How to implement Agile ?

Establish a governance body

Risks, issues, dependencies and impediments arise in most change management efforts. These must be tracked and mitigated or avoided. Resolution often requires interaction with stakeholders and customers, and in some cases, with leadership (executive sponsors). Open communication and collaboration is a key agile principle and imperative to risk mitigation and successful implementation. Include clearly defined processes for prioritization and resolution to any changes or problems that could derail your efforts and implement a communication structure. Include points of contact from all impacted stakeholder groups and sponsors who are visible and accountable.

Define your sprint

Have a defined end goal in mind. However you can’t expect change to happen over night. Break the tasks up into iterations, or sprints. Whether you choose 7, 14 day “sprints” decide what the timeline is going to be for each and what specific tasks will be completed within that sprint. This allows you to make incremental progress, while tracking dependencies and impediments, maximizing the team’s efforts to manage the project and changes effectively long term.

Daily stand-up

Consistency and communication increase the chances of a successful project. Each day hold a stand-up, only about a 15 minute meeting. This daily stand up is the opportunity for every member of the team to discuss what they did yesterday, what they’re doing today, what road blocks they foresee and what information they may require from others to complete tasks.

Sprint retrospective

Though some projects move at a rapid pace most bring about change and successful change can’t be rushed. Don’t immediately go to the next sprint. When one phase ends, time is needed to reflect on what went well and why, and what didn’t, prior to moving ahead. This continuous learning cycle helps to refine the process and contributes to future success.

Communication

Whether it’s with stakeholders, among members of the team, or anyone else within the organization, make sure all impacted parties are informed about what is going on, when it’s going to happen, and how it’s going to directly impact them.

Despite agile mainly being a product development and project management practice, the principles can be used to manage the people side of change as well. You need to have a scrum master who is also skilled in change management, and is able to also lead and manage people.