5 Habits of Highly Effective Agile Transformation

 While the agile software development process is in itself a little complex of a task, ensuring an effective agile transformation is a real deal. Making an agile delivery team effective and successful is a continuous process. It isn’t just a one-time process, what we need are teams that work together well and bring out the best in each other. There should always be a sense of accountability and collective ownership in the team. You need to incorporate some real habits amongst teammates to infuse effective agile transformation throughout. 

Top Habits of Highly Effective Agile Transformation 

These are some habits that can inspire teams to become self-organized while staying true to agile values and principles.

Understanding of the Customers

First things first. All the effective agile software development teams there have ever been,  know their customers inside out. They proceed about things walking into the shoes of their customers. Effective teams know who they are and know what each of them expects. Having a deep understanding about your target group helps the team in making good decisions. Over time the customer trusts the team and gives them more autonomy. It is a win-win.

Cross functionality 

Another key metric of an effective agile transformation is that the teams are truly cross-functional. It’s a common understanding among the team members that it’s almost impossible to always have the exact right balance of skill-sets iteration after iteration without changing with the core team. While automation testing has become a mainstream practice in the industry, sometimes manual testing needs to be done. So, a test engineer will help in such a situation rather than asking the developer to do that himself. 

Daily Work Updates

Whether it be JIRA or just a scrum update board, effective agile transformation teams know that updating it regularly is an important habit. It infuses transparency in your agile software development cycle. It makes the daily scrum focussed and in-sync with the overall processes in the team. It helps all the team members to be on the same page.

Keep Innovating

What separates a great team from an average one is its constant urge to learn and innovate. A great agile team always makes sure that they set aside some time for this. They know it’s necessary to keep up with the rapidly changing environment and technology. They ensure they have time for innovation during regular working hours, and that it’s fun and exciting!

They Pursue Excellence 

Whether it be development and deployment cycles, automated testing, behaviour driven development, pair programming, dynamic programming or continuous integration; teams that succeed are in the constant pursuit of excellence. This is one habit that allows teams to ensure effective agile transformation seamlessly. Being just “Good Enough” does not cut it for them.

End Note

Here’s every habit that ensures an effective agile transformation throughout. Obviously, there can be much more to it but these are the must-have habits. These habits take more than a class and certification to develop – they are an ongoing practice that even veteran agile practitioners need to keep fresh. If you want your team to succeed, introduce and encourage these things among them and you will experience magic.