In this episode, I tackle some common challenges faced by young start-ups trying to implement Agile. If you are a solo entrepreneur or have a few cofounders trying to launch a successful tech startup, then I certainly suggest you checkout today's episode.

As mentioned in the episode, I would really appreciate it if you could leave a review on iTunes. Of course, I hope that you will leave a 5-star review. I will try to mention reviewers in upcoming episodes. Here is a link to subscribe and post a review: itms://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/all-things-agile/id640441739 

All Things Agile - Episode 007 - Tips for Startups

Transcript:

Welcome to the All Things Agile Podcast! Your destinationfor tips and interviews with the leaders in the world of Agile. Don’t forget tosubscribe to this podcast on iTunes, and please check out our sponsor:TeamXcelerator.com. And now, here’s your host: Ronnie Andrews Jr.

Hello everyone and welcome to the All Things AgilePodcast! We have another great show lined up for you today. In this episode,we’ll be covering tips for startup companies. But before we begin, a friendlyreminder to please submit an iTunes review. The reviews are very helpful and away to acknowledge the great free content presented on this show. I also lookforward to giving you a shout out in an upcoming episode. So let’s dive intotoday’s topic.

How to implement an Agile solution in a young company? Aquick reminder that this podcast is for informational purposes only and acceptsno legal liability. So, in the case of this episode, I will be defining a youngcompany as 1-3 co-founders. A company certainly less than 10 members in total.Agile is often considered the cool thing to do. So many people try to startusing it! A common mistake is to start Agile methodologies before having thecritical mass to do so.

Let me take a moment to better explain. Methodologies suchas Scrum are often designed for larger organizations and not 2 co-founders. Forexample, a typical Scrum practice is to have 7, plus or minus 2 team members.Having many team members provides resiliency. If a team member isn’t feelingwell, goes on vacation or is otherwise unavailable, the team can stillfunction. There are other team members available to absorb bumps in the road.

Also, don’t forget the roles of Product Owner and ScrumMaster. A fresh startup doesn’t likely have the resources to staff a team thislarge. Chances are a startup has 2-3 people, working long hours and performingvirtually every role, including taking out the trash. Literally. So what otherAgile approaches, such as Kanban? What about those?

Well, I definitely believe that Kanban is a bit more sexyat the moment and it certainly has its advantages. It’s a great tool for teamsthat are more queue based in the work, such as product support teams. It’s alightweight approach with minimal formalities and that said, based on mypersonal experience though, I still believe that Kanban needs at least aminimal level of critical mass to be successful. I would recommend a team sizeof at least 5 to successfully implement Kanban. It can be a dauntingchallenge to build a Kanban team with only 2 or 3 founders who are wearingnumerous hats. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but that it simply may not bewise.

So what can I recommend for a young startup? I would advisenot worrying about trying to follow a structured methodology. If you are in theearly stages of 1-5 company members, it’s great if you can adopt a fullmethodology, but you may find yourself focused more on following ceremonies,rather than the urgent needs of building a company. The key is to not worryabout having an efficient team when you’re just starting. Instead, I challengeyou to become an effective team. Simply put, if you are efficient, but noteffective, it won’t matter because you’ll be out of business. Doing the wrongthing well, is still doing the wrong thing at the end of the day.

You can still apply Agile principles though. For example,the Backlog concept is a great way to ensure that you’re always working on themost important thing first. A young company certainly has limited resources. Itis imperative that it focuses on the most impactful items first. This does notmean firefighting. Many small and even large organizations join infirefighting. They spend their day carrying a fire hose, putting out one fireafter another. Does that sound familiar to, you know, perhaps your own company?

A significant danger in this approach is that the leadersrarely examine what is truly important to their business and customers.Successful companies must take the time to lay out their priorities anddetermine really what is impactful and focus on one thing at a time. The goalis to not do everything perfect. Striving for pure perfection is a fallacy andwill just slow you down. A second suggestion is that you can leverage someoneelse’s expertise. If your company only has a handful of people, it can be hardto take advantage of traditional methodologies such as Scrum.

An ultimate approach is delegation. If your company needs a payment processing system. Rather than trying to spin up a largedevelopment team to implement it, why not leverage an existing payment service?In other words, learn to delegate and let other best of breed vendors do whatthey do best. If you are not able to directly afford to do so, you may want toconsider joint venture agreements. You may be able to structure win-win dealsthat can expand your company without requiring large up-front capital.

Most entrepreneurs make the mistake of trying to doeverything themselves and they also try to have total control. As a result,they fail to delegate. And, they do so to their own demise. Learn to play toyour strengths and delegate the rest. A third suggestion is flexibility. ManyAgile newcomers try to follow everything by the book. The truth is you mustknow when to follow, when to bend and when to break the rules. Everyorganization is different. You must look at your company and determine whatpractices are truly practical for you. It’s not that the best practices are notvaluable – they are! They are best practices for a reason.

However, not every practice will align well with yourcompany or with your current size and maturity, especially as a young startup.Learn to adapt practices during your Agile journey. If you adopt some of thesesuggestions, your company can hopefully gain some momentum and start to implementthe more full software methodologies later. When your organization hasdeveloped the critical mass of size, maturity and revenue – you’ll find theseapproaches to provide structure and sanity. Again, there’s definitely a benefitto some of the more structured Agile implementations. But I’ll say once againin summary though: depending on your unique situation, please considerdifferent Agile implementations to better suit your needs. Focus on beingeffective before worrying about becoming efficient. In other words, learn tomeet your customer’s needs and then learn how to do that efficiently throughprocess and tools.

Play to your strengths and delegate to others so that yourcompany can grow faster and avoid large, unnecessary development costs. Learnto be flexible and when to follow, bend and break the rules. Lastly, rememberthat Agile adoption is a journey, not an event. It doesn’t happen overnight andit really never ends. It’s a continuous refinement process to take your companyto the next level.

With that said, I love startups! And I hope that you foundthis information very useful. If you’d like to find out more, please considerour email newsletter, by following the link on our AgileInstructor.com website.You can even send me an email using [email protected].I certainly look forward to hearing from each of you soon! And thank you verymuch for your support!

Thank you for listening toAll Things Agile. We look forward to you subscribing to the podcast on iTunesand leaving a kind review. Thanks and God bless!