The Power of an Agile Walkabout
Photo by David Goehring
The client I am working for right now is quite supportive of agile, but there are still times when it is evident that a few people aren't understanding some of the changes that need to happen and how to get there. After thinking about how to make the difference real to them, I contacted a friend who works at another company for a favor: to let us tour his workspace and ask questions. I call it the Agile Walkabout.
Six of us went to this company for a morning, and a wide variety of questions were asked. How do you interview and onboard? How do you protect your culture? How do you keep the quality of your software up? While my friend freely admitted that his company does not do everything perfectly, he has learned quite a bit over the years about how to do agile well that he was able to provide insights that will hopefully prevent others from making certain mistakes. But I think it was walking around the open team space with a wall dedicated to information radiators that had the biggest impact. One person immediately said, "Wow, I want this for my team." At that moment, we all had a more common vision of what agile looks like in an organization. I am excited to see how my client takes that experience and pushes harder for change as a result.
