Agile Benefits

Agile

The need for benefit statements

An AgileData Way of Working provides a number of benefits to both the team who are working that way and to the stakeholders who receive the Information Products the teams deliver.

Ideally the team are empowered to work this way from day one and do not need to provide any additional information to get “permission” to adopt a new way of working.  Alas this is often not the case and stakeholders want to understand the benefits of the proposed changes.

Like all things within the AgileData Way of Working there are a bunch of patterns we can reuse to provide benefit statements to these stakeholders.  These patterns allow us to not only describe what these benefits are but what part of the AgileData Way of Working helps to deliver them.

When using the patterns the key is to identify the benefits your stakeholder and organisation care about the most and then use the benefit patterns to craft a set of statements that outline how these benefits will be realised.

For example do your stakeholders care about a happier team, or shorter delivery timeframes, or better quality data or being more involved earlier in the process.

Your key stakeholders should already be onboard and ready to support this change in the team’s way of working before you craft the benefit statements.  The benefits statements are just there to provide written support if needed.

We should adopt two of the Agile Manifesto Values when describing the benefits of an AgileData Way of Working:

  • Working software over comprehensive documentation.
  • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.

We should only document the benefits when it is absolutely necessary to do so, and we should have already collaborated with key stakeholders to get agreement before we document anything.

If the first time the key stakeholders hear about the plan to adopt a new way of working is when your benefits paper is submitted to the steering committee, then you have a long and hard road to climb.

Benefit Patterns

The following patterns are common across an AgileData Way of Working and can be used to craft the benefit statements that will best convince your stakeholders to empower your data and analytics teams to change the way they work.

  • Focus on delivering valuable data and information
  • Prioritisation.
  • Iteration planning
  • Agreement on requirements
  • Iterative development
  • Continuous testing
  • Continuous integration
  • Reduction in manual work
  • Adapting to change
  • Iteration reviews
  • Quicker time to make trade off decisions.
  • Enhanced communication
  • Frequent communication and collaboration with stakeholders.

Agile Manifesto Principles

Another pattern we can use when crafting benefit statements is to leverage the Agile Manifesto principles by rewriting them slightly.

You will see that a lot of the benefit patterns outlined above follow the same themes as the Agile Manifesto Principles.

  1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
  2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
  3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
  4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
  5. Build projects around motivated individuals.  Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
  6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development  team is face-to-face conversation.
  7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
  8. Agile processes promote sustainable development.  The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
  9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
  10. Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.
  11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs  emerge from self-organizing teams.
  12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how  to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.” – Agile Manifesto

The first principle of:

  • Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

Can be adapted to articulate the benefits of;

  • Deliver the most important things first.
  • Deliver information to stakeholders earlier.

Benefit Examples

Here are some examples of how you can use the benefit patterns to craft benefit statements for your stakeholders.  These are provided as examples only, you will find some of the benefit patterns repetitive across multiple benefit statements.  

Remember to craft your own benefit statements based on the specific context for your organisation and stakeholders.

Some benefit examples we often use are:

  • Help to deliver the most important things first.
  • Reduce risk
  • Deliver information earlier
  • Improve requirements understanding process
  • Stop at any time reducing over investment
  • Ability to reprioritise work when required
  • Reduce rework and waste
  • Increase in quality
  • Simplified releases
  • Improved predictability
  • Teams enjoy their work more
  • Improved Stakeholder Engagement

Help to deliver the most important things first.

In an AgileData Way of Working a focus is to prioritise the delivery of high value information and data capabilities early in the data value chain process, enabling teams to rapidly respond to changing business needs and deliver the most important Information Products first.

This is achieved through the use of patterns such as prioritisation, iterative development, and frequent communication and collaboration with stakeholders.

  • Prioritisation: An AgileData Way of Working encourages teams to prioritise the most important information and data platform work, and to deliver these first. This helps ensure that resources are being used effectively and that the team is delivering the most value to stakeholders as quickly as possible.

  • Iterative development: An AgileData Way of Working involves developing and delivering small chunks of work, known as “iterations,” on a regular basis. This allows teams to get feedback on their work early and often, and to make necessary adjustments to ensure that they are delivering the most valuable data and information first.

  • Frequent communication and collaboration: An AgileData Way of Working emphasises the importance of frequent communication and collaboration with stakeholders. This helps ensure that the team has a clear understanding of the delivery priorities and is focused on delivering the most important data and information first.

Reduce Risk

An AgileData Way of Working can reduce the risk of dealing with complex data and complex data platforms, by enabling AgileData teams to be self sufficient and removing any impediments to their work, delivering information to stakeholders earlier to gain constant feedback and by continuously reassessing and adjusting the priorities and goals of the team, reducing the risk of delivering an Information Product that does not meet the needs or expectations of the stakeholder.

This is achieved through the use of patterns such as iterative development, continuous testing, adapting to change and enhanced communication.

  • Iterative development: An AgileData Way of Working involves developing and delivering small chunks of work, known as “iterations,” on a regular basis. This allows teams to get feedback on their work early and often, and to make necessary adjustments to mitigate potential risks.

  • Agreement on requirements: In an AgileData Way of Working data and information requirements are gathered and documented using the Information Product Canvas pattern. An Information Product is an approach to describe a boundary for data, analytical and visualisation requirements in a way that the business stakeholders can agree what they will get and the team can understand and deliver it in small iterations.  By gathering requirements using the Information Product Canvas, teams can more easily understand the needs and goals of end users, which can help increase the agreement of requirements.

  • Continuous testing: An AgileData Way of Working emphasises the importance of testing and continuous improvement. By conducting regular testing and addressing issues as they arise, teams can identify and mitigate potential risks before they become major problems.

  • Adapt to change: An AgileData Way of Working encourages constant communication and collaboration, which allows teams to be more flexible in responding to changing requirements or market conditions. This can help reduce risk by allowing teams to adapt to changes more quickly and effectively.

  • Enhanced communication: An AgileData Way of Working places a strong emphasis on teamwork and collaboration, which can help teams identify and mitigate potential risks together more effectively.

Deliver Information Earlier

An AgileData Way of Working can help deliver information to stakeholders earlier, by breaking large bits of work down into smaller chunks and by removing the need for time intensive manual work via the use of automation.

This is achieved through the use of patterns such as iterative development, iteration planning, reduction in manual effort and quicker time to make trade off decisions.

  • Iterative development: An AgileData Way of Working involves developing and delivering small chunks of work, known as “iterations,” on a regular basis. This allows teams to get feedback on their work early and often, and to make necessary adjustments to ensure that they are delivering the most valuable information as early as possible.

  • Iteration planning: In an AgileData Way of Working, teams typically plan their work for the next iteration, during the current iteration. This planning process involves identifying the most important tasks or features required to deliver an Information Product and prioritising them based on their value to stakeholders. By focusing on the most important tasks or features, teams can avoid working on less important or less valuable tasks, which can help increase the work not done and decrease the time to deliver.

  • Reduction in manual effort: An AgileData team focuses on automating manual tasks, reducing the time it takes to deliver.  Automated testing helps reduce the time and effort required to test code changes, allowing the team to deliver new data and features quicker.  Automation can also be used to support continuous integration, which involves regularly integrating and testing code changes. By automating the integration and testing process, teams can identify and address issues as they arise quicker.

  • Quick trade off decisions: The product owner is a key role in an AgileData Way of Working and is responsible for defining and prioritising the Information and  features required.  By regularly engaging with stakeholders, the product owner stays up-to-date on the evolving needs and priorities of the organisation, which helps decrease the time required to inform trade-off decisions.

Improve Requirements Understanding Process

An AgileData Way of Working can help improve the requirements understanding process by encouraging collaboration between team members and stakeholders, leading to a clearer understanding of the stakeholders goals and a more accurate representation of information consumers needs.

This is achieved through the use of patterns such as agreements on requirements, iterative development and frequent communication and collaboration.

  • Agreement on requirements: In an AgileData Way of Working data and information requirements are gathered and documented using The Information Product Canvas. An Information Product is an approach to describe a boundary for data, analytical and visualisation requirements in a way that the business stakeholders can agree what they will get and the team can understand and deliver it in small iterations. Information Product templates help teams focus on the needs and goals of end users, rather than on technical details or implementation considerations.

  • Iterative development: An AgileData Way of Working involves developing and delivering small chunks of work, known as “iterations,” on a regular basis. This allows teams to get feedback on their work early and often, and to make necessary adjustments to ensure that they are delivering the most valuable features first. By delivering requirements and the resulting data and information in small increments, teams can more easily incorporate changes or new requirements as they arise.

  • Frequent communication and collaboration: An AgileData Way of Working emphasises the importance of frequent communication and collaboration with stakeholders. This helps ensure that the team has a clear understanding of the organisations priorities and is focused on delivering the most important features first. By regularly engaging with stakeholders, teams can more effectively gather and incorporate new requirements as they arise.

Stop at any time reducing over investment

An AgileData Way of Working can help identify the natural time to stop investing in enhancing an Information Product and to move onto delivering or enhancing a different Information Product. 

This is achieved through the use of patterns such as prioritisation, iterative development and iteration reviews.

  • Prioritisation: An AgileData Way of Working encourages teams to prioritise the most important information and data platform work, and to deliver these first. Stakeholders have visibility of the Information Product prioritisation roadmap and can identify when investment in a different Information Product is more likely to help support achieving the organisations goals.

  • Iterative development: An AgileData Way of Working involves developing and delivering small chunks of work, known as “iterations,” on a regular basis. This allows teams to get feedback on their work early and often, and to make necessary adjustments to ensure that they are delivering the most valuable features first. By delivering requirements and the resulting data and information in small increments, teams can more easily incorporate changes or new requirements as they arise.

  • Iteration reviews: In an AgileData Way of Working teams review their progress at the end of each iteration. During these reviews, teams assess their progress, identify any issues or risks, and make necessary adjustments to the plan for the next iteration. This regular review process can help teams identify when it is necessary to stop work on a particular information product or platform capability.

Ability to reprioritise work when required

An AgileData Way of Working enables the reprioritisation of work at regular intervals allowing for a more flexible and responsive approach to delivering data and information, ensuring that the most important and pressing work is delivered first.

This is achieved through the use of patterns such as iteration planning, iterating Information Product Canvas, and frequent communication and collaboration with stakeholders.

  • Iteration planning: In an AgileData Way of Working, teams typically plan their work for the next iteration, during the current iteration. This planning process involves identifying the most important tasks or features required to deliver an Information Product and prioritising them based on their value to stakeholders. By regularly reviewing and adjusting their priorities, teams can reprioritise their work as needed.

  • Iterating Information Product Canvas: In an AgileData Way of Working data and information requirements are gathered and documented using The Information Product Canvas. An Information Product is an approach to describe a boundary for data, analytical and visualisation requirements in a way that the business stakeholders can agree what they will get and the team can understand and deliver it in small iterations.  By regularly reviewing and iterating the Information Product Canvas, teams can reprioritise their work as needed based on the needs and goals of end users.

  • Frequent communication and collaboration: An AgileData Way of Working emphasises the importance of frequent communication and collaboration with stakeholders. This helps ensure that the team has a clear understanding of the organisations priorities and is focused on delivering the most important features first. y regularly engaging with stakeholders, teams can more easily incorporate new requirements or changes in priorities as they arise.

Reduce Rework

An AgileData Way of Working helps reduce rework.  

This is achieved through the use of patterns such as iterative planning, iterative development, continuous improvement, and frequent communication and collaboration with stakeholders.

  • Iteration planning: In an AgileData Way of Working, teams typically plan their work for the next iteration, during the current iteration. This planning process involves identifying the most important tasks or features required to deliver an Information Product and prioritising them based on their value to stakeholders. By focusing on the most important features or components first, teams can avoid working ahead on less important or less valuable features.

  • Iterative development: An AgileData Way of Working involves developing and delivering small chunks of work, known as “iterations,” on a regular basis. This allows teams to get feedback on their work early and often, and to make necessary adjustments to ensure that they are delivering the most valuable features first. By gathering feedback early and often, teams can identify and address issues before they become major problems, which can help reduce the need for rework.

  • Continuous integration: An AgileData Way of Working emphasises the importance of testing and continuous integration. By conducting regular testing and deployments of working code and addressing issues as they arise, teams can identify and mitigate potential problems before they become major issues, which can help reduce the need for rework.

  • Frequent communication and collaboration: An AgileData Way of Working places a strong emphasis on teamwork and collaboration, which can help teams identify and address potential problems more effectively. By regularly communicating and collaborating with team members and stakeholders, teams can identify and address issues early, which can help reduce the need for rework.

Increase in Quality

An AgileData Way of Working helps increase the quality of data and information.  

This is achieved through the use of patterns such as iterative planning, iterative development, testing and continuous improvement, frequent communication and collaboration with stakeholders and focussing on delivering valuable data and information.

  • Iteration planning: In an AgileData Way of Working, teams typically plan their work for the next iteration, during the current iteration. By working through the tasks that need to be undertaken before they start the development, teams ensure no task is missed and that adequate time and resources are allocated to the task, increasing the quality of the delivery.

  • Iterative development: An AgileData Way of Working involves developing and delivering small chunks of work, known as “iterations,” on a regular basis. By gathering feedback early and often, teams can identify and address issues before they become major problems, which can help improve the quality of the data and information they deliver.

  • Continuous testing: An AgileData Way of Working emphasises the importance of testing and continuous integration.  By conducting regular testing and addressing issues as they arise, teams can identify and mitigate potential problems before they become major issues, which can help improve the overall quality of the data and information delivered.

  • Focus on delivering valuable data and information: An AgileData Way of Working prioritises the delivery of valuable data and information over comprehensive documentation. This allows teams to get feedback on their work early and often, and to make necessary adjustments to ensure that they are delivering the most valuable things first. By focusing on delivering data and information and getting feedback early and often, teams can improve the overall quality of the data and information delivered.

  • Frequent communication and collaboration: An AgileData Way of Working places a strong emphasis on teamwork and collaboration, which can help teams identify and address potential problems more effectively. By regularly communicating and collaborating with team members and stakeholders, teams can identify and address issues early, which can help improve the overall quality of the data and information .

Simplified Releases

An AgileData Way of Working can help simplify the release process and reduce the time between releases. 

This is achieved through the use of patterns such as iterative development, continuous integration and frequent communication and collaboration.

  • Iterative development: An AgileData Way of Working involves developing and delivering small chunks of work, known as “iterations,” on a regular basis. This allows teams to get feedback on their work early and often, and to make necessary adjustments to ensure that they are delivering the most valuable features first. By delivering smaller chunks of a project more frequently, teams can simplify the release process by reducing the amount of code that needs to be tested and deployed at one time.

  • Continuous integration: An AgileData Way of Working emphasises the importance of testing and continuous integration. By continuously integrating and testing code changes, teams can identify and address issues as they arise, which can help simplify the release process by reducing the amount of testing and debugging that needs to be done before a release.

  • Frequent communication and collaboration: An AgileData Way of Working places a strong emphasis on teamwork and collaboration, which can help teams identify and address potential problems more effectively. This helps ensure that the team has a clear understanding of the organisations priorities and is focused on delivering the most important information first. By regularly engaging with stakeholders, teams can more easily incorporate new requirements or changes in priorities as they arise, which can help simplify the release process by reducing the amount of rework that needs to be done.

Improved Stakeholder Engagement

An AgileData Way of Working improves engagement with stakeholders. 

This is achieved through the use of patterns such as frequent communication and collaboration, agreement on requirements and iteration planning.

  • Frequent communication and collaboration: An AgileData Way of Working places a strong emphasis on teamwork and collaboration, which can help teams identify and address potential problems more effectively. This helps ensure that the team has a clear understanding of the organisations priorities and is focused on delivering the most important information first. By regularly engaging with stakeholders, teams can more easily incorporate new requirements or changes in priorities as they arise, which can help improve stakeholder engagement by ensuring that the project is aligned with the stakeholders’ needs and goals.

  • Agreement on requirements: In an AgileData Way of Working data and information requirements are gathered and documented using the Information Product Canvas. An Information Product is an approach to describe a boundary for data, analytical and visualisation requirements in a way that the business stakeholders can agree what they will get and the team can understand and deliver it in small iterations. By focusing on the most important Information Products first, teams can ensure that their work is aligned with the stakeholders’ needs and goals, which can help improve stakeholder engagement.

  • Iteration planning: In an AgileData Way of Working, teams typically plan their work for the next iteration, during the current iteration. This planning process involves identifying the most important data, information or capabilities required and prioritises them based on their value to stakeholders. By regularly reviewing and adjusting their priorities, teams can ensure that the project is aligned with the stakeholders’ needs and goals, which can help improve stakeholder engagement.

Benefit Anti-Patterns

There are a number of benefits from an AgileData Way of Working that are more dangerous to promise.

Faster Delivery

It is often tempting to state a benefit of an AgileData Way of Working as the team delivering faster.

While this is ultimately true it typically takes a team around three months before they are operating at a reasonable level of velocity.  Before this point the team is likely to deliver slower than they were using their old ways of working.  This is due to the massive amount of change in the way they work they are introducing.

Stating a benefit of faster delivery puts a lot of pressure on the team, at exactly the same time we are already putting pressure on them by asking them to change the way they do most of their work.

Stakeholders will typically provide a grace period to allow the team to reform their way of working, before they expect to see the desired benefits.  If this grace period is less than three months or the team takes longer than three months to achieve the desired velocity, you might find your stakeholders pulling their support for this change.

If we need to promise the benefit of faster delivery we should focus on these benefit patterns.

  • An AgileData team will deliver value to stakeholders more often as a result of chunking large bits of work down into smaller chunks of work.

  • As the team refines their way of working, an AgileData team will reduce the amount of wasted work in their data value chain, reducing the time it takes to deliver the work.

  • As the team develops automation to remove the need for manual effort, it will reduce the time it takes to deliver the work.

  • As the team increases their level of skills in the agile, product and data domains, they will take less time to deliver the work.

  • As the team increases collaboration and decreases the hand-offs between team members, it will reduce the amount of time spent to deliver the work.

Reduction in Cost

An AgileData Way of Working does not result in a reduction of cost.  

It can result in the reduction of the cost to produce a specific Information Product compared to the old way of working, by taking less effort or less time to deliver and maintain it.

However the only way to reduce the actual cost is to reduce the number of members in the team, thereby reducing the salary cost for the team.  In our experience we never reduce the number of team members, we increase the amount the team delivers.   Again in our experience there is always a massive amount of outstanding demand for information across an organisation which results in a massive amount of outstanding data work.

The focus of the benefit statements should always be on delivering more rather than reducing costs.