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A few weeks ago, The Gunter Group facilitated a panel discussion at one of our clients (a global footwear and apparel company), which focused on Agile methodology application within their organization.

We would like to share a few key topics from the discussion.

1 — Implementing an Admin Week for Scrum Team Efficiency

One panel participant shared the story of her team iterating on ways to improve development velocity. They were having the common issue of missing sprint target dates and discussed the problem during a retrospective. Together, the team realized that between meeting schedules and “shoulder taps” for side work, they just didn’t have enough focused development time. 

Initially the team implemented a block of time from morning until 1pm for dedicated development. While that did increase velocity, they still weren’t where they wanted to be. 

Finally, they landed on a concept to implement an “Admin Week”. They decreased their sprints from 3 weeks to 2 and added in 1 week for admin time. This gave the team 2 weeks of uninterrupted development and 1 week to sprinkle in all of their administrative work such as meetings, ceremonies, idea brainstorming, internal documentation, mentoring, and training. 

This shift resulted in a 36% increase in velocity and 36% decrease in duration of stories from “ready” to “complete”. 

2 — Mitigating Discomfort Around Uncertainty

Another panel participant, an Agile Coach within our client’s organization, shared his thoughts around building comfort with uncertainty. 

With the timely example of COVID-19’s highly impactful effects on businesses’ roadmaps, we discussed how important it is–now more than ever–to strengthen the ability to navigate uncertainty, with an agile mindset. 

Participants agreed that we are seeing executives embrace agile thinking in their ability to pivot quickly and react as efficiently as possible. Work is being prioritized more clearly and decisions are being made at the “last responsible moment.” 

3 — Servant Leadership in an Agile Framework

Lastly, our third panel speaker shared his perspective on leading in a Scrum Master role with a servant leadership approach. 

This perspective emphasized the importance of maintaining a people focus in agile environments. Rather than just focusing on scope, schedule, budget–the servant leadership approach enables and promotes leadership in others. 

He shared his experience about working with Scrum teams in this manner and how it has built relationships, garnered trust, and fostered growth within the team.

It also sets up the team for a safe environment during sprint retrospectives so that they are able to share thoughts and feedback more openly and from a place of assuming positive intent.

At The Gunter Group, we thrive on helping our clients by facilitating conversations such as this one and invite you to reach out if you are interested in TGG hosting something similar within your organization. Please contact us if you’d like to learn more. 

To those who attended the panel discussion outlined above, thank you so much for your participation and we look forward to seeing you at the next one on June 24th!