Beyond agile Archive - agile Companies

Careers in IT 21. March 2021

Maintaining a balance between short-term and long-term success

The pressure on results increases in the short term, the pressure of expectations grows in the long term. The following scenario sounds familiar to you: On the one hand, managers and customers demand quick decisions and immediate success without much consideration for the day after tomorrow and, on the other hand, the company should be made fit for the future. Issues such as sustainability, compliance and new technologies should find their way into the company proactively and at an early stage. What are the reasons: Political instability, new trends, new technologies, competitors and a still unknown Generation Z make long-term planning almost impossible. Even employees seem to have the motto when changing employers: “After three years you can, after five years you have to!” to be taken very seriously. Often the reasons mentioned force managers to opt for short-term success, as this is foreseeable and measurable. But how can you…

Agile organization 21. March 2021

Scrum in corporations – how do I avoid agile Taylorism?

I blog a lot about medium-sized companies and thus also about the specific problems they have. However, I do not want to neglect the specific problems of large corporations. To this day I am interested in the specific problems with scaling Scrum on a large scale. Managers from three different corporations wrote to me via my blog asking me to come over. Of course I gladly accepted this invitation. The aim was an intensive professional exchange (4h). The agenda of the workshop was as follows: What is the current status of the scaling of Scrum in corporations? What are the challenges? How could this be solved? tip : You are welcome to read additionally what the Differences between medium-sized companies and corporations are. Scaling agility in corporations The last time I was really active as an agile consultant in corporations in 2015, the first teams were organized according to agile…

Agile organization 21. March 2021

Scrum simulation for download!

FliegÜbersZielHinaus AG has recently been under heavy pressure from the upcoming main session. Thousands of families and groups of young party-goers want to start their planned vacation in the unofficial 17th state of Mallorca. FliegÜbersZielHinaus AG is a manufacturer of high-quality aircraft and supplies the customer IchWechselStestandMeineAnhaben AG. Due to the dynamism and the high order volume of 50 aircraft, the management decided to introduce the Scrum method and to cope with the workload through agility.Immerse yourself in a Scrum simulation between changing customer requirements, surprises and absurd management decisions. As part of a Scrum Team, can you help companies and deliver the 50 aircraft on time despite unclear requirements and fluctuating order quantities?I came up with this Scrum simulation myself and I hope you enjoy it. I have not checked whether this is similar to any other Scrum simulation. If you notice anything, please feel free to contact me.…

Digital transformation 21. March 2021

Agile in the Waterfallworld – agile teams in waterfall organizations

Agile methods of software development have quickly become the best practice solution for modern companies. Software companies in particular achieve faster and more customer-oriented results with the agile way of working. However, this way of working requires an agile environment and customers of these companies often still work in the sequential waterfall model. Both models are contradicting each other and therefore, when combined, often lead to wrong decisions, budget overruns and massive change management. Existing solutions are often not empirically proven, only to be understood as frameworks or not tailored to this special context. In the course of this work, a concept is developed which coordinates both methods as a hybrid process in order to avoid wrong decisions and budget overruns and to reduce change management. This concept is based on current literature and was evaluated with IT experts. It is also tested and evaluated in an IT service provider…

Agile departments 21. March 2021

Beyond agile and agile software development

Agility has long been a fundamental part of IT and there is actually no more non-agile software development. Agility is now also expanding outside of IT. A related article about agile departments outside of IT already exist. But since agility was established, the question has often arisen: What will “Beyond Agile” come up with? Agile in the Waterfallworld In my Master thesis (Lindner 2015, p. 24) I have already researched the initial situation of agile departments and found that an IT department often has to react flexibly to typical waterfall customers and that agility stops after IT. In the current research project a year later, I notice that agility is slowly leaving IT. But IT departments will still have to react flexibly to each customer. So this has to be an important trait of the next level of agility. You can find a whitepaper: Agile team teams in waterfall organizations…

Agile departments 21. March 2021

Agile management

Agile methods such as Scrum create paradigm shifts in companies and thus revolutionize their own corporate culture. Own beliefs and behaviors, such as ” that’s how you do it “are questioned. At the same time, the door is created for more transparent structures in which employees can contribute more. Accordingly, classic positions are transformed into modern roles in agile companies. Management plays a key role in the successful installation of agile methods. So that executives who have received little attention to date with regard to the introduction of agile methods do not stand in the way of such a revolution, modern managers need a clearly drawn, new picture of their own future role within agile entrepreneurs. The modern manager The figure from Appelo (2010, p. 370) shows the modern, agile manager as a being with many eyes. In order to act successfully, the manager directs his or her own focus…

Agile organization 21. March 2021

How can you actually scale Scrum?

Having already been in the Article on scaling agility have made an initial assessment with experts for agile frameworks and also in the Dialogue with Boris Gloger the frameworks have been criticized, I set out to collect the frameworks and describe them. In the following you will find an overview of methods that deal with the question: How can you actually scale Scrum? Scaling Scrum with frameworks Scrum is widely used among agile development frameworks. The challenge here: Scrum is based on the work of a small team and does not initially provide any solutions for use in a large organization with a large number of teams. As a result of this need, various approaches to scaling agile procedures have emerged in recent years. In the following you will find an overview of the relevant frameworks, as well as an assessment of the measures and costs. To make the assessment…

Agile departments 21. March 2021

Agile purchasing

Purchasing, together with the other core functions of the production, logistics and sales value chain, is extremely challenged to adapt flexibly to the ups and downs of the markets. In a complex world, companies should not only focus on cleaning up their balance sheet structures, but above all on powerful and efficient agility in purchasing. Prof. Dr. Therefore, in its latest study, Komus states: Agile methods are becoming increasingly important in companies. Methods and principles from the areas of “Scrum”, “IT Kanban” and “Design Thinking” are not only playing an increasingly important role in IT development. Against the background of challenges and opportunities through digitization, globalization, Industry 4.0 this development will continue to intensify. Study on the topic of agile purchasing On the subject of agile purchasing, a team from Koblenz worked with Prof. Dr. Ayelt Komus conducted an online survey in September and October 2016. According to information, 160…

Digital change 21. March 2021

Dynaxity: dynamic and complex

Dynaxity describes an artificial word that is made up of the terms dynamics and complexity. Let’s look at the Duden so complexity stands for “multi-layered and that in one another of many characteristics”. If we turn back a little, we find the Duden under dynamics: “Force directed towards change”. The aim of the made-up word is to combine both of these terms. The term was apparently first mentioned in publications in the 1980s and has been revisited from time to time since then. The background to the term is the research field: Management in complex and dynamic systems. The 4 zones of Dynaxity The picture shows the 4 zones of Dynaxity. Zone 1 (static) describes simple, fixed rules and the same structures. So one could speak of a small business that has been secured for generations. Zone 2 (dynamic) describes the classic company according to some literature. Growth and changes…

Work 4.0 21. March 2021

Agile HR management – more than just Scrum?

Digital transformation , Agility , Work 4.0 , NewWork , Futurework , … If you look at current HR magazines, you will quickly notice that the field of HR is currently anything but boring. Managing flat hierarchies, meaningful work, horizontal careers and agile teams are the daily tasks of a modern HR manager. So there seems to be a change and the vision of human resource management seems to be changing? We want to revolutionize management in order to build extraordinary companies of the future with self-reliant employees and executives who can adapt extremely quickly in times of (digital) change (Andre Häusling – HR Pioneers ) Paradigm shift in HR Currently leading HR experts define a change in personnel management from hierarchy and silo thinking to network and interdisciplinarity. Profit maximization to benefit maximization, external control and top-down decisions on personal responsibility and human expertise. HR is also required to…