“Remodeling” Your Business the Agile Way

A few years ago, my parents moved in with me. I quickly learned that my house wasn’t big enough for the stuff my mom and dad had accumulated for over 45 years in their old house, even after “downsizing” for the move. Right after that, I learned that my house was not up to my mom’s standards. I had thought it was a lovely house, but apparently, it needed some work.

My mom wrote a list. A long list of large, expensive projects. And she wanted them all done the following spring.

I looked at the list and envisioned swarms of workers in and around the house like bees in a hive, and I saw my bank account dwindle before my eyes. How was I going to satisfy my mother and keep my finances in check at the same time?

The key to agility: prioritization

My predicament is very similar to what businesses face every day. They have a list of goals and ideas that are far bigger than their budget and timeline. So how can Agile help us to manage situations like this?

The secret key to agility is also the most difficult thing to master: the idea that not everything will be complete at once, so you have to set your priorities.

I took the house project list and put it in order:

• • I started with safety concerns – the driveway would flood after a lot of rain or freeze in the winter. This posed a threat to my parents, so it had to go first.

• I looked at finishing the basement. For three people and two cats, a finished basement was not necessary. We never went down there, and the boxes we stored there didn’t need a fancy room. I put it at the bottom of the list.
• What about screening in the back porch? My father enjoys sitting outside, but the bugs are a concern. It was a project that would add a lot of value to his enjoyment of the house. That fell towards the top of the list. But if I screened in the porch after I redid the driveway, would I have to fix it again?

I continued in this manner through the list and then showed my mother (the customer). I also showed her the roadmap of how much we could do each year to avoid going bankrupt. We reviewed the list, clarified any questions, and negotiated the priorities. In the end, she was happy because I’d addressed her concerns and met her needs; I was pleased that we managed the spending responsibly.

What sort of house is your business building?

In business, in many cases, prioritizing effectively is the hardest part.

For my list, I knew the benefits and costs of each project exactly. Many times, projects only come with a benefit hypothesis that has to be implemented to be proved, and an estimated cost to compare that to. Sometimes, different stakeholders feel every task is the most important and it should all be done first. This can be difficult. Prioritization requires negotiation, empathy, and some trust in the process.

Three years and several large projects later, the basement still isn’t finished, the driveway no longer floods, and the project list contains smaller items that will get tackled over time. Priorities change as I add or complete things, or based on other circumstances. The house is not as good as my mother wants it to be, but it’s much better than I ever thought it could be.

Businesses who tackle this aspect of Agile can build houses beyond their imagination, one prioritized project at a time.

To explore applying core Agile principles to your workflow, consider Cprime’s Agile training options.

Jennifer Vasi, Agile Program Coach