AGILE ECOSYSTEM

How do you get it RIGHT?

BY

Kishore Nakka & Ram Dasari

 Part of Chapter 2 Agile and Customer

Agile Core Values

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

The first value that was mentioned in the Agile Manifesto is

“Individuals and Interactions over processes and tools.” Before the Agile
Manifesto, a lot of software teams and organizations focused mainly on
the development of the tools, processes, and systems. The organizations
focused on delivering the end product and gave most of the priority to the
documentation, guidelines, and strategies. As per snowbird 17, these
unnecessary processes and systems used to cause hindrance in the project,
hence causing delays in the system and keeping the customer waiting.
Moreover, the employees were burdened and stressed under the processes
and deadlines that focused entirely on the business and didn’t care much
about the individuals and their interactions.

The Agile Manifesto's first core value targeted such situations and
came with the individuals and interactions over processes and tools
clause. According to the clause, while the documentation, processes, and
strategies are important, the people or the team behind processes hold
even greater importance. The agile manifesto urges the organization to
look for the right people in their software development team with the
skills that match the requirements of the work position and the job.

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According to the manifesto, any kind of tool, process, or system in the
wrong hands is entirely useless and holds no importance. The first part of
the clause focuses entirely on the human resource to work requirement
allocation. For any organization to be Agile, it is important to develop a
team that holds proficiency in the work or task they are appointed at.

The second part of the clause, however, focuses on the interaction

between the team members. It goes without saying that teamwork leads
to success. A more interactive group of team members will always yield
better results as there would be more people to share ideas, brainstorm,
and troubleshoot. Moreover, collaborative work leads to a rapid solution
of problems and implementation of the system or policy.

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Carrying onto the first value clause, the second core value of the Agile
Manifesto focused on the development and distribution of the software.
Coming from the Age of Information, companies focused mainly on the
software development documentation and kept their customers engaged
in a big pile of papers that explained the software development details,
timelines, etc. The customer was handed over the software in its complete
form after the documentation and development were complete and had no
control over the software iterations.

The Agile Manifesto placed the shipping of the software to the

customer as of higher priority than the documentation. A valid

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explanation of the core value is that it advised the companies to keep the
customer in the loop of the development process right from the first line
of the code and allow the direct input of the customer to the software's
development, instead of keeping the customer waiting in the name of
documentation. This allowed the companies to gather feedback in the
form of customer quality inspection and allowed them to gather feedback
to help improve the future version and releases of the system.

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

The agile philosophy and the manifesto focus mainly on the customer-
centric business development over the product or the service-centric
approach. The Agile Manifesto, along with its core values and its
principles, highlights all the major aspects of the customer-centric
organization. According to the third core value mentioned in the Agile
Manifesto, the contract negotiations that are fixed and that bound the
customer to a fixed set of clauses and terms of conditions binds the
customer to a certain document, hence keeping him powerless and takes
the liberty of the customer away from them.

If we analyze the organizational philosophies that do not follow the

Agile Manifesto, the organizations focus mainly on the provision of the
product to the customer, as per the signed contract. Because of that, most
of the time, there was a great mismatch between what the customer
wanted and what was delivered. The reason behind that is, on paper and

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in practice, things work quite differently. The third core value of the Agile
Manifesto gives over the liberty to the customer. It advises the
organization to build a customer-feedback loop in the actual production
methodology and the design cycles.

This culture of the customer and organization close collaboration along

with the development process allows the customers to stay informed of
the whole development process, allowing the organization to deliver the
effective, useful, and proper solution as per the requirement of the
customer. It's all about building the right product for the customer the
right way. Agile philosophy allows the organizations to get rid of
unnecessary risk, iterations, revisions, and communication barriers. The
development of the product gets done under the customer's control and as
per the customer's demand, and that is what is the main focus or the
definition of an Agile organization.

Responding to change over following a plan

The world has emerged from the days of static plans, procedures, and
strategies. The requirements and needs change over time or throughout
the development processes. In the past, a set timeline or process
methodology was developed that was then followed on by the team until
the end of the product was achieved. Most of the time, to meet the static
deadlines, the customer was not given much attention, and the processes
were constantly prioritized.

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 The Agile Manifesto's last core value targeted the static development
processes. According to the value, an Agile organization is one that has a
team capable of developing a flexible development process and has the
ability to pivot or change the process of the development process when
required or as required by the customer or the product development. In
business terms, the organizations should develop a dynamic roadmap that
can be changed at every turn, as required by the Agile team. The teams of
the Agile organization must be capable of handling these changes and be
ready to cater to any demand that may arise at any time. The ability to
quickly respond to the changes enables the Agile organizations to quickly
meet the requirement and reach the end goal faster.

Customer in Agile Principles

The Agile core values and principles focus mainly on the customer
instead of the business or the service. If analyzed and understood clearly,
it is visible that the first two principles presented in the Agile Principles
focused on the customer and were the main discussion during the 2001
meeting.

1. Customer Satisfaction through early and continuous

software delivery

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 As per the Agile Manifesto, the customer is happier when they receive
updates on their work on a regular basis and are kept in the loop of the
development process instead of waiting for the software development
duration to end and getting the end product right on the deadline. An agile
organization treats customers as a part of the organization's team and
keeps them informed of every single iteration, process, or development
procedure. This allows the agile organization to develop the right product
for the customer as well as build the product right. With multiple feedback
procedures and processes, the customer stays in control of the
development process and hence gives constant updates on the
development product. This allows runtime troubleshooting and enables
quick delivery of the product.

2. Welcome changing requirements throughout the

development procedure

The fact that most of the time, organizations fail to understand the
customer requirements completely and might not be able to satisfy their
needs is no wrong. A customer might come with new ideas or, in general,
iterations of the development process that might need quick attention from
the development team. A software development team and an agile
organization should always be ready to provide the customer with quick
iterations and cater to customer's demands when and as required.
However, meeting the customer's quick demands as per the Agile advice

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might increase the pricing and cause delays. So, the team and the
development process should be designed according to that, and while
keeping in mind how and when to cater to the changes if any may arise.

The Agile organizations, the software teams, and the development

professionals should deeply understand the core values and principles of
the Agile Manifesto, and as well as understand the demand, thinking, and
requirements of the customer. Though the core values and the principles
are self-explanatory, yet there is a lot more to the iceberg than what's
visible. The development teams working directly with the customer
require certain procedures to form a relationship with the customer's
demand that allows them to properly analyze the product that the customer
has in his/her mind and develop the product the way they want. One such
process is Design Thinking. Many people often come up and question the
integration/relation of Agile and Design, but if you clearly understand the
Agile Principles, one can see the relation between the two processes that
define the world of software development.

Design Thinking in Agile

“Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation that

draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the
possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.”

– Tim Brown.

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 Before going into the details of Design Thinking union with the Agile
Methodology or the Agile organizations, it is essential to understand the
basics that define the process in itself. Design Thinking is a development
process that is developed on a customer-centric process and allows the
organizations or teams to create customer's desirable products in a
sustainable and profitable manner. Many often differ the Design Thinking
from the Agile, but if one clearly analyzes the first two principles of the
Agile Manifesto and the actual definition of Design Thinking, both of
these two frameworks align when talking about the provision of the
customer-centric approaches.

Design thinking utilizes different product development techniques that

demand the understanding of the problem before designing a solution and
then moving on to delivering the solution to the market.

source: Stanford d.school

Chapter2-Figure 1: Design Thinking Approach

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 Agile and Design Thinking both of these models contain principles,
frameworks, rules, and a set of procedures that go hand in hand with one
another. The two can help teams grow and bring value to the customer.
Finding the accurate balance between researching and understanding what
customer desires and coding and developing the product needs is the
actual challenge that needs to be catered in the product development. By
integrating the Design Thinking in the Agile Teams, the shared workflow
allows the teams to gather customer insights in real-time and come with
strategies that ensure a better CX with lower redesign costs. The Forrester
Consulting research study with IBM concluded that adopting design
thinking in product design and development lowers the product
development and quality testing time by almost 33 percent.

To effectively harmonize design thinking and agile, each and every

member of the Agile team should focus on delivering greater outcomes to
the customer instead of the development process.

However, to adequately integrate the theory of design thinking and

infuse it with the Agile system, the product development teams need to
go through a certain set of procedures and use the design thinking
framework techniques for the process-to-process integration. The solution
development team utilizes the design thinking tools to promote the
customer-centric approach in the Agile infrastructure. One of the most
prominent and effective design tools is termed the Empathy Maps. As the
name implies, Empathy maps put the Product/Solution development team
right into the shoe of the customer and allow them to think from the

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customer's perspective. These empathy maps allow the teams to think,
feel, hear and see what the customer expects from his/her required product
or service.

source: hrbartender.com
Chapter2-Figure 2: Empathy Map Canvas

1. What would the customer be thinking or feeling?

2. What is the problem they are targeting?

3. What would the customer see while using the product in their
environment?

4. What is the things customer might be afraid of when utilizing our

product or taking our service?

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5. What are the gains that the customer wants to achieve from the
product?

Empathy mapping allows the UX professionals in the Agile

Organization to establish a common ground between the software
development team members and understand the requirement of the
customer. In the customer-centric development process, the empathy
maps provide a solid base for the design process and allow the
organizations to capture the persona of the customer and hence base their
service and product on the Agile Manifesto.

Chapter2-Figure 3: Multiple perspectives of the same product

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 Chapter 3 Agile Ecosystem Excerpt

W
ith the agile manifesto gaining popularity in the world of
software development, more and more organizations
started to transform their businesses as per Agile core
values and principles. These businesses started developing processes that
were based on the Agile Ecosystem to properly embed the manifesto in
their business methodologies. And over time, this ecosystem became the
life cycle of the industry.

But before we move forward and talk more about the Agile Ecosystem,
and how this transformation works, it is important to learn the core
concepts of the word ecosystem and the Agile implementation in itself.
The word ecosystem in its originality comes from the collaboration of
different living organisms to create a system in which they can survive
and grow. Taking on to that, the organization eco-system is something
similar, it takes leaders, employees, managers, process, and systems to
develop infrastructure, and all in altogether they are responsible for the
socio-economic growth of the organization. From human resource
allocation to project completion to the development of the products,
everything that falls onto the company's policies or methodologies is a
subset of this organizational ecosystem.

The agile ecosystem is a comprehensive software development model

based on the principles of the Agile Manifesto and the industry's best
proven practices of Lean, Agile, and DevOps. The core of the Agile

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ecosystem is fueled by the core values and principles that revolve around
providing the customer with an experience that is unparalleled and
unmatched. It allows the organizations to develop processes that allow
them to adopt a continuous validated learning process and develop a team
that works together to develop a product that's as per the customer's
requirements and demands.

The Agile Ecosystem is developed to enhance and improve the

maturity of any organization looking to transform into an Agile
Enterprise. It allows the Agile teams to enhance their maturity by
assessing and understanding the current Agile practices of the team and
by assessing their ultimate goals. It focuses on developing an
infrastructure that grants an organization the ability to respond to the
changing business conditions and delivering values, the highest quality
products/services, an unprecedented customer experience, and
satisfaction in the shortest sustainable lead-time. Sustainability is the key
here, people often misinterpret the main concept of Agile, as it is more
inclined towards the customer than the organization itself. On the outside,
it's about the customer but in-depth Agile is all about providing businesses
with the capability to meet the market demands in a sustainable and
profitable manner.

In one way, it allows the organization to follow a step-by-step process

rapidly and sustainably without letting one phase of the process affecting
the other. Everything falls in place like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and

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allows the organizations to develop a continuous development and
learning processes.

Why we call it as “Agile Ecosystem”?

The Agile Ecosystem is a community of different agile teams working

together with a single goal of delivering the highest value to the
customers. All the teams work together through systematic processes,
where each member of Agile teams is accustomed to the Agile values and
principles and play their part in ensuring that the product that comes out
of the organization and the product that the customer receives is built
RIGHT.

In this "Ecosystem," we have the RIGHT people (like organisms of the

ecosystem) and the RIGHT principles and practices (like the non-living
organisms of the ecosystem) working together hand-in-hand to provide
value to the customer while keeping in mind the organizational
infrastructure. These people and these principles are interlinked with one
another; principles guide people, transforming individuals into Agile
Teams, and help them ensure successful implementation of the
ecosystem. Just like in organisms, in this Agile ecosystem, the energy
transforms from one form to another, starting from Building the RIGHT
Product and transitioning to the delivery of value to the customer.

For your understanding, let's look at things from a straightforward

approach. The customer ideas/pain points and needs are first converted
into the RIGHT Product, i.e., hypothesis, features, user stories, product

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backlog, etc. The agile teams go through the complete details of the
product, converting the idea into working software. This is the second
phase of the energy transformation, where the Agile ecosystem brings
everything together, incorporating all the principles/methodologies/team
members to build the product RIGHT. Once the product is built RIGHT,
it is then tested for quality to ensure the customer is provided the value
that they asked for initially. So, this transformation from one form to
another is all systemic.

The difference with Agile Ecosystem is that, in Agile, as we mentioned

earlier, everything is systematic; if you remove one of the components
from the ecosystem, the resultant unbalance will impact the overall
performance of the team. Everything should work together in harmony to
keep the balance in the Agile ecosystem for organizations to ensure
delivery of value.

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 Chapter 3-Figure 4: Agile Ecosystem

Agile Ecosystem

Agile ecosystem introduces a model in the organization that allows

them to produce outcomes such as

• Shorter cycle times of delivery

• A greater understanding of customer/market demands

• A better understanding of the organizational needs and how to

meet the subsequent demands and needs

• Allowing them to overcome rapid industry and market changes

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 • Iterative and continuous releases, allowing them to meet the
planning and customer commitments

• Developing the ability to learn, validate, adapt, and maintain

the attitude of compliance, etc.

• Developing an ability to quickly identify, mitigate and manage

risks in the software development and delivery

• Achieve shorter mean time to resolve and higher levels of

system availability

• Reduced cost due to much less rework and defects, with higher
quality deliverables

• Increased productivity

• Faster decision making and eliminated handoffs

• Better coordination in between the development and

production teams

• Develop a loyal and satisfied customer clientele

Factors of Agile Ecosystem

The implementation of the Agile Ecosystem is a systematic step

process. With every step setting up as the basis for the next one, allowing
easy implementation of the Agile core concepts and values.

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Building the Right Product – Hypothesizing

The first step in implementing the Agile Ecosystem is to build the right
product. But the question that arises here is that "What is the right
product?" The answer to this lies simply in the customer and market
demand. Developing and producing software or a product that is not
needed can be costly for an organization.

The Agile mindset allows the companies to reflect the lightning-fast

demands and needs of the highly competitive world of software
development. The processes that initially used to be a rigid process didn’t
allow the companies to think out of the box when it came to the initiation,
ideation, design, and even development at the time. With Agile
philosophy's "Progress over perfection," the software development teams
and businesses can come up with a product that is the "Right" product for
the market.

Step by Step Approach to Right Product

As we mentioned earlier, Agile is a step-by-step process, and the

ideation and hypothesis phase of building the right product is systemic as
well. Simply speaking, the steps are relatively linear, going from simple
to being complex and intensive as they progress along. However, if you
see them all collectively there is a similar line of thought that helps them
progress. The process evolves around the main concept of giving the

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customer what they desire faster, cheaper, and more intuitively. Though
this will be discussed in detail in the later chapters, it's important to go
through the basics to have a proper idea of what the concept tells us about
the Agile Ecosystem.

Targeting the Problem

The Agile Ecosystem puts the customer in the driving seat of the
business. Building the right product concept takes customer's insights, and
customer's needs i.e. the market demand, and then works towards a
solution that's worth the money, cost, effort, and development. The Agile
Ecosystem allows the teams to put themselves in the customer's shoes and
then look at the problems that require attention. As an Agile team, the first
step towards building the right product is understanding the problem that
your product or software is going to bring an answer to. You need to have
a proactive approach to product building if you want to do it right.

“You can’t ask customers what they want and then try to give that to
them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new”

– Steve Jobs

Deeper Insight into Customer Experience

Once the problem has been identified, it is time to mature the idea and
work on the hypothesis, turning it into a viable solution. The point is to

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look at what impact the product will put on the market and the solution.
Researching the field is important, as it allows businesses to carefully
analyze every aspect of their product. The target of this stage is to have
in-depth analyzes of the customer experience. How does the customer feel
about it? Try to understand this, and then move about with iterations. The
agile ecosystem allows the teams to work together to develop solutions in
real-time, and that is the core of this step.

Product Scaling

This is the last phase of building the right product and comes after the
product is out in the market. Try to look for customer feedback,
understand the product's audience, and analyze their experience. This part
requires the collective effort of the development, production, marketing,
sales, and support departments to understand how to scale the product and
develop an infrastructure that keeps the customer engaged. Moreover, the
Agile Ecosystem allows the companies to stay a step ahead of the market
through the collaboration of different teams and leadership levels.

Building the Product Right - Building

For the successful implementation of the Agile Ecosystem, the second

step is to build the product right. For many, the concept of building the
right product and product right might be complicated to understand, but

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when analyzed in-depth, they both provide a different approach to product
handling and development. Building the Product right is all about
knowing what's right for the product. It's all about knowing what
technologies and development procedures are going to be utilized for the
product and how will those change with time. To successfully implement
the Agile Ecosystem, it is important to build a structure or a team that can
automate itself over time and provides a linear approach to product
development and handling.

To build a product right it is important to start with a viable backend

or architecture for the product. Development takes the hypothesis and puts
it forward to the customer in a refined form. It is important to keep in
mind the technology, requirement, and trend change over time and work
accordingly on the initial product. The initial solution should be
upgradable over time. Keep in mind that the problem's solution is the main
goal here.

Keep a log of all the problems and bugs that your product might face
over time. The record of the errors is crucial and allows the companies for
the successful debugging of the software before the customer starts facing
the problem. Build the right product for the customer right is one of the
most important factors towards the implantation of the Agile Ecosystem.

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Measuring the Value - Measuring

The world of the Agile Ecosystem is all about delivering value to the
customer. For the successful implementation of the ecosystem,
organizations need to develop an infrastructure that allows them to have
a clear and concise overview of the value that they are delivering to the
customer. But the question that arises here is that "What to measure to
know if the customer is being delivered the value?" The answer to this
lies in the Agile Triangle, the agile ecosystem variation of the traditional
Cost, Scope, and Schedule Iron Triangle.

Source: Agile Digest

Chapter 3-Figure 5: The Value, Quality, and Constraint Triangle

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 Value

For the successful evaluation of the value, it is important to understand

what is of priority for the customer. However, the Agile Ecosystem helps
maintain a balance between the customer priority and the overall socio-
economic system of the organization. So, it is important to measure the
customer benefits and put them against the financial benefits that the
company is getting. This is the first step in measuring the value.

Quality

Quality measurement is something that is the first step towards

measuring the value of your organizational ecosystem. Quality is a must
in any case but it is relative, it's important for the business stakeholders to
set an appropriate level of quality for the product or the solution that's
being offered. To measure the value of the overall ecosystem or the
organization, it is necessary to have methods and standards set that could
measure the quality of the service provided and the quality of the
workforce at the same time. Agile focuses on the expertise of the teams
and inter-team coordination on the same par as customer prioritization.
More about, this will be discussed in detail in the subsequent chapter,
along with different methods of measuring the quality.

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 Constraints

Constraints refer to the traditional iron triangle, that acts as a variable

in the Agile Ecosystem. It refers to the cost of the service being provided,
the schedule of the service or the solution, and the scope. The cost and the
service scope part align with the product development phase and the
scheduling part allows the organizations to measure how responsive their
development and production facilities are. Are the deadlines being met?
Are the product iterations and deadlines within the financial constraints?
Etc.

For the successful implementation of the Agile Ecosystem, it is

important for the software development teams to come up with methods
for measuring the “Value.” This allows them to keep things on track and
follow the principles of the Agile Manifesto.

Stakeholders

Effective leadership is the primary factor in the agility of a business or

an organization. The agile infrastructure or the ecosystem clearly defines
the roles and responsibilities of the leadership in every sector of the
business, defining competencies and tactics, hence allowing the
organizations to come with a strategy. The main hurdle that most
organizations face in the successful implementation of the Agile
ecosystem most of the time is the organizational infrastructure itself. It's

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either the management, the organization, or the higher hierarchy. People
need to be ready to adopt, learn and change.

The agile ecosystem allows organizations to adopt these changes and

react accordingly. The traditional organizational management procedures
on the other hand are focused on the set standards and don't cater to the
changes that might occur over the period. The ecosystem that normally
companies operate on is based on command and control, where the
stakeholders are responsible for the issuances of the deliverables to the
respective team. Agile Ecosystem contradicts the conventional
management procedures and targets the command-and-control method. It
develops a sense of trust, transparency, and feedback system, in which
every department works together.

So, for the successful implementation of Agile frameworks into the

ecosystem of an organization, it is important to develop a proper
infrastructure of change and learn among the stakeholders.

Learn and Adapt – Continuous Learning

An agile approach to software development is fundamentally different

from conventional waterfall development and procedure. Agile is based
on adaptive planning, learning, rapid response, and team coordination.
The main core of the whole Agile ecosystem revolves around adaptability
and continuous learning. The successful transition from conventional to
Agile team requires a certain set of changes, that the organization needs

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to ensure are adapted by the stakeholders, developers, and all other
support members.

However, this transition to an Agile ecosystem is not that easy, it

requires both a top-down and bottom-up approach at the same time, in
which every member of the organization should be ready to move forward
and be ready to change at all times. The teams should be aware at all times
that there is room for more improvement in their domain and organization,
that could help them grow and then exhibit the desire to change at the
same time. Moreover, the organization should make sure that the teams
are ready to work as per the core values and principles of the agile
manifesto.

Transitioning into an Agile ecosystem is a complete mindset shift that

requires continuous learning embedded into the daily routine of the
organization's employees, stakeholders, and managers. Agile is all about
test, learn, change, and adapt.

Deliver Value – Value Delivery

“Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and

continuous delivery of valuable software.”

– Agile Manifesto/Principle 1

The agile ecosystem follows the core principle of the Agile Manifesto
i.e., deliverance of customer value. A value in terms of an Agile

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ecosystem can be a solution, a product or a service analyzed from the
customer's end. It's more about the benefits that the customer will be
getting from the software or the product. Organizations often try to
implement the agile ecosystem without focusing on delivering value and
fail in transitioning into an agile team. Delivering business value should
be the major goal.

In the Agile Ecosystem, the product owner is often used to define the
term value. Agile SCRUM framework and the product owner act as the
two ends of this value function. The product owners often work as the
bridge between the development team, the customers, and the
stakeholders and are responsible for the successful delivery of the value
to the customer. The product owner must understand the project
completely and guide the development team towards the delivery of the
value to the customer. On the other hand, the Scrum Masters are
responsible for ensuring that the respective teams work effectively and
focus on the real-time solution to the problem to make sure that the
product delivery is efficient, timely and ensures customer satisfaction.

The agile ecosystem allows the organizations to continuously learn and

track changes, and hence deliver value to the customer based on the
feedback received. It's all about delivering the customer the right product
and provide the customer with an unmatched experience.

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 The overall concept of Agile Ecosystem is all about integrating all the
core values principles and frameworks into the organizational
infrastructure, and successful adaption of those factors.

Chapter 10-Figure 6: Check if you got Agile RIGHT?

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