I’ve never really been excited about the Hype-Cycle of Technology. However, in order for organizations to adapt at the rate the market demands, the organization’s IT infrastructure must be able to adapt at the same rate… in other words… it must be an Agile infrastructure.
Typically when somebody mentions the word Agile, instantly most folks think of a product development framework. Sometimes when somebody mentions the phrase Agile Infrastructure folks think of the Developer Operations (DevOps) supporting the software development teams. That is not what I’m talking about.
What I’m talking about is an IT Infrastructure and the management practices encompassing it that creates one or more of the following:
This is no easy feat and often takes years to implement. It also takes a disciplined approach to managing the organization’s IT infrastructure, possibly even more discipline than that of a traditional infrastructure. Something that is useful, it to still use a common vernacular for describing this discipline. I still use ITIL®, the IT Infrastructure Library, and have found it useful for mapping the transformation from a traditional infrastructure to an Agile infrastructure.
The 2011 version of the ITIL® “provides a framework of Best Practice guidance for IT Service Management and since its creation, ITIL® has grown to become the most widely accepted approach to IT Service Management in the world.” Okay - the important thing to understand for this discussion is that the ITIL® contains five core books to cover each stage of the service lifecycle, from initial definition and analysis of customer wants and needs through the transition of a product and its associated services into an operational state with support.
The five core knowledge areas are:
It turns out that a combination of several Agile practices and frameworks fit nicely with the five core knowledge areas of the ITIL®. What follows is a set of tables to help you gauge where Agile practices and frameworks fit into each knowledge areas. The first table maps the five knowledge areas to applicable Agile practices. The second table maps the five knowledge areas to the most naturally fitting Agile management frameworks.
Please note that these lists weren’t meant to be all-inclusive, nor do I think that for each knowledge area that there is a one-size-fits-all Agile management framework. The results were pulled out of coaching plans and notes from various engagements over the past decade.
| Context | Agile Practices |
|---|---|
| Service Strategy | Agile Portfolio Management Agile Product Development Lean Architectures |
| Service Design | Lean Architectures Backlog Development and Grooming Release Planning Iteration Planning Story Mapping Acceptance Test Driven Development Behavior Driven Development |
| Service Transition | Automated Testing Continuous Integration Continuous Deployment DevOps |
| Service Operation | Continuous Deployment |
| Continual Service Improvement | Agile Retrospectives |
| Context | Agile Practices |
|---|---|
| Service Strategy | Agile Portfolio Management Agile Product Development SAFe or Eliassen Scaled Agile Framework |
| Service Design | Scrum/Kanban Management Framework |
| Service Transition | Scrum/Kanban Management Framework |
| Service Operation | Kanban Management Framework |
| Continual Service Improvement | Agile Retrospectives |
One of Eliasen’s Financial Services clients is organized by vertical “lines of business” to support the product offerings that the company offers the marketplace. These lines of business are supported by horizontal shared services such as infrastructure and data warehousing.
The client’s IT department is one of these horizontal lines of business. They support the lines of business by preparing development environments and other necessary functionality. This includes setting up hardware, network configuration, virtualized servers, etc.
Eliassen Group had two coaches working within the client’s IT Infrastructure group. After analyzing the structure of the organization and the support needed, a Kanban approach was recommended as having the greatest value to the organization.
Through the implementation of Kanban, the client’s IT Infrastructure group was able to get visibility into their support metrics and baseline the cycle time that it took to provide their services to the lines of business they supported.
By changing the organizational structure and implementing techniques such as work visualization, work in progress (WIP) limits and Kaizen principles, Eliassen Group’s Agile Coaches were able to impact:
We have been successfully shifting the IT Infrastructures of Fortune 500 organizations with deeply entrenched cultures and long cycle times to lean and Agile teams. The key benefit of Agile infrastructure is that teams are able to change priorities quickly while dropping cycle times. What has your experience been? To learn more, evaluate where you are today using our Enterprise Agile Maturity Matrix, read about our approach to Agile retrospectives, or explore one of our many Agile consulting services.
ITIL® is a Registered Trade Mark, and a Registered Community Trade Mark, of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and is registered in the US Patent and Trade Mark Office.