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Management Consulting

Synergizing Agile Projects

The Synergizing Idea

This hypothesis started when I was part of the potluck-hosting team in my office. Our lead had set targets on taste, quantity, quality, and timelines. Then he said, “We are presenting this food to our clients; let us make it a unique memorable experience for them. Let us ensure that it does not upset their tummies at any cost and add a little bit of that ‘secret ingredient,’ plenty of ‘love’ to make it taste ‘wow’.”

I explored on synergizing my dish and extended the same to Agile projects.

What is Synergy and What is this “Wow”?

The Cambridge dictionary describes Synergy as:

the combined power of a group of things when they are working together that is greater than the total power achieved by each working separately

Stephen Covey simplifies it as: “Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation.”

This Synergy component output cannot be measured accurately. Sometimes it is not even exquisite immediately. It’s what we call the “feel good” factor, the “wow” component. As you consistently accumulate the synergy component output, you might end up with a measurable value.

synergy

synergy

My Root Cause Analysis on Synergy

When I was pondering over synergizing opportunities, I stumbled on this thought:

Why does the food some of you cooked for a special friend or guest tasted better than your routine food?

You valued the special guest and wanted to make the food taste better than usual, better than your routine target.

You looked for Values over Targets!

Values over Targets in Agile Projects

When we understand the values over targets in all project activities, we identify the secret synergizers that could lead to those values:

Synergizer Value
Effective user stories Clear Requirements
Appropriate prioritizing and story picking Delivering highest business value in shortest time
Effective Test-driven development and continuous testing, Paired Programming Healthy development and testing partnership, Proactive issue management
Prompt Scrum ceremonies Team Focus, Team commitment, Team collaboration
Putting yourself in Customer’s shoes Customer Excellence

Even the least values tend to cumulatively result in Big value adds to deliverables.

Value 1 + Value 2+…Value n = Value N + Target N

but

Target 1+Target 2+…Target n ≠ Value N + Target N

Conclusion:

Our potluck was sure a memorable event because we also wanted it to be a unique memorable experience. Every host had added that ‘secret ingredient’ and had synergized their dish, realizing the values over targets and in turn achieving the ‘wow’.

Thoughts on “Synergizing Agile Projects”

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Gayathri Narayanan, SQA Manager

Have a hybrid background of engineering academics, technical writing and software process quality assurance for about 20+ years. Other than work, interested in art, writing, music.

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