Xebia Articles

Scrum drives us toward enacting the first principle of the Agile Manifesto,“Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.” We are invited to look for ways to actually deliver “value.” Although “value” in itself is hard to quantify, we can absolutely measure to improve how we effectively deliver it.

You may be at the top of your game today, but with the industry changing so quickly, will your current skill set keep you at the same level a year from now? Embracing Instruqt’s six-point philosophy will empower to keep winning from a new way of “being.” 

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?