Xebia Articles

There are many different Agile methods, frameworks, and coaches—and all claim to add value. But how can you know if one is working or not? How can you evaluate its value? If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. So, it’s no wonder that fifty-eight percent of Agile projects don’t succeed.¹ Measurements and metrics are at the core of making informed, good decisions. Otherwise, the lack of data forces people into relying on beliefs. The Diamond Agile model provides a comprehensive perspective on agility and a set of meaningful metrics by which to measure it.

This article is published in. Agile NXT is the magazine full of inspiration for professionals on the emerging Agile journey. Theme of #2: New Insights for Agile Performance Management.

What is Agility?
Some companies quickly react to changing circumstances in the market. They are fast, flexible, and able to create products and services that are exactly what the world desires. This ability is called “agility.”

Increasing agility has a strong, positive, measurable impact on your ability to create great products and services that delight your customers. That is the core tenet of Diamond Agile. It breaks agility down into five facets:

Multi Products Scrum teams are in reality observed often. One team serving different stakeholders and customer segments. Both would like to use the same people to work on their improvements.

Back in the nineties, I graduated from Radboud University Nijmegen, with a master's degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Instead of traveling to the outskirts of Africa I chose to do my field research in a notorious town at the Costa Brava of Catalonia, Lloret de Mar. In the media, this place was portrayed as a modern version of Sodom and Gomorra in which youngsters went berserk on sex and drugs. My thesis concerned the cultural significance of this happening. How do adolescents really behave? And what does it mean?

Looking to build a world-changing product? Empower your product team first.

Should we get rid of IT architects, or do we need them more than ever?-There are a lot of connotations when it comes to traditional IT architecture: 

Do you “run a tight ship?” Does “cutting the bottom line” boost your self-esteem? Are you obsessed with getting “more for less”—or the “maximum outcome for the minimum investment?” If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then you might be suffering from a severe case of “efficiency” addiction.

An Interview with Jeff Sutherland by Serge Beaumont

Organizations strive to optimize their products and services, to perfectly cater to their customers' needs, and surpass expectations when possible. To this end, they set change objectives, tune work processes, and reconfigure the architecture of their organizational structures. And yet, too often the expected impact or change doesn't materialize. Sometimes their performance doesn't improve at all. Why?

The digitalization of our economy and society has unleashed a storm of transformation.   Rapid technological development has completely changed the way people work. Teams and organizations work increasingly on a global scale. Knowledge and technology are growing exponentially, making multidisciplinary collaborations essential—onsite, via video conferencing, or through virtual spaces. Businesses have been forced to change, rapidly, just to remain competitive. But while Agile companies can deliver products and services faster and smarter, and often at a lower cost, organizations with a long history and complex technological legacy have had a difficult time transitioning. What’s more, the long-established patterns and work habits of the people who work at these companies has also often impeded change. 

When StackState and XITA organized a breakfast seminar on SRE and AIOps, a few representatives from NS International (NSI) showed up, including Pascal Reijnder, Head of IT. Based in the Netherlands, NSI operates on the busiest railway network in the world and transports about 1.2 million people every day, with annual revenue of five billion euro. In 2012, the rail operator suffered a reputation loss after on-boarding a new high-speed train that, ultimately, never went into long-term operation. The organization needed to change its “mindset” and it set an ambitious goal for itself: to double the number of its international travelers by 2030. Impressed by what they learned at the seminar, NSI teamed up with StackState to help them achieve both.