Do you have a partnership with business colleagues and stakeholders aligned
to agile practices, culture, and mindset?
This question comes up a lot when speaking to product management, IT, and
data leaders who deliver innovations through agile releases. The teams may be agile and running scrum but leaders must also manage stakeholder expectations fixated on meeting a prescribed scope and
timelines.
This perspective, a carryover from waterfall projects, and having a
“business-led IT” mindset can be unpacked and realigned. But transforming
the collaboration between stakeholders, product owners, and agile teams
requires backing up several steps and explaining agile through a
stakeholder’s lens.
Define agile through a business stakeholder’s mindset
In my latest
5 Minutes with @NYIke episode, I
share two tools for explaining agile to stakeholders. The first explains
agile from a roadmap and release perspective, how agile helps break the big
boulders down to short release cycles, and why feedback loops are important
to stakeholders. The second tool is a set of building blocks to help leaders bring stakeholders
onto the agile bus.
You can find the video at the end of this post. I also recommend my
Everyone can be Agile
course, which can be transformative to agile streams struggling to collaborate
with stakeholders. The
StarCIO vision template
and our
agile planning programs
enable a more continuous planning process with stakeholders, and these are
key tools to changing to an agile, collaborative culture. You’ll also read
many of my best agile stories in my new book,
Digital Trailblazer.
Understand and address the source of detraction
As an agile leader, you will have to invest
significant time and energy to bring stakeholders on board with agile
practices. Some may be
agile detractors, which I covered in a previous post and video, but most stakeholders
haven’t been sufficiently engaged in transforming their mindset.
Here are five steps to engage stakeholders:
-
Understand their objectives – because agile is a means to get to
address their goals -
Discuss unknowns and risks – because this is the door for
explaining iterative releases and how how capturing early and frequent
feedback can address unknowns and risks with new information -
Devise experiments – because you can align agile releases to
delivering them -
Ensure engagement – by requiring stakeholder participation in
prioritization and sprint reviews – you want them to see demos and provide
feedback -
Require force-ranked priorities – Because everyone’s time must
start with what to plan first, provide feedback to stakeholders on the
implementation, and discusses minimally viable feature implementation
From an agile leadership perspective, getting stakeholders on board with
steps 4 and 5 is non-negotiable. Stakeholders that want to be
non-participants in the process are a major red flag, and I advise not
taking on or halting initiatives when stakeholders refuse or find excuses to
collaborate.
I didn’t say this was easy, and it can require
organizing workshops with stakeholders
to shift the mindset. I’m here to help.
Start with the 5 Minutes with @NYIke episode below. Hint, I provide access
to a valuable coupon for the course, Everyone can be Agile.
