Adopting agile methodology in your SailPoint-enabled IAM program

Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a crucial component of any organization’s security strategy, and adopting an agile methodology can greatly improve the speed, effectiveness, and overall success of your SailPoint-enabled IAM program. By breaking down projects into smaller, manageable tasks called sprints, and emphasizing collaboration, flexibility, and adaptability, Agile methodology ensures that the right people have access to the right resources at the right time, reducing cost and minimizing risk.

Agile methodology is a set of principles that emphasize collaboration, flexibility, and adaptability in project management. It breaks down projects into smaller, manageable tasks, called sprints, which are completed in short timeframes. This approach enables teams to respond quickly to changing requirements and customer needs, delivering value in a shorter period. Adopting agile methodology in your SailPoint-enabled IAM program not only improves the speed and effectiveness of your IAM efforts but also reduces costs and minimizes risk.

Key steps to adopt an agile methodology in your SailPoint-enabled IAM program:

Form an Agile Team

The first step is to form an agile team that will be responsible for delivering the IAM program. The team should consist of cross-functional members who have the necessary skills and expertise to design, develop, and deploy the IAM program. The agile team should also include a product owner who will be responsible for prioritizing the IAM program backlog and ensuring that the team is delivering value to the organization.

Create a Backlog

The IAM program backlog should be created by the product owner, in collaboration with the team members. The backlog should contain a prioritized list of features, enhancements, and bug fixes that the team will work on during each sprint. The backlog should be flexible and continually updated based on changing business needs and feedback from stakeholders.

Plan and Execute Sprints

Sprints are time-bound iterations in which the agile team works on a set of items (user stories) from the backlog. Each sprint typically lasts two to four weeks, during which the team plans, designs, develops, and tests new features. At the end of each sprint, the team should deliver a working, tested, and potentially shippable feature increment. Ideally, a production deployment should happen at the end of each sprint. However, this might be challenging for organizations that haven’t yet adopted good DevOps practices in their IAM program.

Conduct Daily Stand-up Meetings

Daily stand-up meetings are an essential part of the agile methodology. These meetings are short (usually 15 minutes) and provide an opportunity for the team to synchronize and plan their work for the day. During these meetings, team members should share their progress, discuss any roadblocks, and identify any dependencies or risks. Follow-on meetings can be scheduled after the standup meeting to deep dive and address any issues/risks identified during the meeting.

Conduct Backlog Refinement Meetings

These meetings provide an opportunity to effectively prioritize items in the backlog based on the business needs. It’s also a good time to properly define the user stories that have been created by including key pieces of information such as the “definition of done”, story points (i.e the effort required to complete the story), business value, etc.

Review and Adapt

At the end of each sprint, the team should conduct a sprint review and retrospective. The sprint review is an opportunity to showcase the working product increment to stakeholders and get feedback. The retrospective is a time for the team to reflect on what went well, what didn’t go well, and how they can improve their processes for the next sprint.

As you implement the above steps, continuous improvement is crucial, especially if the agile methodology is new to your team. Additionally, there are several tools/platforms that can manage the agile team and process. Jira is a popular option that many IAM teams have successfully adopted.

In summary, adopting agile methodology in your SailPoint-enabled IAM program can help you respond quickly to changing business needs, deliver value faster, and continuously improve your IAM program overall.

Need help incorporating agile methodology in your IAM Program?

If you’re interested in adopting an agile methodology for your SailPoint-enabled IAM program but don’t know where to start, Aptitude Consulting can help. Our team of experts has extensive experience in IAM and project management, and we can work with you to create a customized plan that meets your specific needs and goals.