Proven Solutions for the Most Widespread and Frustrating Agile Challenges “This book gives you the answers that a wise mentor would have given you, if you had one. Daniel Gullo shares his insights on the principal questions that everyone coming to the world of Agile will inevitably encounter. ” –From the foreword by Stephen Denning, author of The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management Agile is becoming ubiquitous, but successful Agile implementation remains difficult. Organizations keep getting stuck on the same issues. However, with Real World Agility: Practical Guidance for Agile Practitioners, that need not happen to you. World-renowned Agile coach and consultant Daniel James Gullo identifies and addresses nearly sixty widespread challenges faced by anyone trying to derive value from Agile. Drawing on his vast experience guiding Agile teams to success, Gullo helps you accurately diagnose your problems, describes each solution with maximum clarity, and concisely presents the details you need in order to act effectively. This accessible guide is for every project participant and stakeholder: from ScrumMasters and team leads to developers, project managers, product owners, and customers. Gullo addresses methods ranging from Scrum to Kanban, guides you on scaling Agile, and even helps you apply it beyond software development. Coverage includes Making sense of Agile’s many “flavors” Overcoming key hurdles in transitioning from waterfall Addressing cultural obstacles Meshing Agile teams with your management hierarchy Engaging executives with Agile practices and values Clarifying relationships among ScrumMasters, product owners, and project managers Smoothly handling key tasks, such as organizing backlogs and defining sprints Taking advantage of continuous integration and test-driven development Bringing Agile to distributed teams and large product portfolios Throughout, vignettes show exactly how Agile problems manifest in the real world–and how Gullo’s solutions can help you overcome them. As you learn from others’ experiences, you’ll quickly begin to see a clear path to success.

Agile is becoming ubiquitous, but many agile environments still aren't running smoothly. Successful agile implementation remains difficult, and organizations keep getting stuck on the same issues. That's where Real World Agility comes in. Leading agile expert and Scrum trainer Daniel Gullo has identified and addressed nearly 60 widespread challenges faced by individuals and teams trying to drive value from agile. Each solution is presented with maximum clarity and brevity, while covering everything you need to act effectively. Throughout, you'll find vignettes that show exactly how agile problems manifest in the real world -- and how Gullo's actionable solutions help you overcome them. Gullo addresses agile methods ranging from Scrum to Kanban, guides you on scaling agile to larger projects, and offers indispensable insight on applying agile beyond software development.

As the Fourth Industrial Revolution barrels forward and the pace of disruption accelerates, all organizations must operate with agility. But this urgent priority, now widely-accepted by senior leaders, presents a major challenge: In business, government, and warfare, agility is a buzzword. There is no common understanding of what it means, or of what it takes to be consistently agile. In this groundbreaking book, Leo Tilman and Charles Jacoby offer the first comprehensive assessment of the fundamental nature of organizational agility and then describe the essential leadership practices for achieving it. They show that agility is far superior to mere speed or adaptability. Pinpointing its distinctive features, they define agility as the ability to detect and assess changes in the competitive environment in real time and then take decisive action. They demonstrate that agility enables an organization to outmaneuver competitors by seizing opportunities; better defending against threats; and acting as a well-orchestrated collective of teams that are empowered to take disciplined initiative. Combining their personal experience of building and leading agile organizations, Tilman in the realm of business and finance and Jacoby in battlefield command and homeland security, they present a powerful approach to fostering agility up and down an organization, and out to its very edges. They show how to detect opportunities and threats by fighting for risk intelligence; how to pierce through complexity and unleash creativity by nurturing a culture of honesty and trust; how to meld top-down vision and planning with decentralized execution; and how to enhance strategy by recognizing organizations as dynamic portfolios of risk. In a world where leaders and their teams must brave the unknown and step confidently forward – or risk extinction – Agility provides a vital roadmap for seizing the unprecedented possibilities of the new age and dominating change instead of being dominated by it.

Insider secrets to competing-and winning-in the tech-savvy marketplace The new generation of technology savvy workers is changing the way we look at productivity. Agility uniquely describes how technology agility impacts your business's performance and can become a critical success factor. A must-read for leaders defining business strategy and technology implementation, the methodology it describes will show how to measure and drive technology adoption and the derived impact on business results. Includes international cases of various industries, from industry leaders Incorporates the ideas of flexibility, balance, adaptability, and coordination under one umbrella Uniquely describes how technology agility impacts business performance What differentiates Audi, BMW and Mercedes or GM? Understanding it can make or break the future of an organization. Agility makes it clear: the digital divide will be seen in those who take full advantage of the technology versus those merely have it.

Leadership Agility is the master competency needed for sustained success in today’s complex, fast-paced business environment. Richly illustrated with stories based on original research and decades of work with clients, this groundbreaking book identifies five levels that leaders move through in developing their agility. Significantly, only 10% have mastered the level of agility needed for consistent effectiveness in our turbulent era of global competition. Written in an engaging, down-to-earth style, this book not only provides a map that guides readers in identifying their current level of agility. It also provides practical advice and concrete examples that show managers and leadership development professionals how they can bring greater agility to the initiatives they take every day.

This book helps participants in agile software development environments learn to become leaders. Facilitative leaders should be at every level of the organization, from individual contributor to informal team leader to managers of all stripes -- it takes much focus and intentionality from senior organizational leaders, who have special obligations in creating successful lean and agile development environments. But, beyond the principles of facilitative leadership for agility, People over Process provides tips and demonstrative scenes for the more important and common software meetings: architecture simulations, project planning, team configurations, retrospectives, and more. The author fully illustrates the principles and shares proven techniques for the most important leadership events in agile projects. While this book focuses on facilitating extraordinarily well-prepared meetings, it serves as a metaphor for leadership more broadly. The leader’s obligation to help their team make rigorous fact-based decisions; to gain broad input and have participants aligned on the outcomes and next steps; and to do so in an efficient way that respects the time of the participants is as relevant to every-day leadership activity as it is to conducting meetings. The author mixes background and explanation with demonstration -- in this case, the story of an agile project at the fictitious Pacifica Bank. The scenario constructed at Pacifica illustrates the concepts of effective leadership and productive workplace environments. The book concentrates on the flow of software from understanding what is needed through design, development, testing, and deployment. Essentially, the author provides a simple and powerful model of leadership, examples, and tips. This is not a cookbook on how to lead -- It is a set of principles and examples. All leaders must find their own way for their team, their organization, and their unique challenges.

The world is ever-changing in unpredictable ways. Leaders, therefore, need to constantly re-examine their assumptions of what it means to be a "great" leader as old models of leadership quickly fade into irrelevance. In short, leaders need an agile mindset. But how can leaders become agile? We need to update and disrupt past definitions of leadership. To challenge ourselves and test our relevance often. We need to recognize challenges swiftly and respond decisively, especially when our environment is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. 8 Paradoxes of Leadership Agility shows the way by describing how leaders met challenging conundrums with agility and emerged stronger, using the Re4 Coaching Model developed by Chuen Chuen. This book addresses the gap between theory and practice through stories of leaders distilled into eight representational paradoxes that can occur in any culture, contexts, levels of seniority or industries. The Re4 Coaching Model, clearly illustrated in this book, helps leaders see their world with objective clarity, understand what has to be done and why. Through this coaching model, leaders gain the resolve and confidence to overcome challenges with authenticity. Through it, they integrate theoretical learning with practical steps and learn to thrive. Now you too can benefit from the Re4 Coaching Model as this book contains exercises with guiding questions you can use to navigate your paradoxes. It's time to grow and thrive.

Practical Guidance and Inspiration for Launching, Sustaining, or Improving Any Agile Enterprise Transformation Initiative As long-time competitive advantages disappear, astute executives and change agents know they must achieve true agile transformation. In Unlocking Agility, Jorgen Hesselberg reveals what works, what doesn’t, and how to overcome the daunting obstacles. Distilling 10+ years of experience leading agile transformation in the enterprise, Hesselberg guides you on jumpstarting change, sustaining momentum, and executing superbly on customer commitments as you move forward. He helps you identify appropriate roles for consultants, optimize organizational structures, set realistic expectations, and measure against them. He shares first-hand accounts from pioneering transformation leaders at firms including Intel, Nokia, Salesforce.com, Spotify, and many more. • Balance building the right thing, the right way, at the right speed • Design a holistic transformation strategy using five dimensions of agility: Technology, Organizational Design, People, Leadership, and Culture • Promote agile skills, knowledge, and abilities throughout your workforce • Incorporate powerful leadership models, including Level 5, Teal, and Beyond Budgeting • Leverage business agility metrics to affect norms and change organizational culture • Establish your Agile Working Group, the engine of agile transformation • Define operating models and strategic roadmaps for unlocking agility, and track your progress You already know agile transformation is essential. Now, discover how to customize your strategy, execute on it in your environment, and achieve it.

"As the leaders of the Work Design Collaborative, authors Charles Grantham and Jim Ware have helped some of the world's top companies become more productive. In Corporate Agility, they share the results of their ground-breaking five-year research project and the forward-thinking strategies that have grown out of this new knowledge. This is the first book to show companies the practical applications for staying competitive in a global economy."--Jacket.

Adopting the latest agile tools and practices won't be enough to respond to rapid market change. Leaders must first lay the groundwork by creating the right environment for these tools to work. Many managers struggle to install the underlying organizational operating system for business agility. High-performing agile organizations depend on the strength of six key enabling factors: leadership, culture, structure, people, governance, and ways of working. This book explains why these factors are important and how they work together to increase organizational agility. Real-world examples, stories, and tools will help leaders get realistic about the scope of changes needed in their organizations and show them how to get started. Karim Harbott does not offer a book of recipes. Instead, he focuses on mindset, principles, and general patterns. This book summarizes of the most important factors in increasing organizational agility and why they work, which leaders will need to consider in a so-called agile transformation. Because every organization is different, each will have its own route to agility and high performance. Managers will need to tackle all the areas that are crucial to creating an environment in which any chosen approach can work.