Agile for All

Learning Objectives:
• Why should non-technical teams use Agile principles?
• How can a non-technical team apply Agile principles thoughtfully?
• What benefits can a non-technical team expect after introducing Agile into their process?

Speaker: Jaime Bartol - I have been a ScrumMaster/Agile Coach for almost a decade with experience in large organizations as well as startup teams! I have worked with frontend and data engineering teams and even brought Agile to awesome marketing teams! My passion is around teams and using Agile/Scrum fundamentals to elevate efficiency, productivity, and joy!

Background:

I have been a ScrumMaster/Project Manager for almost a decade and I have seen how transformative Agile principles and values can be for a development team. Agile provides a common language, a shared space to track work, and a reliable cadence that teams count on. I have seen improvements in predictability of delivery as well as a decrease in frustration and team tension because of Agile processes.

After being asked to help a creative (non-technical) team transition to using JIRA and start including planning, standups, and retros into their workflow I started to see how universal the Agile mindset can be! This project set me down a path to want to start helping non-technical teams within technical organizations to embrace Agile, their own way!

Method:

As mentioned above, I was part of a team that introduced Agile practices into a creative team’s workflow. It was done slowly and very thoughtfully and it was intentional not to force the team to form to an agile default template. After reviews with the team we decided not every Agile principle applied, and not every Agile “ceremony” made sense. We decided on a Kanban board versus the traditional Scrum board and one-week sprints were what made the most sense for the team.

Results:

I have witnessed improvement in the overall communication of the team, starting with weekly sprint planning meetings. Team members from different aspects of creative come together to discuss priorities for the coming week. There are conversations around dependencies and team members have much more visibility into what others are working on. This has helped with last minute requests, fire drills, and frustration with one another due to lack of transparency.

Something else I have watched is a greater pride in ownership within the team as well as confidence outside of the creative team when talking to dev teams about JIRA, Standup, planning meetings, etc. I believe including all teams in Agile allows for a greater sense of inclusiveness.

Conclusion:

Agile principles and values can be tailored to non-technical teams within a technical organization to help improve communication, delivery cycles and processes, as well as day to day frustrations.

Dinner will be served.