How agile improves results
Agile as an operating model
20 min
The bachelor's course (E007) covered the Manifesto, Scrum and Kanban at team level. At master's level the question is what changes for the organization: funding, structure, decision rights and how results are measured.
| Dimension | Plan-driven (project) | Agile (product) |
|---|---|---|
| Funding | Annual project budget, fixed scope | Persistent teams funded per value stream; scope varies |
| Planning | Detailed up front, change control board | Rolling: roadmap, quarterly objectives, sprint or flow |
| Success measure | On time, on budget, to spec | Outcomes: customer value, flow, quality, revenue |
| Team | Assembled per project, disbanded | Stable, cross-functional, long-lived |
| Decision rights | Escalate to managers | Decided where the information is, within guardrails |
| Risk | Discovered late at integration | Reduced each increment through feedback |
| Context (Cynefin) | Cause and effect | Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Clear | Obvious | Sense, categorize, respond: best practice |
| Complicated | Knowable by experts | Sense, analyze, respond: good practice; plan-driven fits |
| Complex | Visible only in hindsight | Probe, sense, respond: experiments; agile fits |
| Chaotic | None perceivable | Act, sense, respond: stabilize first |
Empirical process control: transparency, inspection, adaptation. Short cycles shrink the cost of a wrong bet: a 2-week sprint risks 2 weeks of work, a 12-month project risks 12 months.
Cost of delay sets priority: WSJF = cost of delay ÷ job duration. Job A: CoD 20, duration 5 → 4. Job B: CoD 12, duration 2 → 6. Do B first.
Word bank
All definitions →- Cynefin
- Snowden's sense-making framework: clear, complicated, complex, chaotic, confusion.
- Empiricism
- Deciding from what is observed: transparency, inspection, adaptation.
- WSJF
- Weighted shortest job first: cost of delay divided by job duration.
Knowledge check
A new mobile product with unknown customer demand sits in which Cynefin domain?
CoD 30, duration 10 vs CoD 8, duration 2. Which first under WSJF?