How Team And Technical Agility Improves Enterprise Processes?
As enterprises strive to keep pace with the accelerating changes in technology and business models, they need to adopt new ways of working that promote team and technical agility. This means having the right tools and processes in place to allow teams to quickly adapt to change and deliver value faster. The Team and Technical Agility competency of Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®) helps enterprises achieve these goals.
In this article, we’ll explore how team and technical agility can improve enterprise processes, and review the three dimensions that contribute to this competency: Agile Teams, Team of Agiles Teams, Built-in Quality.
What is Team and Technical Agility?
Team and technical agility refers to the ability of teams to rapidly adapt to changes in technology and business conditions, and deliver value quickly. This agility is possible when the right tools and processes are in place to support it.
The Team and Technical Agility competency is one of seven core SAFe competencies that help enterprises achieve success with SAFe. The other six are:
Lean-Agile Leadership
Agile Product Delivery
Enterprise Solution Delivery
Lean Portfolio Management
Organizational Agility
Continuous Learning Culture
To be successful with SAFe, enterprises need to have all seven of these competencies in place. Each competency builds on the others to create a comprehensive framework for enterprise agility.
The Team and Technical Agility competency has three dimensions: Agile Teams, Team of Agiles Teams, and Built-in Quality. Let’s take a closer look at each one.
Agile Teams
The first dimension of the Team and Technical Agility competency is Agile Teams. SAFe defines an Agile Team as a self-organizing, and cross-functional team of 5-10 individuals who have the necessary skills and knowledge to deliver value to the customer.
Agile Teams are responsible for delivering value to the customer through a continuous process of planning, development, testing, and deployment. They rely on a shared understanding of the customer’s needs, and work together to constantly improve the quality of their output.
The key to successful Agile Teams is that they are self-organizing. This means that they have the autonomy to decide how best to meet the customer’s needs. They are not reliant on centralized planning or management, but instead rely on their own collective intelligence to make decisions.
This type of team structure can be difficult for traditional organizations to adopt, but it is essential for agility. Self-organizing teams are able to respond quickly to changes in the customer’s needs, and are not bound by bureaucratic processes.
Team of Agiles Teams
The second dimension of the Team and Technical Agility competency is the Team of Agiles Teams. Agile teams operate within the context of a SAFe Agile Release Train (ART), which is a collection of Agile Teams that work together to deliver value to the customer. A shared understanding of the customer’s needs, and a common backlog of work, enable the Agile Teams within an ART to plan, develop, test, and deploy their software solutions together.
The Team of Agiles Teams is a key component of SAFe that enables enterprises to deliver value faster. By working together in an ART, Agile Teams are able to share knowledge and best practices, and avoid duplication of effort.
The Team of Agiles Teams also helps to promote collaboration between teams. In a traditional organization, teams are often siloed and work in isolation from each other. This can lead to stagnation, as teams are not exposed to new ideas or ways of working.
Additionally, it helps to break down these silos and promote collaboration between teams. This is possible because the ART provides a structure for teams to work together, and because the teams within an ART share a common goal of delivering value to the customer.
Built-in Quality
The third dimension of the Team and Technical Agility competency is Built-in Quality. SAFe defines Built-in Quality as the practice of creating quality products and services through a continuous process of planning, development, testing, and deployment.
Built-in Quality is essential for enterprises that want to deliver value quickly. By continuously testing and deploying software solutions, enterprises can avoid the costly and time-consuming process of fixing defects after the fact. It is also a key enabler of agility. By continuously testing and deploying software solutions, enterprises can quickly respond to changes in the customer’s needs.
The Way Forward
The Team and Technical Agility competency is essential for enterprises that want to adopt SAFe and achieve agility. At Agileseventeen, we can help you assess your organization’s Team and Technical Agility, and provide guidance on how to improve it. Contact us today to learn more: talkagile@agileseventeen.