Agile Supports Improved Culture and Quality for Healthwise
In 2007, four years after the first Agile experiment at Healthwise, this organization was identified by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top 15 small employers in the United States. Healthwise also received the 2007 National Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award in the Small Not-For-Profit category. Coincidence?. We think not.
This 250 employee organization uses Scrum and Lean principles to manage multi-disciplinary product development and research teams. Our teams create written content; produce interactive media in multiple formats, and development software. Agile techniques even found a home in I.T. and operational production teams.
Our Agile wisdom was hard earned. We don’t have all the answers; and some smells persist even now. You can decrease your organizations pain by learning how this bottom up Agile adoption ultimately supported our culture of Respect, Team Work, and Do the Right Thing.
Why Healthwise is a Compelling Case Study
- We have before and after metrics to demonstrate the efects of Scrum and Agile adoption.
- We currently have 12 teams using Scrum or Lean practices. Only 4 of these are software developmnet teams. We have demonstrated the ability to use these tools in multiple environments.
- We didn’t get it right the first time, and we can talk about our false starts. It took about a year for us to truly find our way and we have compelling advice for organizations looking to avoid our mistakes.
- I am an engaging presenter and will provide a good experience for the attendees to the session.
Although this is presented as a case study, we will examine the falls into anti-patterns that occured along the way. Participants are encouraged to help discover alternative paths of execution as we review each critical juncture in the organizations growth.