Agile Assessment: Helpful Remedy or Harmful Toxin?
Agile is a set of values and a mindset. As such, it can be hard to answer questions that leaders often ask, like: How agile are we? Are we getting more agile? What are the growth opportunities for our team? Many organizations use assessments to determine their level of agility. Dan Neumann will introduce several assessment approaches and tools that, like medicine, can be toxic when used incorrectly. We will explore the merits, potential uses, and possible downsides of each approach. Dan will help you understand more about your options for framing an assessment that fits your needs best when trying to measure your organization's culture and teams. You'll be able to explain the possible benefits of assessment (and the possible unintended consequences of assessments), recognize assessment approaches that may damage team safety, and apply what you've learned to their own organization's agile journey.
Dan Neumann is an Agile Coach at AgileThought and co-owner of The Branch coworking space. In his role as Agile Coach, Dan advises companies on ways to capture value by emphasizing people, interactions, customer collaboration, and responding to change. He has trained and consulted with both national and global companies. Dan also speaks and conducts workshops at regional and national conferences. Dan is co-author of the book Patterns of Agile Journeys available on LeanPub at https://leanpub.com/agilejourneys. With his wife Debi, Dan started The Branch, a co-working space in downtown South Bend. The Branch supports independent workers, telecommuters, and startup companies by providing both physical infrastructure as well as the community necessary for them to focus on growing their businesses. In addition to agile coaching and growing The Branch, Dan is a co-founder and Brigade Co-Captain for Hack Michiana, a Code for America Brigade. Interests include software development and Lean Startup.