We recently produced a webinar here at AccuRev, co-sponsored by Rally Software, about the Top 10 Factors for a Successful Agile Implementation. Guest blogger JMartin, of Rally Software, enlightens us on our next factor.

Number 8 is all about Agile Education, or as I like to call it, Agile Spring Training.  After choosing our Pilot team, it only makes sense they next need Agile training and coaching.

Another season of baseball has started.  Baseball seems to have such a long slog of a season.  It’s hard on the fans, that’s for sure.  I suppose it might be hard on the players, too, eh?  And even so, every year, there is still Spring Training.  The teams gather in the warmer parts of the country to practice and scrimmage and practice and work out and evaluate and practice.  How much does the average player make?  Couldn’t the teams be getting a better return on their investment if all this extra time players were using to train and practice was put toward “real” games with full-paying customers and sponsorship back home?

Obviously, training is important.  Spring Training helps provide and refresh the underlying skills of the professional baseball player so that he can move beyond his talent and perform with his coworkers on the field.  Even the most expensive players train.  Really, a successful effort of any kind requires some level of training.  For the players on the field, it is important to train them together to give them a common feeling for each others’ behaviors and to focus their vision on the same goal and approach as provided by their manager.  In the same way, teams adopting Agile should be trained so that they have an understanding of the process and so that they share a common language to help them have or improve upon communication about what’s going on as they dive in.  By giving a team a common language and skill set to operate with, we eliminate the kinds of hiccups in execution that are caused by incompatible expectations and other breakdowns in communication, as well to keep the players from getting lost.

Did I stretch the baseball metaphor in there enough?  If not, think about this: after Spring Training is over and the season begins, are the players just released onto the field and left to play games on their own?  No, they go through the season with a staff of coaches who monitor their performance and help them plan and improve both their off-field training regimens and their in-game strategy.  Baseball teams get help in another way, too:  at the end of the season, the teams that are on-track for the pennant race do something interesting to their teams.  They start looking around for seasoned players.  The seasoned players aren’t brought in so much for their skills in playing the game itself (we’re relying on the younger, faster kids to do the hard work!).  You’ll hear sportscasters talk about how player X was brought in to provide experience and stability to the team as it hits the turbulent times of post-season play.  They help mentor the younger players both about on-field strategy and about dealing with distractions.

Agile training and coaching works in a similar way.  Training provides common languages and a pattern set for teams to understand and follow.  A good training set will provide muscle memory for the basic mechanics of Agile.  And an environment geared toward allowing team members to get the technical training and in-fill they need helps the team be ready to succeed in the game.  It’s great for the tactics. But very successful teams also get the help of a coach.  An Agile coach can provide help at the strategic level, helping to plan the agile rollout and watching team behaviors to suggest areas for extra practice or additional training.  In addition, a good coach is someone who has real experience.  When a need for help arises in the team, the coach can pull from her well of experience to give the team not just a way to strategize their way around a rock but a little bit of the confidence from having gotten through those rocks before.

Somehow, I went from baseball to kayaking.  I’d better stop before I bring in some curling metaphors.  The point here is that a successful agile adoption requires the creation of a culture of learning and that learning must be provided at the tactical/basic mechanics level and at the strategic/vision-oriented level.