BROADCASTS.com

b'

This week, your host, Dan Neumann, is going solo! He\\u2019s going to be talking about Agile assessments, and \\u2014 using medical terminology \\u2014 discuss whether it\\u2019s a helpful remedy or harmful toxin.

\\xa0

If someone is receiving the right medication for the right ailment, it can be absolutely lifesaving. But if you take that same medication and apply it to the wrong circumstance, it can be incredibly detrimental \\u2014 such as a toxin, poisoning your system. Dan views Agile assessments in a similar way. They can be super helpful tools for organizations that are trying to understand their current state of agility, or, they can potentially be destructive to team safety and employee morale \\u2014\\xa0 essentially becoming weaponized and destructive to teams.

\\xa0

Join Dan to explore this topic and learn how to properly leverage Agile assessments in your organization!

\\xa0

Key Takeaways

Why organizations look to Agile assessment in the first place:

• To establish a baseline of performance
• To look at which teams are doing (or not doing) well
• To look for areas where help can be applied
• To validate assumptions

The four categories of gathering assessment:

• Self-reporting
• Externally measuring
• Having an expert come in and observe what\\u2019s happening in the teams
• Looking at the inner workings

Dan\\u2019s tips for a successful assessment:

• Having phases in the assessment and planning with intentionality
• Know your \\u201cwhy\\u201d
• Collect data and interpret the results in a collaborative way
• For planning, ask yourself: what do you hope to learn? And what decisions might this enable?
• Look to Agile survey tools for electronic data collection
• Look to people and interactions over processes and tools
• When receiving the assessment, create options for the teams
• Collaborate with the organization being assessed and those doing the assessment to figure out the next steps and how to move forward collectively

Why an assessment may not serve an organization (AKA: the pitfalls):

• Help isn\\u2019t always helpful; sometimes teams just need to work through a problem and sometimes the intervention of an outsider is not particularly helpful
• The information is used to evaluate (i.e. ranking teams)
• Jumping to evaluation and looking to reward or punish

How to go about interpreting the results of an assessment collaboratively:

• Use open space technology
• Bring the data
• Share observations
• Ask participants to organize around the data and observations and add their own perspective to what is happening
• Identify patterns and ask the team what they have the energy for turning into action

\\xa0

Mentioned in this Episode:

Slideshare Visual

Comparative Agility

Lean Agile Intelligence

\\xa0

Want to Learn More or Get in Touch?

Visit the website and catch up with all the episodes on AgileThought.com!

Email your thoughts or suggestions to Podcast@AgileThought.com or Tweet @AgileThought using #AgileThoughtPodcast!