Visualize Your Agile Approach: Practical Ways to Increase Your Agility

Your team is supposed to use an agile approach, such as Scrum. But you have a years-
long backlog, your standups are individual status reports, and you’re still multitasking.
You and your team members wish you had the chance to do great work, but this feels a
lot like an “agile” death march.
There’s a reason you feel that way. You’re using fake agility—a waterfall lifecycle
masquerading as an agile approach. Worse, fake agility is the norm in our industry.
No one has to work that way.
Instead, you can assess your culture, project, and product risks to select a different
approach. That will allow you to choose how to collaborate so you can iterate over
features and when to deliver value. When you do, you are more likely to discover actual
agility and an easier way to work.
Learning Objectives
1. Have a clear understanding of the different lifecycles and when to use each.
2. Be able to assess your project, product, and portfolio risks.
3. Know how to customize a lifecycle based on the unique culture and requirements
of the team.
4. How to create shorter feedback loops in any lifecycle for product success.

About Johanna Rothman:
Johanna Rothman, known as the “Pragmatic Manager,” offers frank advice for your
challenging problems. She consults with leaders and teams so they can learn to see
alternate options that might work. Those practical alternatives can help them be more
effective with others at work. With those choices, they can choose what—and how—to
adapt their product development.
With her trademark practicality and humor, Johanna is the author of 20 nonfiction books.
Those books span the topics of management, product development, and personal
development.
See her newsletters, books, and blogs at jrothman.com and createadaptablelife.com.