Five Easy Ways to move from Waterfall to Agile

So you are in Waterfall and drenched and shivering… and you want to move to the Zen garden of Agile Nirvana, fear not, I the agile Zen master will show you the path to that bliss…

I know you are a waterfall whiz and you think there is no reason you can't take all the knowledge you gained developing products in PMI driven waterfall methodology and apply it in agile to deliver results, right???

No you are Very Wrong. but fear not, I the agile Zen master is going to tell you how in five easy steps you can move from PMBOK drudgery to Agile Nirvana.
 
Path 1: Create Customer Value not Deliver.

Waterfall: In waterfall the focus is on Plan, Your times is mostly spent on dancing with your compliance police, planned events and hey! you forget about delivering something useful to the end customer coz' he is at the verrrryyy endddd!!!. Waterfall teams constantly want baby sitting from PMO and ask themselves, "are we delivering the scheduled items as per the project plan?" because we are promised that the stinky fish will be given once we follow the planned activities and complete the tasks, like Shamu in Busch Gardens.

Agile: In Agile you focus on delivering customer value at quick intervals with minimum plan hey sometimes no plan, just kidding. Agile teams constantly bother customer and ask themselves, "are we delivering something useful to the customer? " now that is self discipline for you (the Zen way)... In agile all activities are planned just-in-time because we do not know otherwise !!. Agile teams focus on execution more so than plan, you shoot first and ask questions later.... So be ready to create value constantly and get your development team prepared for it.
Path2: Stop dreading and Start Loving your Product Launches

Waterfall: In waterfall product launch is the ultimate consummation of ‘the plan’ and you have to live with it whatever be the case. The teams are required to release a stable and ready product as well as train the support staff in its usage before it is shown to the customer. Releases are expensive like a well planned wedding in this part of the business, so more precaution (pre-nuptial agreements) takes place prior to launch.

Agile : It’s a bit more risky here, Vegas Style Baby, Agile teams plan and release a minimum viable product and see how users actually use the product. You got choice to run away in the middle. The guiding principles are Iterative, Time Boxed, Feature Based and Incremental.It’s more important to release the minimum viable product and see how users actually use the product than wait for a fully released version. So plan for engaging the customer, plan around features and test often in other words love your launches.
3. Slash and Burn Team Roles

Waterfall: We are stiff and we are proper, teams are stratified, you have the development team, the project manager, QA team, business analyst, development manager. Responsibilities are clear, bounded and someone else deals with the “other” stuff. There are very few “fine lines” when talking job titles and responsibilities.

Agile: We are " Occupy Wall Street" not really but more like so, In agile you have very limited number of roles. Teams are cross-functional. The team is collectively responsible for all shit that's happening. It s like the three stooges, you have the product owner, team and scrum master. We practice collectivism (not communism), planning, scheduling, developing and demoing are all done collectively. Did I mention that testing needs to be done and bugs taken care of within the iteration? You get the idea. Plan for change management ahead of transition, slash and burn titles and roles and be ready for discontent due to blurring of the previous lines dividing roles and responsibilities.
4. I am Reliable and you are Repeatable (boring)

Waterfall: I am like school cafeteria, same pasta noodles every Friday, same look (yuck), same feel (slimy) and same taste (rubber). The hall mark of PM driven waterfall development is repeatability. That is, if a project has consistent inputs, then defined outputs will be produced. Sequences are orchestrated here with known inputs so that outcomes can be predicted and fed to the next stage.
Agile: I may be out partying but when you call, I will be definitely there to listen to your story amid all the noise. Reliability in agile makes awesome business sense because your product for energy drink junkies could turn into a health nut organic juice next week. Team members in agile use reliable processes to figure out ways to consistently achieve a given goal even though the inputs vary dramatically. Reliability is results driven. So Plan for input variations changing processes or practices from one project, or even one iteration, to the next.
5. We are Green and you are Gray

Waterfall: Here you have 20% of budgeted capital for buying papers to print all types of documents, we love our technical writers and hate trees. Teams are given a plan and told what to do and when to do. Every team member has assigned tasks and completes his part. Documentation and project artifacts like design document, development document, test plan provide the communication between teams.

Agile: We are Green and we drive Tesla Electric. Team interaction is valued more than the process. Decisions are made collaboratively. Teams are self organizing and empowered to make decisions. Get the right people for the transition, Allow team members to shape outcomes and for that privilege demand accountability.Work with core development to streamline development process for agility and later make the stake holders buy into it. So build relationships from bottoms-up, start with the muck.
Finally Agile Zen...

While the end goals are all the same — to succeed — the process of getting there is not. After spending years doing product development using waterfall, cmm-sei, PMBOK drudgery , my discovery of the most important path for success in the agile world was to UNLEARN!!! what I had focused on for success in those methods in everyday routine for so long. So start unlearning.