What does it mean to be Agile?
I’m Lee Elliott, Head of Agile at Fleet Complete, and for me it means that the customer is at the center of everything we do, and it also makes us a great company to work for. Let me explain why.
Great Teams
A central tenet of Agile is that the team is empowered to make decisions on how to best accomplish their work in the quickest time possible. What this means is that each team is able to do things that are necessary in order to hit that goal. They structure the work in ways that allow everyone to know what is happening, and who is doing what. They stay in constant communication with the Product Owners to understand what needs to be developed, and they are able to control how it gets developed.
It also allows each team to adjust how things are working for them, in order to make them more productive and efficient. They conduct a Retrospective at the end of each sprint, looking back at what went well, and what didn’t go as well as hoped, so they can make adjustments or ask for additional help in resolving their issues. This empowerment makes people happy, and study after study shows that happy employees lead to happy customers.
Amazing Product
Since the team is happy and empowered to deliver on what the Product Owner needs, the outcome is an amazing product. We are able to shift priorities and work on the most important features quickly. Our Product Owners are able to interact with our customers and potential customers to determine what their pain points are and then focus the attention of the team on creating a solution to meet their needs. As importantly, the team is always focused on quality of the product.
There isn’t a separate team that slows down development or is critical to how something is made. Our Quality people are embedded in the team, understanding what the requirements are at the same time as the developers, involved in the process, and then able to be very effective in their job and complete their task within the sprint. With the whole team focused on delivering a quality product that meets the customers’ needs, it is easier to create a product that customers love.
Full Company Alignment
Being Agile also means we are able to be more responsive to the industry and our customers. We are able to quickly assess priorities and make adjustments to what we are developing, so we are always working on the highest priority items. I’m very proud of the fact that we have all the C-level executives in a recurring meeting, where we can showcase what we are planning on working on in the coming sprints, and they are able to share their insights and help us align our priorities.
Other organizations are often challenged to ensure that priorities from Sales are communicated to the right teams, that they don’t conflict with the priorities from Customer Support, or that Quality Assurance understands what is coming. They develop lengthy “Business Requirements Documents” or “Technical Specifications” to communicate to the teams what they want, taking months to pass on something simple by going up what hierarchy and down another.
At Fleet Complete, with our Agile Methodology, we have eliminated that outmoded process and have a clear and open communication with all our teams, actively soliciting feedback from all the groups and people who have interactions in the industry or with our customers. This communication and alignment mean that we are able to develop a valuable product faster, which leads once again to happy customers.
Equals Happy Customers
Our great teams, amazing products, and full company alignment together allow Fleet Complete to deliver the highest value to our customers, which in turn, makes them happy. Everything we do is centred around ensuring our customers have a great experience with us and with our software.
The key is that Fleet Complete is not just committed to making fantastic software, there are a lot of companies that have done that and failed their customers. We are committed to solving our customers’ problems, to provide them with the tools that they need for them to succeed. Helping our customers succeed, helping them save money, and assisting them to deliver value to their customers is where we focus and where we excel.
Agile at Fleet Complete allows us to deliver amazing products, be responsive to our customers’ needs, and to help them succeed.
Read more on Fleet Complete’s management training program through Rotman School
