Agile Workforce: Organization’s Internal Issues

NB: We do not resell your papers. Upon ordering, we do an original paper exclusively for you.

NB: All your data is kept safe from the public.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Challenges and Solutions
Trust in the Agile Method
The Question of Mindset
Recommendations
References

Introduction

All of the organization’s internal issues that affected the initial decision and Sam’s team process were unknown at the start of the work. From the initial perspective, Sam was charged with an ambitious task that was not in line with the current company setup. As a result, the development team faced various obstacles while trying to complete the assignment without the necessary experience. As the analysis of the interaction between Sam and the company shows, the latter was not ready to accept the fundamental principles of the Agile approach. The organization is accustomed to using standard techniques developed long ago, such as the Waterfall model, used to establish fixed conditions (Sinha & Das, 2021). Simultaneously, Sam’s team tried to embody the principles approved in the Agile Manifesto back in 2001, focusing on the result, not documentation (Hohl et al., 2018). This conflict of interest could only manifest through collaboration as the organization did not engage in introspection.

Challenges and Solutions

Several key challenges can be identified in connection with the risen conflict. First, one of the most significant obstacles was the organization’s conservative nature. Simultaneously, the company wanted to follow modern trends and provide global services. In this context, the factor of the so-called VUCA world was not considered, demonstrating that the current environment is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (Millar et al., 2018). Sam’s team likely chose an agile approach precisely because of the need to quickly adapt to instant changes dictated by the VUCA principle (Galvez & Gurses, 2018). It is the factor of rapid change that makes this system so innovative and attractive. The mismatch of principles and approaches has become one of the fundamental obstacles that could be resolved through thorough planning and analysis.

In addition, a significant challenge was Sam’s team’s inexperience, which manifested in various errors. It is an oversight of the organization, seeking to create a new branch with the help of inexperienced forces. Mistakes could easily be avoided by pre-determining the development plan and joint preparation. According to Agile principles, effective results can only be achieved through the cooperation of technical and business departments (Cooper & Sommer, 2018). The lack of such interactions and the unwillingness to establish them became the cause of many delays and ambiguities.

Trust in the Agile Method

In addition to the obstacles outlined above, there is the question of using an Agile system as such. This approach is innovative in many ways, which makes many firms use it as a solution to all their problems. These methodologies have a strict set of principles that must be followed: developers’ access to instant code revisions, departmental cooperation, and a short work cycle (Cooper & Sommer, 2018). In addition, designers must clearly understand what they are working on and be highly professional (Merkow, 2019). In the case of this scenario, most of these principles were not pursued due to disagreements between the management and the project team. The Agile methodology was chosen as a means of bringing to life the drastic changes that organizations conceived. In many ways, this approach is indeed effective in achieving these goals. However, it is practically useless in the absence of the necessary constituent elements. Thus, Sam’s team relied too heavily on the Agile system’s innovativeness, hoping it had high-quality features that could solve existing conflicts.

The Question of Mindset

In other words, although the theory of Agile methods could help significantly change the organization’s approach, applying it in the context of a conservative institution was a mistake. The directors primarily chose the least risky tactics and relied on outdated techniques. However, Sam’s team tried implementing a completely different workflow that significantly changed the status quo. Since the organization’s analysis was not carried out in advance, the possible consequences of such a collision were not taken into account. As a result, developers have been more focused on the need to stand up for their project than on adhering to design principles such as 4D and bringing the final product to the consumer (Devitt et al., 2021). In this case, the mindset error can be attributed to Sam’s team, which tried to implement an inappropriate practice, and to the organization’s management, which did not analyze the firm’s state.

Recommendations

Due to the many structural problems associated with the organization, there are few practical recommendations. However, one of the first should be a full clarification of the basis of the task and the interaction with the rest of the organization. For the work to proceed as efficiently as possible, I would establish the boundaries of cooperation and determine the list of authorities. If Sam’s team had not been so loaded with bureaucratic requirements and had more control, their work would have been more successful.

Such a discussion, in addition, will allow choosing the right approach for solving the problem. Even in the context of Agile methods, there is a whole series of methodologies that are united by the single term Agile Umbrella (Gechman, 2019). One of the most popular processes, for example, is Scrum, which stands out for its structure (Ambler & Lines, 2020). In this approach, in addition to the development team, there is a product owner who must be actively involved in the process and a scrum master who performs a leadership function (Rad, 2021). Thus, in theory, one can choose a suitable methodology that will allow interaction even with a conservative structure. In addition, one more recommendation is the gradual introduction of Agile. This approach will enable the team to take advantage of traditional methods, gradually replacing them with innovative ones, thereby making the structural changes that the organization needs in a much softer way.

References

Ambler, S., & Lines, M. (2020). Choose your WoW: A disciplined Agile delivery handbook for

optimizing your way of working. Project Management Institute.

Cooper, R. G., & Sommer, A. F. (2018). Agile–Stage-Gate for manufacturers: Changing the way new products are developed integrating Agile project management methods into a Stage-Gate system offers both opportunities and challenges. Research-Technology Management, 61(2), 17-26. Web.

Devitt, F., Ryan, M., & Vaugh, T. (2021). Arrive: A design innovation framework to deliver breakthrough services, products and experiences. Taylor & Francis.

Galvez, R., & Gurses, S. (2018). The odyssey: Modeling privacy threats in a brave new world. 2018 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW), 87-94. Web.

Gechman, M. (2019). Project management of large software-intensive systems. CRC Press.

Hohl, P., Klünder, J., van Bennekum, A., Lockard, R., Gifford, J., Münch, J., Stupperich, M., & Schneider, K. (2018). Back to the future: Origins and directions of the “Agile Manifesto”–Views of the originators. Journal of Software Engineering Research and Development, 6(1), 1-27. Web.

Merkow, M. (2019). Secure, resilient, and agile software development. CRC Press.

Millar, C. C., Groth, O., & Mahon, J. F. (2018). Management innovation in a VUCA world: Challenges and recommendations. California Management Review, 61(1), 5-14. Web.

Rad, N. K. (2021). Agile scrum handbook (3^rd ed.). Van Haren.

Sinha, A., & Das, P. (2021). Agile methodology vs. traditional waterfall SDLC: A case study on quality assurance process in software industry. 2021 5th International Conference on Electronics, Materials Engineering & Nano-Technology (IEMENTech), 1-4. Web.

Click Here To Order Now!