Why? The agile philosophy of innovation, incremental development, deep client participation, decentralized authority, and just-in-time development brings speed, time-saving creativity, and increased productivity to product development. But the widespread adoption of agile methods doesn’t mean organizations are getting all the benefits agile can provide. As with any rapid migration, agile has brought resistance and challenges that can be difficult to overcome. The Agile Consultant, by former Intel worldwide project management director and agile expert Rick Freedman, shows how to overcome challenges and roadblocks so organizations realize all the benefits agile methods can provide. The Agile Consultant will explain not just the basics of the agile thinking, but it will explain how to: Instill effective agile practices in an organization Diagnose problems most organizations encounter during the transition to agile Eliminate the many roadblocks that can otherwise derail a move to agile Acquire and provide the right mix of facilitation, interpersonal, and relationship skills to help organizations succeed with agile Help the corporate culture swing toward agile without too much turbulence Coach others in learning, adopting, and practicing agile methods Eliminate “old school” project management thinking Agile methods are here to stay, and most organizations will need a coach/consultant to get the benefits agile promises. The Agile Consultant shows you how to become the go-to coach for all things agile.

When an Agile coach leaves an organization, the changes developed during their tenure should not roll backward. Compliance is somewhat easy to install and takes hold rather quickly. The challenge with that approach is that when the forcing mechanism (Agile coach) is removed, much of the compliance rolls back to the original position. Sustainable change requires a different strategy. This book introduces the concept of utilizing an Invitational Approach to Enterprise Agile Coaching which can be a crucial catalyst for integrating sustainable change by putting the client in the seat of responsibility.

The Provocative and Practical Guide to Coaching Agile Teams As an agile coach, you can help project teams become outstanding at agile, creating products that make them proud and helping organizations reap the powerful benefits of teams that deliver both innovation and excellence. More and more frequently, ScrumMasters and project managers are being asked to coach agile teams. But it’s a challenging role. It requires new skills—as well as a subtle understanding of when to step in and when to step back. Migrating from “command and control” to agile coaching requires a whole new mind-set. In Coaching Agile Teams, Lyssa Adkins gives agile coaches the insights they need to adopt this new mind-set and to guide teams to extraordinary performance in a re-energized work environment. You’ll gain a deep view into the role of the agile coach, discover what works and what doesn’t, and learn how to adapt powerful skills from many allied disciplines, including the fields of professional coaching and mentoring. Coverage includes Understanding what it takes to be a great agile coach Mastering all of the agile coach’s roles: teacher, mentor, problem solver, conflict navigator, and performance coach Creating an environment where self-organized, high-performance teams can emerge Coaching teams past cooperation and into full collaboration Evolving your leadership style as your team grows and changes Staying actively engaged without dominating your team and stunting its growth Recognizing failure, recovery, and success modes in your coaching Getting the most out of your own personal agile coaching journey Whether you’re an agile coach, leader, trainer, mentor, facilitator, ScrumMaster, project manager, product owner, or team member, this book will help you become skilled at helping others become truly great. What could possibly be more rewarding?

The profession of Agile Coaching is, in a word, confusing. That's because of a number of factors, including:?It gets conflated with Professional Coaching and it's so much more than that;?There isn't a standard or generally accepted model for what it is and isn't;?Clients don't understand it, so shared accountability is unbalanced with their coaches;?There is specialized nuance around the skills of coaching at the Team, Enterprise or Organizational, Technical, and Leadership levels.This confusion has created a space where nearly anyone can claim to be an Agile Coach with little experience and narrow skills. Resulting largely in mediocrity and negative impacts for our clients, who by the way, are counting on and paying us for help.Bob Galen has written Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coaching to help alleviate the confusion. The book centers on the Agile Coaching Growth Wheel as the competency and skill maturity model to baseline your agile coaching skills against. Its core goal is to "raise the bar" as to what true excellence looks like and to help you establish a personal development and growth plan.Bob intentionally uses the term Badass to create a vision of professionalism, craft, passion, accountability, and expertise that you need to bring to bear in service of your clients if you represent yourself as an "agile coach".Being an Extraordinarily Badass Agile Coach isn't easy, quick, or for the faint of heart. It takes lots of hard work and dedication. It also requires a map to point you in the right direction. Consider this book that map to coaching badassery, personal growth, and client service.

Agile has the power to transform work--but only if it's implemented the right way. For decades business leaders have been painfully aware of a huge chasm: They aspire to create nimble, flexible enterprises. But their day-to-day reality is silos, sluggish processes, and stalled innovation. Today, agile is hailed as the essential bridge across this chasm, with the potential to transform a company and catapult it to the head of the pack. Not so fast. In this clear-eyed, indispensable book, Bain & Company thought leader Darrell Rigby and his colleagues Sarah Elk and Steve Berez provide a much-needed reality check. They dispel the myths and misconceptions that have accompanied agile's rise to prominence--the idea that it can reshape an organization all at once, for instance, or that it should be used in every function and for all types of work. They illustrate that agile teams can indeed be powerful, making people's jobs more rewarding and turbocharging innovation, but such results are possible only if the method is fully understood and implemented the right way. The key, they argue, is balance. Every organization must optimize and tightly control some of its operations, and at the same time innovate. Agile, done well, enables vigorous innovation without sacrificing the efficiency and reliability essential to traditional operations. The authors break down how agile really works, show what not to do, and explain the crucial importance of scaling agile properly in order to reap its full benefit. They then lay out a road map for leading the transition to a truly agile enterprise. Agile isn't a goal in itself; it's a means to becoming a high-performance operation. Doing Agile Right is a must-have guide for any company trying to make the transition--or trying to sustain high agility.