How to convince the management of the need of agile software?

Hi Gyulyay,

I assume your organization is already acquainted with agile and the only problem you face is with a rather old-fashioned set of documentation tools. If this is the case, I must confess I fail to understand why upper management support is needed, unless it is specifically about budget.

Anyway, assuming you are already convinced that JIRA is the way to go, what you should do is build a business case exposing the advantages of this tool and linking it with certain inefficient behaviors you identify in your teams and how it would help you to overcome them.

You could start by collecting information from Atlassian (https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/features) and build an overview presentation of the software, including some information about other organizations using the software and the feedback they provide.

The question you raise regarding data security can be indeed solved by a server based installation of the software. You can find more information in the website of Atlassian.

If you are open to other alternatives to JIRA, I would suggest reading this article 

https://www.workzone.com/blog/jira-alternatives/

In any case, I think that it would also be important to take into consideration the opinion of the people working with you and who would be also using the tool on a daily basis. Consider their experiences, which software they know already and what are their needs. Also very important to identify the needs of the scrum master/project manager and this becomes especially relevant when it comes to reporting.

Best regards,

Pedro F. B. Silva

Hi Gyulyay,

You could even explore SharePoint as a collaboration platform to ensure version control.Go for Azure DevOps if you are looking for an end to end solution which could start from distributed version control,DevOps pipeline for build ,testing and release.

Thanks

Assume no knowledge

If we want to persuade senior managers about the benefits of Agile we first have to explain what Agile is. Just because it’s second nature to us doesn’t mean that senior managers have any real awareness of what it means or what is involved.

In my experience, it is best to talk about some of the broad concepts that we all associate with Agile but sometimes forget to mention because they are so obvious. These include:

• We deliver early versions of the final deliverable as early as possible to ensure we’re on the right track.
• Work is a collaborative effort between the experts who design & build and the customers who will be using the solution.
• Although the detail of what is going to be delivered will evolve, we agree the scope of the work and a deadline against which it will be delivered.

Don’t go into detail

Going into depth about what Agile is and how Agile works can be counter-productive. It creates the impression that an Agile approach is complex and specialist and therefore will not be easy to adopt. Create a high level story that addresses the key issues as they are at the senior management level, not at the user level. A good example of what to avoid is the terminology. Whatever brand of Agile is your favorite, the detailed language can be a barrier.

Don’t say Agile is the only way

Senior managers are usually middle-aged and older. They have seen lots of different approaches come and go. Stating that Agile is the only approach that will work demonstrates a naivety that affects your credibility. It’s more helpful and more persuasive to explain that Agile is a way of working that can align with other approaches.

Be empathetic

Any good salesperson will tell you that if you want to make a sale, everything you say has to connect to the interests and concerns of those you are selling to. Empathy is a willingness to walk in the shoes of others, appreciating the pressures they are under, what drives them and what interests them.

Ensure that you align Agile to corporate objectives and management concerns, and explain how an Agile approach increases the capability of the organizations.

Align Agile to corporate objectives

Objectives at senior management level usually boil down to a few key concerns:

• Is what you are proposing going to save costs?
• Is what you are proposing going to increase revenue?
• Is what you are proposing going to deliver added value?

Is what you are proposing going to save costs?

Agile approaches bring immediacy to getting work done which lowers the cost of initiatives. This is because we are no longer paying for the planning paradox, i.e. all the team delivers in the first few weeks is a detailed plan of what it is going to do. With more traditional approaches, there is a lot of up front, detailed planning that needs to be paid for before anything is produced. In addition, because the detailed planning is completed up front, these plans will need to be reworked as circumstances change, which adds additional overheads.

As Agile approaches involve the incremental development of the final deliverable, the risk of developing the ‘wrong’ solution is reduced, saving costs overall.

Is what you are proposing going to increase revenue?

Agile approaches do not necessarily make initiatives earn more revenue, but they do bring revenue in earlier. Return on investment begins early in the life cycle, and continues throughout the initiative as more features and functions are made available to customers.

Early delivery can also generate higher levels of customer satisfaction. Customers are also encouraged to provide regular feedback and help shape later iterations of deliverables, helping them feel involved and listened to.