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2016 | Book

The Agile Consultant Read chapter Read first chapter

The Agile Consultant

Guiding Clients to Enterprise Agility

Author: Rick Freedman

Publisher: Apress

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

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 enterpriseCoach teams, managers, and executives in learning, adopting, and practicing lean and agile strategiesDiagnose the roadblocks and obstacles most organizations encounter during the transition to agileUse 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 agilityDemonstrate the critical mix of facilitation, interpersonal, and relationship skills to help organizations succeed with agileGuide the corporate culture toward agility from the top down and the bottom upEvolve from old school project management thinking to a lean, agile mindsetWho 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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter

What Is Agile Consulting?

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. The Agile Consultant
Abstract
Consulting matters. Our advice, good or bad, can affect the future of clients, their companies, their employees and customers. Some consultants, such as doctors and lawyers, can, by their advice, instigate reprieve or catastrophe. Mentors and managers are advisors, as are our peers and colleagues. Although we give and receive advice all day, the professional consultant has a unique responsibility. As a paid advisor, the consultant is ethically bound to focus on the client’s best interest. The best consultants have the domain expertise and creativity to add value, the temperament to advise gracefully, the relationship skills to collaborate and guide, and the tenacity to adapt to the client and accept their boundaries. Clients of consultants expect more than counsel; they want us to implement the ideas we’ve proposed, and to be accountable for the business results we promised.
Rick Freedman
Chapter 2. Agile Evolution: More Than Methodology
Abstract
For the past ten years, VersionOne software, a provider of agile project tools, has performed a “State of Agile”.
Rick Freedman
Chapter 3. The EVOLVE Framework for Agile Evolution
Abstract
We apply a framework because the complexity and sensitivity of agile evolution necessitates consulting discipline. Enterprise clients must know that we can engage strategically as well as tactically. They want to see an approach that indicates that the consultant has pondered their unique qualities, and thought through a tailored roadmap to their agility. Even if the move to agility is vigorously encouraged by senior management, sponsors of agile evolution projects want to know they’re partnering with a consulting professional who can negotiate, plan, and carry out a successful engagement.
Rick Freedman

The EVOLVE Agile Consulting Framework

Frontmatter
Chapter 4. Explore and Engage
Abstract
Is there an agile personality type? Is agile evolution destined to succeed or fail based on the personalities of the executive team and the culture of the organization? Are Industrial Age companies, like Ford or Proctor & Gamble, with their history of hierarchical management styles, doomed to fail at agile? Agile consultants must consider these and many other questions before they embark on the mutual effort to enhance agility and responsiveness.
Rick Freedman
Chapter 5. Visualize Success
Abstract
In an ideal world, all clients would be able to clearly articulate their business objective, their success criteria, and the capabilities they expect to gain from any project.
Rick Freedman
Chapter 6. Observe and Plan
Abstract
Since agile consultants often begin at the team adoption level rather than the enterprise level, we have the opportunity to observe intimately both the enablers and the inhibitors of agility. The narratives we get from executive sponsors rarely disclose the tactical barriers we discover once engaged.
Rick Freedman
Chapter 7. Lead Teams to Agility
Abstract
“The team is always smarter than even the smartest individual.” We’ve heard this proverb so frequently that it’s become a cliché. But is it true? And, if so, why is that the case? Einstein had no team around him when he developed the general theory of relativity, nor did Newton when he discovered his fundamental laws of physics. From Galileo to Picasso, lone geniuses have advanced our knowledge and civilization through individual efforts. On the other hand, from The Manhattan Project the power of teamwork is undeniable. Even Newton, the typical example of the lone genius, stated that he “stood on the shoulders of giants” to make his calculations.
Rick Freedman
Chapter 8. Visible Results
Abstract
If a new process or system is reducing friction, improving quality, increasing throughput, and advancing worker satisfaction, it would be foolish not to use these positive outcomes as a key element in your change strategy. Enterprise inertia is strong; promoting visible results creates momentum.
Rick Freedman
Chapter 9. Evolve the Enterprise
Abstract
Agile evolution within the enterprise is often visualized as ripples in a pond. The agile champion, coach, or consultant throws a stone into the pond by assembling the initial agile teams and using agile methods to deliver a pilot project. The pilot teams start to experience improved results, and to make them visible. The successes and challenges of that initial pilot expose obstacles and broken processes. These discoveries cascade through the enterprise and focus improvement efforts on identified roadblocks.
Rick Freedman

Engaging at Enterprise Level

Frontmatter
Chapter 10. Agile Strategy
Abstract
The assumptions behind traditional strategic planning, that the past was predictive, that markets were stable, that competitive differentiation was lasting, that enterprises could conceal their “secret sauce” and profit on it indefinitely—all of these core strategic ideas are now obsolete.
Rick Freedman
Chapter 11. The Leadership Commitment
Abstract
Commanders know the objective; leaders grasp the direction. Commanders dictate; leaders influence. Controllers demand; collaborators facilitate. Controllers micro-manage; collaborators encourage. Managers who embrace the leadership-collaboration model understand their primary role is to set direction, to provide guidance, and to facilitate connecting people and teams
Rick Freedman
Chapter 12. The Agile Enterprise
Abstract
As an agile consultant, it’s gratifying to see the evolution within teams under your guidance. Delivery teams begin to communicate and collaborate. Managers make the transition from foremen to leaders. Executives begin to understand that enablement, encouragement, and service leadership is more effective, and more human, than mere power. The enterprise begins to untangle some of its faulty processes and legacy dysfunctions, and begins to accept the simplicity and honesty of agility. The agile advisor who guides the enterprise to the edge of substantial improvement in process, culture, and leadership can rightfully have pride in that accomplishment.
Rick Freedman
Chapter 13. The Agile Consulting Model
Abstract
Evolving the client’s enterprise to agility is our mission as agile consultants. We help clients grasp the agile practices and mind-set, and, if we’re lucky and effective, we guide them to a leaner, more responsive, and more human way of working.
Rick Freedman

Running the Agile Consulting Practice

Frontmatter
Chapter 14. The Agile Consulting Skill Set
Abstract
The spectrum from contractor to consultant is wide, and many domain experts also must diagnose problems, devise alternative solutions, and persuade their clients to adopt one course or another. Similarly, many who call themselves consultants are often just domain experts looking for a raise. For each of these roles, the attributes of mature players fall somewhere on the spectrum, with a mix of domain and advisory skills. I believe, however, that there is a distinct code of conduct, set of ethics, and expectation of results that define consulting.
Rick Freedman
Chapter 15. Agile Domain Expertise
Abstract
Necessary but not sufficient–that’s been our description of agile domain expertise throughout the book.
Rick Freedman
Chapter 16. Conclusion: Toward the Agile Enterprise
Abstract
I fully expect the big consulting companies to start offering Certified Agile Processes and Certified Agile Consultants - for astronomical fees, of course - any day now.
Rick Freedman
Appendix A. The Roots of Agile: History and Background
Abstract
Take agility out of its product development context and think of it in its more familiar usage, as descriptive of a person or animal that has speed, grace, and flexibility.
Rick Freedman
B. Bibliography
Abstract
While there are hundreds of agile titles available, these are the volumes that have an honored place in my personal library, and the ones I recommend to agilists hoping to begin their agile apprenticeship or enhance their skills.
Rick Freedman
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
The Agile Consultant
Author
Rick Freedman
Copyright Year
2016
Publisher
Apress
Electronic ISBN
978-1-4302-6053-0
Print ISBN
978-1-4302-6052-3
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-6053-0