Part 5: How can I get this happening in my team today?

So I’ve given you a lot of knowledge and wisdom here but how do you actually get started on these things in your team?

You have to start small.

You can’t win until you Start and often you won’t Start unless you Start Small. #smallbatches creates an end goal within reach. It’s that attainable conclusion which gives one the drive to set out in the first place. I forced myself to put the first version of this ebook together in a week. As I type this line I’m somewhere in between day 4/5 and day 5/5 (yes, it’s late at night). I feel like about here I should be starting to dislike writing but the surprising thing is that I’m still driven to push through. Why? I think it’s because I know I’ll be done soon. I’ll be getting this thing online and for sale. I’ll be getting it in your hands and hopefully helping some of you succeed better. I’m really looking forward to that! If I gave myself 4 weeks off and set my goals 4 times more lofty, I can almost guarantee that I’d quit before finishing. Don’t leave failure to chance. Better the odds by starting small.

Start with the most important and critical cornerstone of an agile process - the Retro. Go back and re-read the above section The Retrospective. Then make a start on it. Discuss it over lunch with your team; or copy this ebook for your team and have them read it too. Then schedule the first meeting and make it launch with a bang - get those beers and maybe even a meal happening. Take your manager out to lunch and get her excited and passionate about it. She might then see the vision and help support you. Get creative or crazy if you need to: buy everyone a little seedling plant and hand-write a label “I want to grow, please come to the Retro!” or something else satisfactorily lame. Get it done!

Do your stakeholders need convincing?

Did you know you can actually measure the value of a process? I’ve used a pulse survey tool called 6q before with small teams. It allows you to survey team members at a weekly interval with a very low barrier to entry: 6 questions. Each question is a one-liner and the answer is a click of an emoticon image: sad face, meh or a happy face. It takes to minutes to complete and if you can get this happening before introducing any aspects of this process then you’re data is even better - you have a baseline! I could go into this more but the point is that qualitative data can be just as useful to bring those management types over the line who need the “hard numbers” so to speak. You can measure team morale, engagement, happiness and perceived productivity before and after process changes and the data will speak for itself.

What new part of your project is Low Risk?

Taking a small vertical might be straightforward. But which small vertical? Try to find one that most agree is low risk and therefore low impact if it doesn’t go to plan. This way you’re going to have an easier time if, for example, you try a hybrid approach: one where you continue your existing process and tooling, but divide off this new low-risk work and try #agileforteams. Small is low-risk by default because of it’s reduced quantity. But if you can find something that your stakeholders also see as low-risk then you’ve got even better odds of getting some traction.

Just bite the bullet and do a Hard Cutover.

Choose a new phase and do a hard cut over - it’s just an experiment, no one will die, you can go back. You can even time box this. e.g. “we will try this for the next 10 weeks of work and then switch back”. You’re already doing Retros so that’s a good opportunity to review things. If you haven’t yet launched your first Retro then the end of this time-boxed experiment is a great justification for your pilot Retro. If the outcome of the Retro is that the new process didn’t help then revert. “No big deal.” you will say, knowing that the odds are that it will be something the team will want to continue with. Just make sure that all of the stakeholders and team are present - you want to ensure that management acknowledges the different types of value a process like this can bring and so you better not exclude the folks who are willing to share those benefits.