AGILE NXT 3rd edition

In this third edition of AGILE NXT — a magazine designed by Xebia’s thought leaders and experts to inspire and inform you, offers 15 new insights:

• The Ultimate Model for Managing Performance in Agile Environments (Daniel Burm). The Agile performance management model consists of five main building blocks: purpose, strategy and goals, whole system alignment, performance models and metrics, coordinated performance management routines and high-performance culture and behavior.
• Schiphol’s Customer Value Takes Flight With A New Mindset (Esmé Valk and Ellen Barree). The program is all about changing mindsets and behaviors bottom up, without having a structural blueprint thought out in advance.
• Stop Focusing on Agile & Start Adding Real Value (Kevin Bakker). In many organizations, Agile and Scrum have become container concepts—their true definition and purpose forgotten. So, it makes sense to regularly reflect with your whole team on the what and ways of working Agile. As an organization, keep asking, “what problem do we want to solve?” Does your approach add the most value, or are there other options?
• Need Business Agility? Boost Your IT Capabilities (Bart Bouwers). 5 capabilities are explored: Build the Right Product, Continuous Delivery & Release on Demand, Detect & Recover Fast, Easy Infra & Containers, and Always Compliant & Always Secure.
• Change the Way You Change – A result-Driven Growth Hack (Ron Meyer and Paul Immerzeel). Based on an agile transformation that is not yet showing results, the sponsor asks himself the following questions: What do I sense?, What do I feel?, What do I think?, What do I want?, and, What can I do about it?
• Agile Doesn’t Create Future-Proof Organizations (Riët Broekhuizen and Ellen Barree). The 4th revolution requires radical innovation, where organizations experiment with new revenue models and structures, automate all repetitive actions, eliminate bureaucratic processes and employ the latest technologies in an open and transparent environment.
• Digital Business: Make it Happen, and Make it Stick! Digital Success Requires a Healthy Dose of Common Sense (Edwin Oldenbeuving). There are seven skills for life and work in the 21st century: cooperation, communication, problem solving, self-reliance, creativity, critical thinking and social and cultural skills.
• Portfolio Management – Through Different Glasses (Jarl Meijer). Five Tips to Reduce Portfolio Management Complexity are discussed: Nurture a culture of trust and transparency; Scale down to independent units of max. 125 people; Provide clear company-wide goals and priorities; Focus portfolio management sessions on strategic choices and solutions for impediments; Drive performance growth and predictability.
• Cloud Migration Will Disrupt Ops as You Know It (Mark van Holsteijn). Three strategies for cloud migration and their effect on IT Operations are explained: rehost, redesign and re-platform.
• Artificial Intelligence for Leadership decision-making (Rik de Groot). AI supports decision-making by: Analyzing the situation based on data, trends, historical information, and information from outside the organization; Giving leaders insights and options; Providing fact-based information; Looking at the big picture instead of local optimization.
• You Can’t Escape Team Behavior (Anne Davidse and Marianne Pot). The escape room creates a bubble within which you can better understand team behavior. By analyzing how individuals’ function in a high-pressure team challenge, you can identify opportunities for improvement, spot natural leaders, and build trust.
• Deep Democracy: Listening to the Wisdom of the Minority (Kenny Baas-Schwegler). Checking in, spreading perceptions (listen to all options, share other options and different viewpoints, and raise hands for recognition), deep democratic voting (majority vote is needed, sincere apology to those members who aren’t part of the majority, collect their arguments and vote again and repeat cycle if there is no full consensus), go fishing (make explicit agreements with each other, everyone says what they have to say), equality in differences (vote again).
• Scoring an “A” for Agile in Architecture (Winfried Scheulderman). An overview of characteristics of a modern IT architecture process and six considerations to take into account if you want to introduce modern architecture.
• The Agility Gap: What’s Really Behind It? (Daria Nozhkina). When an organization primarily focuses on its financial priorities, it directly impacts its approach to Agile transformation, which, in turn, influences the transformation’s success.
• Common Sense Scaling: The 10 Do’s and Don’ts for Delivering Value with Multiple Teams (Evelien Acun-Roos). Start small, involve, change habits and behavior, measure and seek knowledge and experience.

Conclusion: a mix of articles. Some articles are too short to make a difference. Other articles definitely offer new insights. In total it’s definitely worthwhile to download and read the magazine.

To download: www.agilenxt.com