I’ve always been a fan of 3. Third time’s a charm, at least 3 questions to indicate that you’ve been thoughtfully listening, 3 strikes you’re out, 3 ring circus. 3 seems to be pervasive, if not cool.
I heard a talk at an Agile conference a couple years back claiming that the minimum viable product, when it comes to Agile, is these 3 elements. If you don’t have all 3 of these, your ability to be Agile is severely compromised:
- a genuine team
- a single-source and all-inclusive backlog
- frequently executing stuff.
I find that a very useful set of 3 comprising an MVP for Agile, and I use it all the time. Now Mike Cohn of MountainGoat Software has a wonderful 3 question assessment he published recently. And I like it, so of course I’m giving you the reference, and I’ll summarize it briefly. Nice article, Mike!
Let us assess whether an organization is at least moderately Agile, and trying to get better would be helpful.
- Assess Agile team functionality. How frequently do your teams fully integrate their products?
- Gauge leadership commitment to Agile. How do you respond if there’s a crisis or problem that makes a deadline or planned milestone no longer possible to achieve?
- Uncover hidden Agile dysfunctions (yellow or red flags). Tell me about your best Scrum Master or Product Owner.
Wow, that’s easy. Well, sorta, obviously it depends on what you do with the 3 answers. Of course, Mike goes into more depth in his article. It’s an easy read, I recommend it. (I recommend it so much I wrote a blog entry recommending it!)
https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/three-questions-to-determine-if-an-organization-is-agile