The Minimum Viable Framework
How Culture Affects Agile Adoption and Ways to Improve It
Many people believe that cultural issues are the main reason agile adoption fails. This article suggests two ways to address this problem. One method is to understand the current culture, envision the ideal culture, and make changes to reach that goal. Another approach is the Minimum Viable Framework (MVF).
Why Use a Minimum Viable Framework?
The MVF addresses three big problems:
Introducing many detailed practices that don’t fit with the organization's current culture or the team’s work style can lead to resistance.
Without good training, people might pick agile practices that match their existing habits rather than true agile values, which usually doesn't work well.
A survey found that not having support from management is a big reason for agile adoption failures. Often, agile changes don’t align with business goals, so it’s hard for managers to support them.
The MVF simplifies agile and lean principles to their basics so leaders can understand and support them better. It avoids forcing practices that clash with the existing culture and lets people find their own ways to support the MVF.
What’s in the Minimum Viable Framework?
The MVF starts with agile principles and Kanban’s main idea of starting with what you currently do. It also includes a few specific practices. After refining to avoid overlap, the MVF includes these rules:
Prioritize by Value: Focus on the most valuable work first. Understand the importance of each task and arrange them in order of importance. This also means describing tasks in a way that shows what the outcome should be.
Visualize All Work: Be clear about all ongoing and upcoming work, including hidden tasks, risks, and deadlines. This helps everyone see what’s happening.
Shorten Feedback Loops: Get feedback quickly so you can make changes faster. This helps improve your process continually.
Eliminate Waste: Cut out any unnecessary steps or delays in your process to make things run smoother.
Manage Flow: Keep the amount of ongoing work manageable to spot and fix any hold-ups, which helps everything flow better.
How to Implement the Minimum Viable Framework
To put the MVF into action, follow these steps:
Define Goals: Clearly state what you want to achieve with the agile changes. This helps justify the effort and guide the changes needed.
Set Up the MVF: Use the MVF as the main guide for changes. Break down each part of the MVF into specific tasks for teams to work on.
Create Specific Training and Coaching: Build training around each part of the MVF. Offer different ways to handle tasks so the training fits everyone’s needs.
The idea behind the MVF is not to dictate what everyone should do but to agree on basic goals and help teams find and improve their own methods and processes. This approach respects where teams are currently and helps them grow.
Conclusion
The elements listed are the basics of an MVF. Feel free to adapt or add to this framework to make it work better for your needs.