It’s in the White Spaces
There is a lot of focus on Agile practices in software development today. This is because, when practiced successfully, Agile engineering, collaboration, and management practices improve the ability to produce valuable software reliably and continuously. These new practices also create new possibilities that can improve the organizations ability to profitably deliver value to the customer. However, if you plan to realize the benefits of Agile by focusing only inside the software development organization, you are likely to be disappointed in the outcome.
When implementing Agile, there is a lot of time and energy invested in improving software development teams. Businesses don’t make this investment because they want to get better at software development. They are trying to improve their capabilities from “Identify Customer Need” all the way through to “Fulfill Customer Need”. The Agile team is only one part of the business ecosystem.
Agile Impacts the White Space
Implementing Agile practices in the software development team impacts their interactions with the other functions in the business. The frequency, content, and context of the interactions are different in Agile. As much as the Scrum and XP practices help improve performance within the development team, addressing what happens in the white space between functions is the key to implementing Agile in an organization. In an existing organization of any scale, these white spaces can’t be hidden behind a Product Owner where the challenges self-organize themselves out of existence.
Agile Teams have to integrate with existing Product Management. Based on their understanding of the market and customer needs Product Management has to make promises on the timing and profitability of products to a CFO who reports those promises to a board and to the public. They still have to support the BUFD (Big Up Front Design) Teams. This work is important to the organization and the Agile Team has to interact in a way that allows Product Management to keep these promises.
Agile Teams have to integrate with existing Project Management. Project Management has to make promises on releases regarding cost and timing. They manage risks (external to the Agile team), track and report status, coordinate procurement, arrange for resources, and manage the performance of the project through the phase gates to the governance committee. This work is important to the organization and the Agile Team has to interact in a way that allows Project Management to be successful.
Agile teams have to coordinate with Sales and Marketing, Accounting, Operations, Human Resources, and Customer Support to make sure they are aligned with the features and timing of a product release. These functional areas are key to the operation of the business and the delivery of value to the customer. The Agile Team has to interact in a way that allows them to perform successfully.
Optimize the Whole Value Stream
In most sizeable organizations the development team is not on an island with no dependencies. They need to operate in a way that they can help the other functions of the organization be successful (and vice versa). Implementing Agile with a myopic focus on the development team and a lack of understanding of the interactions within the organization can actually increase the cost to the organization of meeting the needs of the customer.
To gain benefit from Agile, you need to understand how the capabilities fit together within the organization to create value for the customer. Focus on scenarios where Agile practices can improve the flow of value to the customer and create a competitive advantage. Identify the conflicts in the white spaces that are in conflict with the processes and metrics that currently exist. The decisions you make about these conflicts will determine the level of benefit you can get from implementing Agile. If your functional metrics, processes and incentives do not align behavior in the White Spaces you won’t get the benefit.
Mike Cottmeyer over at Leading Agile is talking about scaling Agile across multiple teams. This is an important conversation and must be addressed to get benefit from Agile practices. But to truly realize the promise of Agile an organization must intentionally improve the interactions in the white spaces as well.
Subscribe via RSS
Thanks for the plug Dennis.
I wholeheartedly agree with you that taking agile beyond the team is critical to widespread agile adoption. Not only in concept but in terms of practical ‘how-to’ kinds of thinking. Our community needs to give guidance to the enterprise that meets them where they are… rather than where we hope them to be.
The team is the fundamental building block of the agile organization. We deliver the work of the business through teams. How we put those teams together to deliver broad value at the enterprise level is the key.
Great conversations… thanks for your contribution.
Managing the White Space is a phase used by Rummler and Brache in book “Improving Performance: Managing the White Space on the Organization Chart.”
Worth a look to see that the agile suggestions have been around for awhile and developed in other domain outside of software
Glen,
I have their book on my book shelf somewhere. I learned about the White Spaces in the mid-90’s when I was studying Deming and Senge (I believe Rummler and Brache quote Deming).
I completely agree with you that most of the Agile concepts have their origins in older general management practices. Jeff Sutherland has clearly stated this is the case. When I took the CSM course from him, he spent the first half of the first day discussing Theory of Constraints and Lean and how these concepts can be applied to Software Development. My brother, a Six Sigma Black Belt, finds some humor in the “new ideas” being discussed in the Lean Software Development movement (I am at the Lean Kanban conference in Miami this week).
My position is that we need to get better at project management, and produce better project managers faster. So I continue to investigate, teach, and apply project management practices from various origins.