Stages of Agile Maturity

Teams at this level of maturity should start showing higher levels of productivity, transparency and quality. They typically advance to even higher levels of effectiveness when they learning advanced patterns and practices such as Lean UX, Kanban, and Lean.

Predictability of quality and delivery will improve when the team and its Product Owner shift focus to creating a sustainable pace. Sustainable pace improves predictability and reduces team burn-out and fatigue. Encourage the team to find its rhythm and establish a state of flow supported by metrics.

Archetypal behaviours seen in this stage:

• Delivery with empiricism ensures repeatability and scalability.
• Customer-first mindset.
• Delivery of value over “requirements”.

Focus for growth:

• Addition of advanced practices such as Design Thinking, XP, Lean UX and tools like Kanban.
• Moving to agile product management from agile “project” management.

Things to avoid:

• Avoid tinkering with new practices that promote or reinforce traditional project management. The best teams move quickly in this stage away from project management and into agile product management.
• Watch out for signs that the team is turning into a feature factory. It’s tempting to ‘set and forget’ agile as a methodology. If this happens, the team will slide back to Stage Two within approximately 12 months and lose productivity along with it.