Why, in your opinion, did so many of the early agile transformations fail?

If you want any kind of transformation to succeed, agile or otherwise, you need to get a few things in order.

• A strong, clear, and compelling reason for change.
• Change that is tangible and measurable.
• Leadership teams must lead by example.
• Evolutionary change rather than revolutionary change.
• Support for teams undergoing the transition.

A strong, clear, and compelling reason for change

In an agile environment, we want people to be engaged and inspired.

We want knowledge workers and experts to embrace the opportunities available to them, and engage their work with curiosity, creativity, and their best problem-solving capabilities.

If we are asking people to change the way we have always done things, we need to identify a strong, compelling reason for that change to occur and we need to identify and communicate why the change is both urgent and necessary.

Once people understand why something is necessary, relevant, and urgent, we have a far greater chance of succeeding. We have a far higher probability of people adopting the behaviors, processes, and tools that we require and to have the necessary resilience to work through the friction of change.

This is what Dr. John Kotter refers to as a ‘burning platform’. A clear, compelling, and urgent need for change.

Change that is Tangible

The change must be tangible, in other words, it has got to make a difference.

If we carry on doing what we have always been doing, it leads to failure – at worst – or a lack of progress – at best. We have got to be able to see the desired outcomes and results from the effort we have made, and we must be able to trace that back to the change that we have adopted.

Change doesn’t happen overnight, but it is important that we can see metrics and returns on our investment throughout the journey.

If we have been asked to adopt a new way of working, a new set of tools, or a lightweight Agile framework as a scaffolding through which we can complete the work, we need to be able to see progression and evolution that is tangible and valuable.

If teams don’t see any benefit to the new style of working, they will simply revert to tried and tested behaviors and processes, ultimately resulting in the transformation’s failure.

Leadership teams to lead by example

You will often hear agile coaches and practitioners speak about the need for leaders to champion a transformation, rather than simply buy into the need for change.

If an executive or leadership team think that signing a cheque is all that is required for an agile transformation to succeed, you are probably going to fail.

There are two kinds of problems or organizational impediments.

1. Things that fall within the team’s capabilities, control, and influence.
2. Things that fall outside of the team’s capabilities, control, and influence.

Leadership needs to be actively engaged in helping teams solve problems or remove impediments that fall outside of their control and influence. It may be an organizational policy that no longer serves as useful, or it may be a series of dependencies between departments that is causing friction and frustration, whatever it is, it needs leadership intervention.

In addition to actively solving problems and removing impediments, teams need to see the leadership and executive teams leading the transformation through example.

By actively embracing the new values, principles, and processes whilst refusing to tolerate legacy-driven, potentially toxic behaviors that no longer serve the organization.

If an agile transformation fails to receive leadership support, it is likely that it will fail.

Too much change, too soon.

Agile transformation is daunting.

There are so many moving parts and such a great deal of complexity that we can’t simply change on a dime. It needs time. It needs evolutionary change rather than revolutionary change.

If the team fails to break things down into smaller, bite size chunks that are easily absorbed, you are probably going to fail.

Organizations who invest the time and effort in breaking large bits of change into smaller, incremental, and evolutionary change are going to find that people are able to inspect and adapt as they move along.

This week they may embrace X and use the following week to embed that change and acquire the data and evidence to support that it is a valuable adoption. A couple of weeks later, they will tackle the next element and then rinse and repeat.

An agile transformation is a journey rather than an overnight destination.

Support for people undergoing change.

As people transition from one, familiar style of working to another, unfamiliar style of working, it can be stressful and create a lot of friction.

We need to support people through that change.

We need to create the infrastructure to support that change, and we need to provide experienced coaches and support staff to help them through the transition.

In the case of an agile transformation, that would entail scrum masters, agile coaches and consultants, and agile leaders.

People who have walked this path before are able to actively guide, coach and mentor people through the process. When people feel supported through the process, an agile transformation is far less likely to fail.

Conclusion

In my opinion, a lot of the early agile transformations failed because they did not have these supporting elements in place. Successful agile transformations demonstrate that in addition to adopting an agile framework, these other elements need to be present too.

About Value Glide

Value Glide are a SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) consultancy, coaching practice, and training specialist who work with organizations to align business objectives with customer needs and wants.

As deeply experienced agile coaches and practitioners, our team are invested in continuous learning through each client engagement and use the data and evidence we gather from each implementation to inform our training, coaching, and consulting services.

In a nutshell, empirical process control or empiricism.

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