Challenges in Establishing Agile Leadership for Software Projects

This essay addresses the challenges of establishing agile leadership within software development projects, targeting recent business graduates new to the agile methodology. It begins by differentiating agile project settings from traditional software projects, highlighting flexibility, ownership, and transparency. The essay then explores the roles and responsibilities of agile leaders, emphasizing the importance of building high-performing teams and fostering team focus. Key challenges in establishing agile leadership are examined, including adapting too quickly, becoming reactive instead of proactive, and the symptoms of poor leadership such as lack of communication and high employee turnover. The essay then identifies effective communication as the most critical challenge for agile software development teams, particularly in the initial stages of a project, and discusses practical solutions. Finally, it provides solutions and lessons learned for graduates new to agile, focusing on adaptability, continuous learning, and the importance of preparation over excessive planning. The essay references various sources to support its arguments and provide a comprehensive understanding of the topic.

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System04121
4/11/2020

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Contents
Answer 1: Agile project setting different than traditional Software projects............................3
Flexibility:..........................................................................................................................3
Ownership and Transparency:............................................................................................3
Answer 2: thing agile leaders do and ways they lead................................................................4
Agile Leaders Establish High-Performing Teams.............................................................4
Answer 3: the challenges in establishing ‘Agile Leadership’ and how do they Arise and
symptoms of poor leadership?...................................................................................................5
Adapting Too Quickly........................................................................................................5
Becoming Reactive Instead of Proactive...........................................................................5
Poor leadership...........................................................................................................................6
There is No Communication..............................................................................................6
Low workplace turnover is possible..................................................................................6
Answer 4: challenges is most important for an agile software development team initial stages
of a project..................................................................................................................................7
Answer 5: solutions/lessons learnt that might help graduates new to agile..............................8
Lesson One: It is about adaptability and learning that is not about fast movement...........8
Lesson two: Agile Teams Focus on Preparation (Not Planning) and should be Evaluated on
This Basis...................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................10

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Answer 1: Agile project setting different than traditional Software
projects
Flexibility:
Standard project management does not have much with no space for product improvements.
The method is linear and practices a low-level strategy. After the preparations have been
finished, administrators advise their staff to insure that everybody adheres to the program in
the best manner possible. There is a lot of opposition to any potential reform, because the
project timetable may be interrupted.
Agile approach is highly adaptable and offers a great deal of versatility when creating product
improvements. This encourages staff leaders to innovate to discover some of the right ideas.
You are free to share every suggestion that you think would help to further develop the
product. Agile relies on the best solution rather than on static systems as a feature-based
strategy (Walter-Güpner, 2018).
Ownership and Transparency:
The project planner is representative of the conventional administration. The planner is
responsible for preparing and recording the whole product process. Aside for executives,
consumers are only interested in the preparation period, but their participation becomes
negligible until execution starts. Because bosses control all the controls in the project, team
leaders typically have no influence in the results or success of their job.
The team leaders assume control of the product, however, under the Agile approach.
Everybody works their hands together to create a schedule to finish the job in a period and
expense estimation. You will see the quality development from the beginning to the end.
Throughout ensuring a positive and dedicated working climate this openness plays an
significant part (Gandomani Zulzalil, Ghani, Sultan, and Nafchi, 2013).

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Answer 2: thing agile leaders do and ways they lead
Agile Leaders Establish High-Performing Teams
Perhaps one of the biggest tasks the Agile Manager does is to set up high-performance teams.
Eliminate Handoffs
It is a crucial field of vulnerability and spreading of information. Agile leaders identify
handoff challenges and build teams to limit or avoid handoffs. It is strongly linked to the
above described cross-functional dimension. You would require handoffs to perform the job
when you construct teams that transcend corporate silos(Patil, Rao, and Patil, 2011)..
Encourage Team Focus
The emphasis remains on committed team leaders. Community oriented. If leaders of the
project are scattered around many departments, they may be less dedicated and are less able
to accomplish their goals. It would often take longer to engage in discussions and send
Update emails because they don't have energy to compose update emails while they are at
discussions(Abbasi, and Ruf, 2020)..

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It is easier to build fewer, more focused teams that are 100% dedicated. Much of the factors
why this can not be achieved illustrate past initiatives aimed at minimizing expenses or
preserving specialist services. This clash (and weaken absolute efficiency and agility) with
oriented teams.
Plan by Teams not by Individuals
Agile executives use the existing pace of the project to determine how more progress will be
completed. This is far more reliable than utilizing the distribution of money for conventional
programs (Abbasi, and Ruf, 2020)..
Answer 3: the challenges in establishing ‘Agile Leadership’ and how
do they Arise and symptoms of poor leadership?
Adapting Too Quickly
It may be hesitant in the heat of the moment to take initiative — move — with things to do.
After all the hallmarks of agile leaders are their versatility in transition and adaptability. If a
policy does not seem to function as it was expected, it is likely to easily change direction.
Agile leadership is not solely instinctual decision-making. Good agile leaders recognize that
actions reached without adequate evidence or input would generally be guided by
preconditions and assumptions. While they do not have the knowledge they require, the
analysis of evidence will allow them to assess the situation effectively and create possible
solutions (Martin, 2015)
Agile leaders will need to be willing to assess if their issues are short-term or long-term. In
fact, remaining on track with a plan may be the right option through growing initiatives.
Becoming Reactive Instead of Proactive
Agile leaders admire their adaptability and versatility in transition, but these attributes will
never override strategic thought. Efficient agile leaders will ideally be able to easily adapt to

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change, so one way to do so is to predict possible needs and potential consequences for each
decision (Moe, Cruzes, Dybå, and Engebretsen, 2015).
Knowing the relation between various areas of an organization allows us to foresee how
developments in one market sector impact another. It allows us to proactively tackle
problems, to set the groundwork for potential actions rather than to respond continuously to
the present crisis. Of example, reacting to problems as they arise is a valuable asset, but it
would be too challenging to build a long-term strategy to achieve corporate targets by
focusing on such leadership skills.
The performance in every company relies on agile management. Their capacity to
communicate, adjust and execute helps them to align their current requirements successfully
with potential priorities. However, these highly adaptable leaders need to be shielded from
behaviors that can decrease their performance.
Poor leadership
There is No Communication
A poor leader won't notice his subordinates. They don't respect their staff's feedback. they
usually disregard the employees 'e-mails and comments and abandon the workplace for a
long time. Such leaders will find listening to their workers a low priority and will also break
them off while interacting or communicate to each other (Bill. and CMC, 2010).
A bad leader won't take much consideration of employee viewpoints, particularly though
such opinions come from workers who have considerable expertise and experience. They can
thus neglect chances to do something more easily and faster. Bad leaders usually may often
struggle to disclose to their employees details on rules and practices to be implemented, and
also reproach or threaten workers if they miss (Rigby, Sutherland, and Noble, 2018).
Low workplace turnover is possible
The loss of workers is a strong indicator of bad management. It is doubtful that workers
would quit the workplace because they are satisfied with the position and pleased with the
work they do. If these expectations are not fulfilled, the workers leave greener pastures as
early as possible.

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A poor leader won't notice people thinking something is wrong. Also, this inadequacy
contributes to unhappiness and frustration with the job of workers. Even if the positions
themselves are fun for the workers, it will not contribute to the work climate and they leave
as soon as possible.
Answer 4: challenges is most important for an agile software
development team initial stages of a project
Best practices in agile software development for effective communication Agile creation of
applications promotes good coordination and teamwork. Given that we recognize the key
barriers to successful collaboration in the agile environment, it should be understood that
while implementing and applying agile, it is important to ensure that all feasible strategies,
whether they are specific encoding rules, management software, or a standardized IDE, have
been created in order to build a team that goes beyond the amount of its components (Mergel,
2016).
 Share your vision. Shared goal and mission encourage the effectiveness of
agile teams in delivering benefit. Of course, it is the duty of a company or
project creator to identify a vision and to insure that the experienced and
professional production team leaders put that dream into existence, however
this visionary has to be clear and descriptive about what he or she expresses in
a team to others.
 Schedule daily or weekly calls. Although a face-to-face conversation is the
strongest contact in agile, as teams are dispersed the alternatives are welcome.
Another of these solutions is frequent scrum sessions. A fast meeting is perfect
for sharing work across time zones. Such fast meetings should allow teams to
remain organized and guarantee the correct quality of knowledge and
coordination.
 Arrange personal meetings. If your regular or weekly calls are successful,
teams have to be co-located wherever possible. The inability to achieve
consistently is a violation in a collaborative agile approach.

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 Maintain transparency. Currently, transparency in the area of
communication is a basic phenomenon. Therefore, it is better to improve
accountability. Therefore, coordination is multi-directional and interactive,
and is an agile approach.
 Keep teams small. We said before, interacting while a team is big is even
more burdensome. But, as the team has routine sprint preparation sessions and
stand-ups every day, a wide agile team can often have further frequent
feedback, so more time will be taken to think about the case. This is not ideal
for the production level, so attach additional team members only if there is no
alternative.
 Make use of open-source agile software development tools. Emerging
technologies are particularly essential in agile product development. All goals,
targets and measures presented to a manager must be simple to achieve or to
have a good picture of the issues that are present.
Answer 5: solutions/lessons learnt that might help graduates new to
agile
Lesson One: It is about adaptability and learning that is not about fast movement
Agile enterprises are not imposing death hold on proposals for programs. Instead, they are
"saying yes to the chaos" of complicated ventures. In the face of transition and the flexibility
and desire to re-group when events don't go the way we plan to create agile teams and
organisations. And these businesses are constantly studying and developing power. You
gather, respond and adjust to knowledge in real time and then allow a move back to benefit
from practice (Scrum.org, 2020)..
Lesson two: Agile Teams Focus on Preparation (Not Planning) and
should be Evaluated on This Basis
Agile teams are employed for specific goals, but they may still improvise without a schedule
(think Second City improvisational teams). Whilst preparation has long-term advantages,

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over planning is also counterproductive to progress. Agile teams concentrate on the day-to-
day planning, so that they can adapt to anything wherever possible. With this transition,
businesses will reconsider the way workplace efficiency is measured which should consider
the way workers respond which adjusts to the unexpected (Scrum.org, 2019)..

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REFERENCES
Abbasi, S. and Ruf, T., (2020). Reduction of the Fluctuation Rate in Multi-project
Organizations Through Agile Leadership. Management, 8(2), pp.128-133.
Bill Pasmore PhD, S.V.P. and CMC, T.O.S., (2010). Leadership agility: A business
imperative for a VUCA world. People and Strategy, 33(4), p.32.
Gandomani, T.J., Zulzalil, H., Ghani, A.A.A., Sultan, A.B.M. and Nafchi, M.Z., (2013).
Obstacles in moving to agile software development methods; at a glance. Journal of
Computer Science, 9(5), p.620.
Martin, A., (2015). Talent management: Preparing a “Ready” agile workforce. International
Journal of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 2(3-4), pp.112-116.
Mergel, I., (2016). Agile innovation management in government: A research
agenda. Government Information Quarterly, 33(3), pp.516-523.
Moe, N.B., Cruzes, D.S., Dybå, T. and Engebretsen, E., (2015), July. Coaching a global agile
virtual team. In 2015 IEEE 10th International Conference on Global Software
Engineering (pp. 33-37). IEEE.
Patil, S.B., Rao, S. and Patil, P.S., (2011), February. Agile Principles as a leadership value
System in the Software Development: Are we ready to be unleashed?. In Proceedings of the
International Conference & Workshop on Emerging Trends in Technology3(2) (pp. 765-766).
Rigby, D.K., Sutherland, J. and Noble, A., (2018). Agile at scale. Harvard Business
Review, 96(3), pp.88-96.
Scrum.org (2019). Scrum Pulse Webinar - Becoming an Agile Leader (online) Available at:
https://www.scrum.org/resources/scrum-pulse-webinar-becoming-agile-leader (Accessed on
11/04/20)
Scrum.org (2020). Agile leader (online) Available at https://www.scrum.org/search/node?
keys=%22agile%20leader%22 (Accessed on 11/04/20)

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Walter-Güpner, T., (2018). Effects of Agile Leadership and Organizational Competencies on
Firm Performance. Evidence-Based Recommendations for Agile Transformation in the
Manufacturing Industry by Comparing Software and Manufacturing SME. Zeitschrift für
interdisziplinäre ökonomische Forschung, (1), pp.87-92.