Agile Project Risk Assessment
Add to calendarAs an agile coach I am often faced with a “business value” dilemma when asked to help a new team adopt agile. They want the benefits of agile but have little understanding of what is required to be successful.
Before I commit to getting involved I run a facilitated workshop based on a set of experiential questions and multi choice answers to stimulate discussion amongst the group and highlight the agile roadblocks they face on their specific project.
Articulating their roadblocks helps decide whether the agile journey is worth starting and how an agile coach might add “business value”.
I have informally presented my experiential questionnaire concept at our local barcamp in Wellington New Zealand as part of an open group discussion and it was well received. I’m not sure for XP2010 if it is best suited as an experience report, a workshop or a tutorial as this is my first major conference. I would like to share my approach, how I have used it and especially how it sets realistic expectations at the start of the project - especially with the management/governance group. I would also be interested in getting feedback from my peers on; - the question and multichoice answer approach I use to illict roadblocks (agile risks) - the scoring approach and summary diagram I use to communicate the “readiness” results to management
- Use an experiential based questionnaire to engage a new project team in rapidly identifying and owning their agile roadblocks.
- Transfer these roadblocks into a format the governance group recognise as a traditional risk register with acceptable mitigation strategies.
- Understand the importance of the agile manifesto in guiding the culture and behaviour of a successful agile project team.
