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Agile – My Product Backlog is Out of Control!

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If a product backlog is growing faster than you deploy, if it cannot be prioritized properly, and business outcomes suffer, are your “Agile” efforts really working?  

Agile software development is a group of software development methods in which requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continuous improvement, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change.

A broken product backlog is only one of many symptoms that something is broken. If there are bottlenecks in change, delivery and deployment than what real value can evolutionary and faster development bring to the business?  It is time to consider “Agile Service Management”.

Agile Service Management ensures that agile principles and methods go beyond software development to ensure the product backlog is in control and that we, as service providers, can meet the speed of delivery while producing quality outcomes for changing business requirements.  Agile Service Management is framework agnostic and does not attempt to redefine any of the ITSM processes.  ITIL® and other service management frameworks have done an excellent job of describing best practices for managing IT services, including the processes that are necessary for a complete service lifecycle.  Agile Service Management supplements those frameworks with agile thinking and practices.

A Certified Agile Service Manager (CASM) is the operational equivalent of a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM).  Working together, ScrumMasters and Agile Service Managers instill agile thinking and integrate them into an integrated approach throughout the entire development, delivery and operational lifecycle stages.

The Agile Service Manager bridges a relationship with the organization’s software development ScrumMasters.  Cross‐populating Agile practices, vocabulary and automation across all sides of IT will serve to increase speed and consistency. Collaboration between Agile Service Managers and ScrumMasters helps to create and maintain a DevOps culture. 

Simply put, we can not silo agility.  If we silo these methods to “development” and do not integrate with our service management process activities in the entire value stream we are likely not to see the benefit and efficiency hoped for. 

Get educated and start your journey to become a “Certified Agile Service Manager”. http://www.itsmacademy.com/casm



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