Agile is Easy to Learn – Difficult to Master

Working agile is as simple as riding a bike, when you know how to do it. Only few things you need to know – do you break by foot or by hand, driving left or right side of the road. And you are good to go.

The same applies for agile methodologies where the principles are stated in the agile manifesto (http://agilemanifesto.org/) although these are quite wide. The good thing is they are brilliant as guidelines in complex questions, but they are close the useless if you are just about to start your agile journey.

So what to do?

Depending on your urgency to deliver faster and at a lower cost – you can either chose to try your way and learn agile by yourself, – or team up with someone who knows all the pitfalls, how to avoid them and move away from them. A person that can guide you to get started faster, smoother and most likely end up performing better.

Chose the first if you have lots of patience and care less on budget and more on organic learning in a sustainable pace. You will be good at learning from your own mistakes and feel full control of the journey.

But, chose the second and add heavy hands-on agile experience, if you care about your profitability (both cost and revenue), ability to predict and meet goals; and not least important, are eager to get started and running. The initial investment in a coach will by far be matched by the sustainable delivery of working product increments, a higher quality and faster time to market (the cycle time from idea to sellable product or internal value add).

Good luck with your agile journey!

Majken Vildrik Thougaard, Independent Agile Specialist & Owner of VILMA Consulting