In AgileSHIFT, a practice is ‘an aspect of working in an agile way that should be addressed continually’.  

The five practices are: 

1. Engage stakeholders; 

1. Build collaborative teams; 

1. Plan to be flexible and adaptable; 

1. Deliver iteratively and incrementally; and 

1. Measure value. 

They should be used in a flexible way, appropriate for the organization and the work being done, and be used according to the AgileSHIFT principles. Let’s go through them to see what they mean. 

1. Engage stakeholders 

As we’ve seen, a stakeholder is any individual or group that influences or is affected by the processes, services, products, work outcomes or value created. As an organization grows in size, they can easily lose sight of the importance of stakeholder engagement and fall into the trap of focusing only on internal issues and preferences. 

1. Build collaborative teams 

Organizations are often structured as groups, or silos, of like-minded and like-skilled people because individuals work better like this. The problem is that this approach can prevent interaction with the people in other parts of the organization. 

Cross-functional and collaborative teams that span silos are vital to agile working and co-creating value across the whole organization. Collaborative teams in flatter, non-hierarchical structures help to motivate individuals and optimize performance. 

In an environment where teams successfully collaborate, team members need to: 

• Take personal responsibility for their actions; 

• Be open and honest – keeping lines of communication open, listening to others and making themselves heard; 

• Trust and support other team members; and 

• Recognizing sometimes that the needs of others should take priority over what they’re doing. 

Collaborative teams rely on an environment in which individuals feel empowered and motivated to achieve better performance. There are three primary factors that lead to better performance and personal satisfaction: 

• Autonomy – our desire to be self-directed; 

• Mastery – our desire to improve; and 

• Purpose – our desire to make a contribution. 

There’s a link in the Resources Guide to a short video that explains more about these factors and is well worth a watch. 

Empowered and motivated individuals will identify opportunities to increase the value of their outputs and work towards these. This means that managers must delegate authority to individuals they trust, who must then use that delegated authority wisely.  

1. Plan to be flexible and adaptable 

The first point to make here is that planning is essential. Lack of planning creates the risk of failure; good planning will provide better overall results and shorter development time. 

The problem comes when plans are treated as fixed statements where tasks must happen at specified times for a predicted cost and defined level of quality. An AgileSHIFT approach is different – plans are treated as a general view of uncertainty around which actual events occur; they aren’t rigid or fixed and it’s accepted that they’ll change. 

1. Deliver iteratively and incrementally 

You’ve probably felt the pain when a major change project is defined and delivered by a ‘specialist’ change team without involving the other groups affected by it. And then takes ages to get implemented. As you know, this doesn’t fit with an AgileSHIFT approach. 

AgileSHIFT is about iterative ways of working where frequent deliveries – or increments – are made of outputs that can be used. This means that early delivery of value is provided to the customer, feedback is received, the risk of delivering the wrong thing is reduced, and stakeholders are confident work is progressing because they’re engaged in the process. 

Through this approach, work is performed in clearly defined periods of activity – known as stages, phases or iterations depending on the delivery approach used. At the start of the period the work to be delivered is agreed, progress is observed, feedback is received, plans are revisited and approval to continue is requested. 

An iteration describes the time period and an increment describes the delivery itself. So, an increment is the story of value so far. 

1. Measure value 

The value chain illustrates how the co-creation of value is the ultimate goal of any activity. So, measuring value is critical to indicate the impact of the change.  

There are five steps to measuring value: 

1. Determine the value expected from the work; 

1. Understand the current level of value being achieved; 

1. Plan how the value achieved will be measured through the delivery and implementation of the change; 

1. Monitor the value throughout the delivery and implementation of the change; and  

1. Regularly record and reflect on progress achieved, changing direction where required. 

Too often, value’s only monitored after the change is implemented – this is too late and generally ignores the ‘before’ state, meaning that value and success can’t be accurately measured. 

We’ve seen in an earlier video that value is ‘the benefits delivered in proportion to the resources used to acquire them’. So, benefits must be identified, described, planned and measured.  

Benefits are ‘the measurable improvement resulting from an outcome, perceived as an advantage by one or more stakeholders’ and they can be measured by: 

• Precisely describing them; 

• Defining the observable outcomes – the differences before and after the change; 

• Identifying where the benefits will occur and who is accountable for them; and 

• Establishing how and when the change will be measured (before and after it’s implemented), and how progress will be tracked and measured. 

Before you move on, why not try the AgileSHIFT Practices reflective activity to help you think about how they can be adopted in your organization.