Navigating Agile Challenges with SAM

8 min read Oct 24, 2023

Let's begin 

Agile is not necessarily a failure, but it can be if it is not implemented correctly. Many organizations have struggled to implement Agile successfully, leading to project delays, budget overruns, and unsatisfied clients. 

In this blog we have tried to explore the shortcomings of Agile and introduce an innovative solution – the Seasia Agile Model (SAM) to the world. SAM leverages a comprehensive set of tools and a refined framework to address the Agile challenges, enhancing project productivity and efficiency. 

The Agile Predicament 

Agile is a popular project management methodology that emphasizes iterative development, teamwork, and flexibility. However, despite its popularity, Agile has been criticized for several reasons, which might include the following: 

  • It can be difficult to implement and scale: Agile is not a one-size-fits-all approach, and what works for one team may not work for another. Additionally, it can be challenging to scale Agile to larger projects and organizations. 
  • It can lead to scope creep: Agile's emphasis on flexibility and iteration can make it difficult to control the scope of a project. This can lead to projects being delivered late or over budget. 
  • It can be difficult to measure progress and success: Agile's focus on incremental delivery can make it difficult to track progress and measure success. This can lead to a lack of transparency and accountability. 
  • It can lead to burnout: Agile's emphasis on continuous delivery can lead to team members feeling overworked and burned out. 

  • It can be difficult to manage complex projects: Agile is not well-suited for managing complex projects with many dependencies. 

Here are some of the reasons why agile transformations can fail: 

  • Lack of understanding of agile principles and values: Agile is not just a set of tools and practices. It is a mindset and a way of working. If team members and stakeholders do not understand the agile principles and values, it is difficult to implement agile successfully. 

  • Top-down approach to agile transformation: Agile transformations should be driven by the teams themselves, not by management. If management tries to force agile on teams, it is likely to fail. 
  • Resistance to change: Agile requires a change in mindset and culture. This can be difficult for some people, especially those who are used to traditional waterfall development methodologies. 
  • Lack of support from management: Agile transformations require the support of management. If management is not committed to agile, it is likely to fail. 
  • Agile is not a one-size-fits-all approach. It needs to be adapted to the specific needs of the organization. If teams try to implement agile without adapting it, it is less likely to be successful. 

Did you know? 

  • Agile is evolving to embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion, recognizing that varied backgrounds and perspectives enhance team effectiveness. 
  • AI and ML enhance agile processes by automating code review, testing, and deployment while predicting risks and personalizing the experience for team members. 
  • While 95 percent of organizations have some form of agile process in place, practice maturity and adoption remain a work in progress. Around 50 percent of respondents report that less than half of their teams are using agile, and 84 percent acknowledge that their organizations are below a high level of competencies.

  • The State of Agile survey showed that only 18 percent of the organizations implemented Agile for all the teams. 77 percent of the organizations had still not implemented Agile in all the company’s teams. With 5 percent of the organizations yet to adopt Agile, there is clearly plenty of room for growth. 

Introducing SAM: Seasia Agile Model 

Seasia has leveraged its extensive experience in both CMMI Level 5 expertise and Agile methodology to develop an innovative solution – the Seasia Agile Model (SAM). SAM seeks to streamline and enhance various aspects of project management, ensuring a balance between flexibility and structure. 

Let’s look at a few key benefits of SAM: 

  • Increased speed of delivery: SAM is designed to help organizations deliver value to customers more quickly and efficiently than traditional development methodologies. This is achieved by using a number of agile practices, such as sprint planning, daily standups, and sprint reviews. 
  • Improved quality: SAM also helps organizations to improve the quality of their products and services. This is achieved by using a number of quality assurance practices, such as continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) and unit testing. 

  • Reduced costs: SAM can also help organizations to reduce their development costs. This is achieved by eliminating waste and inefficiency from the development process. 
  • Increased customer satisfaction: SAM helps organizations to improve customer satisfaction by delivering products and services that meet the needs of customers. This is achieved by using a number of customer-centric practices, such as user stories and acceptance criteria. 
  • Increased employee engagement: SAM helps organizations to increase employee engagement by creating a more collaborative and empowering work environment. This is achieved by using a number of agile practices, such as self-organizing teams and retrospectives. 

In addition to these general benefits, SAM also offers a number of specific benefits for organizations in the digital age. For example, SAM can help organizations to: 

  • Adapt to change more quickly: SAM helps organizations to adapt to change more quickly by using a flexible and iterative approach to development. This is important in the digital age, where change is happening at an unprecedented pace. 

  • Innovate more effectively: SAM helps organizations to innovate more effectively by creating a culture of experimentation and learning. This is important in the digital age, where innovation is essential for success. 
  • Compete more effectively: SAM helps organizations to compete more effectively by enabling them to deliver products and services to market more quickly than their competitors. This is important in the digital age, where time to market is critical. 

Overall, SAM is a valuable tool for organizations of all sizes. It can help organizations to improve their performance, increase customer satisfaction, and compete more effectively in the digital age. 

Let’s look at the tools that make SAM powerful 

One of the key strengths of SAM lies in the extensive toolkit it employs, which includes tools such as Leads Portal, Prodacker, Devops Genie, PRISM, and Bugbot, among others. Let's delve deeper into each of these tools to understand their role in enhancing project productivity and efficiency: 

Leads Portal 

Leads Portal serves as a platform for Discovery and Client Onboarding, facilitating activities such as project kick-off, stakeholder introduction, proposal and contract agreements, requirement elicitation, and UX analysis. The tool brings remarkable enhancements to the project process: 

  • A 30% increase in sales through data-driven insights. 
  • Over 40% time saved using a smart autoreply engine. 
  • Over 90% potential spam detection. 
  • AI-driven lead scoring. 

These improvements demonstrate how SAM enhances the client onboarding phase, making it more efficient and client-focused. 

Prodacker 

Prodacker is a tool that aids in project planning and design, handling activities like project planning, security planning, QA planning, architecture planning, and domain modeling. The tool provides essential benefits: 

  • Doubled planning efficiency with the use of Prodacker and its multitude of apps. 
  • A 30% more optimized resource allocation. 

These enhancements help ensure effective planning, ultimately leading to a more organized project execution phase. 

PRISM, Raptor Vista, Prodacker Helpdesk, Inventory Management, Mobo Raptors, and Bugbot 

PRISM, Raptor Vista, Prodacker Helpdesk, Inventory Management, Mobo Raptors, and Bugbot tools play a crucial role in project execution, facilitating client engagement, sprint retros, sprint reviews, backlog definition, sprint planning, and daily scrum. Their contributions include: 

Double efficiency in execution through the use of Prodacker and its multitude of apps. 

  • Effort variance stabilized to 10-15%. 
  • Schedule variance stabilized to 5%. 
  • A 10x increase in test precision through a Test Automation Framework. 
  • Four times faster testing and 100% accuracy with an AI-enabled suite. 

  • A 20% performance improvement with AI-enabled tracking tools and recommendations. 

These tools collectively address many of the challenges that Agile projects often face during execution, ensuring better efficiency and accuracy. 

Raptor Insight, PRISM, Prodacker, and Seasia Tracker 

Raptor Insight, PRISM, Prodacker, and Seasia Tracker are responsible for monitoring and controlling projects, these tools handle task tracking, activities tracking, screenshot capture, time tracking, and AI/ML model implementation for resource behavior and screen time. Their contributions include: 

  • An upward trend in client satisfaction. 
  • A 30% rise in client retention. 

  • Early detection of unethical activities, enhancing project security. 

These tools provide invaluable insights and control over project monitoring, contributing to project success. 

Infra Lense, Code Naut, Revizo Board, and Releasaurs 

Infra Lens, Code Naut, Revizo Board, and Releasaurs tools manage the deployment phase of a project, handling activities such as DevOps and data migration. Their contributions include: 

  • Detailed history of the deployment process, aiding in decision-making and tracking. 
  • A 100% reduction in incorrect code deployment due to human error. 

  • A 90% decrease in production issues through post-deployment validation. 
  • Zero unwanted cloud charges with infra auditing. 
  • Comprehensive oversight of multiple environments, enhancing backup recovery and testing scenarios .

These tools ensure a seamless and error-free deployment phase for projects. 

Inventory Management, Prodacker, and Devops Genie 

Inventory Management, Prodacker, and Devops Genie tools are crucial for project support and maintenance, providing services like dev support for a stipulated time, server and infrastructure maintenance, and yearly maintenance support. Their contributions include: 

  • 25% faster ticket closure. 
  • 100% software version compliance maintenance. 
  • 100% backward compatibility. 

These tools ensure that projects continue to run smoothly even after deployment, maintaining client satisfaction. 

Prodacker and Seasia Tracker 

Prodacker and Seasia Tracker are instrumental in managing and structuring dashboards and reporting, providing reports on tasks, attendance, activities, reward points, resource allocation, and milestones. Their contributions include: 

  • A Hawk's Eye progress view at all project levels. 
  • Improved client happiness index by tracking KPIs to evaluate project health. 
  • 30% better decision-making through data-driven insights. 

These tools enhance the transparency and reporting capabilities of projects. 

Prodacker, PRISM, and Seasia Tracker 

In addition to In addition to Prodacker, PRISM, and Seasia Tracker’s other responsibilities, these tools play a role in driving continuous improvement within the project, offering: 

  • 20% faster risk mitigation using AI-based recommendations. 
  • Continuous feedback and reviews. 

These tools ensure that projects continue to evolve and improve over time, delivering better results. 

Take a look at how our specialists believe Agile Model should be implemented: 

  • Educate team members and stakeholders about agile principles and values: Make sure that everyone understands what agile is and why it is important. 
  • Get buy-in from management: Make sure that management is committed to agile and is willing to provide the necessary support. 

  • Start small and scale up gradually: Don't try to implement agile across the entire organization at once. Start with a few pilot projects and then scale up as you gain experience. 
  • Be willing to adapt: Agile is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Be willing to adapt agile to the specific needs of your organization. 
  • Measure progress and make adjustments as needed: Agile is an iterative and incremental approach. Track your progress and make adjustments as needed to ensure that you are on the right track. 

Why choose Seasia 

Seasia is a leading provider of digital transformation and agile consulting services. We have a proven track record of helping organizations of all sizes to improve their performance, increase customer satisfaction, and compete more effectively in the digital age. 

Here are a few reasons why Seasia Infotech should be your partner for success: 

  • Expertise: Seasia has a team of experienced and certified agile coaches and consultants who can help you to implement SAM successfully. 

  • Customer focus: Seasia is committed to helping our customers achieve their goals. We work closely with our customers to understand their needs and develop a customized SAM implementation plan. 
  • Flexibility: Seasia offers a variety of flexible engagement options to meet the needs of our customers. We can provide on-site consulting, remote consulting, or a combination of both. 
  • Affordability: Seasia offers competitive pricing for our services. We believe that everyone should have access to high-quality agile consulting services, regardless of their budget. 

In addition to these benefits, Seasia also offers a number of specific benefits for organizations in the digital age. For example: 

  • We understand the unique challenges and opportunities that organizations face in the digital age. 

  • We can help you to develop and implement a digital transformation strategy that is aligned with your business goals. 
  • We can help you to build a high-performing agile team that can deliver innovative products and services to market quickly and efficiently. 

Conclusion 

The Seasia Agile Model (SAM) offers a comprehensive solution to the challenges that Agile projects often face. By leveraging a wide range of specialized tools tailored to specific client and project needs, SAM enhances project productivity and efficiency, ensures client satisfaction, and empowers continuous improvement. 

In contrast to the shortcomings of traditional Agile, SAM provides a refined framework that strikes a balance between flexibility and structure, ultimately delivering superior results and driving innovation in all projects. It is, indeed, the answer to the issues that Agile projects have faced in recent years. 

If you are interested in learning more about how Seasia & SAM can help you to achieve success, please contact us today. We would be happy to discuss your specific needs and develop a customized solution for you. 

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Anil Rana

Anil is a dynamic professional who primarily focuses on digital asset management and business analysis. With over 14 years of experience, Anil works closely with requirement gathering, analysis, estimation, design, development, testing, and production support while supporting business solution software and analyzing business operations for top global enterprises. He possesses multiple certifications that include Certified Scrum Master and Certified Product Owner.