Too often, when companies attempt to conduct an agile transformation their chances of success are greatly reduced thanks to a misconception of what Agile truly means. Some believe that the term refers to a distinct set of methodologies, whereas in truth, Agile is correctly used to describe a set of principles with which to discover methods of developing software in a way that helps others in an organisation to do it too.
The path to Agile Transformation is different for every business, meaning that a one-size-fits-all approach just won’t work. However, said transformation is carried out, it aims to discover and implement new ways of working that focus on better, faster, cheaper, happier employees, customers and that harness changes whenever they occur, to obtain a competitive advantage.
OTHER REASONS YOUR AGILE TRANSFORMATION MIGHT FAIL
So, we’ve addressed the general misconceptions that lead to the failure of Agile Transformations, but there are many other components comprised within a business. Here we look at some of the other reasons why transformations of this kind don’t succeed.
REASON #1 – A CLASHING OF VALUES
Sometimes there is a mismatch of what a company is and what a company wants to be. Though many companies may feel like they are agile, high tech enterprises, in truth what they have is a business culture with a strong command and control. This has its merits of course, but businesses that operate this way can find it difficult or simply don’t want to change their established core principles to those that Agile extol.
Takeaway: When an Agile Transformation is attempted, a will to change needs to exist.
REASON #2 – RESISTANCE FROM TEAMS
Teams within an organisation can often be complex, with their own set of motives, which can result in a resistance to change. It could be that one particular team might not want to share knowledge for fear of losing some of their authority or there could be a lack of trust within the organisation that is deemed to not respect its employees. Or it might even be that there is a high turnover of staff within an organisation or a lot of short-contract workers on the books, meaning that neither trust nor respect has time to develop.
Takeaway: For Agile Transformation to succeed, the will to implement change must run throughout the company.
REASON #3 – CUSTOMER RESISTANCE
What shouldn’t be forgotten is the fact that an Agile Transformation is something that will also affect the end-user of an organisation’s services, i.e. the customer. As well as convincing everyone in your organisation that Agile Transformation is the way forwards, in the event of customer resistance to change, some time also needs to be paid to selling the change to them too.
Takeaway: Don’t forget to consider the needs of your customers.
REASON #4 – RESISTANCE FROM LEADERSHIP
An important fundamental that needs to be considered is whether or not your organisation’s leadership are fully on board with your Agile Transformation. If those at the top are dubious, perhaps for reasons relating to cost, they might not have their full commitment in the project and as such might not be putting their full effort into training and the many other elements involved. Without the endorsement of leadership, the chances of a successful transition go down greatly.
Takeaway: Leadership need to be fully on board for your Agile Transformation to succeed.
REASON #5 – DEVELOPERS WHO DON’T PLAY WITH OTHER WELL
Another important factor in an Agile Transformation is the developer, who also needs to understand the need to collaborate both with customers and other members of your organisation. There are developers out there who got into the role because it afforded them a degree of autonomy in their work and as such, they don’t work well with others, whether talking about customers or even other developers. Use developers like these for your transformation and you’ll likely hit problems.
Takeaway: Your developer needs to be committed to the collaboration aspect of your transformation.
REASON #6 – UNCOORDINATED EFFORTS
There are some instances where separate teams within an organisation have implemented their individual Agile and whilst this can lead to those teams to improve their performance, having a disparate, uncoordinated strategy where no one is talking to each other will, more often than not, slow down the delivery of the product. For an effective enterprise agile transformation to take place, this disjointed arrangement needs to be replaced with a uniform one where everyone is on the same page.
Takeaway: All of your organisation’s teams need to be pulling in the same direction.
REASON #7 – RESULTS AREN’T BEING MEASURED
Whilst you may have implemented the perfect processes to make your Agile Transformation go smoothly, if you don’t have a way to measure your success, you’ll have no idea of how well it’s going. You need to have metrics in place, as well as a method of storing analysing this data, as, without this information, you lose the ability to make considered adjustments based on your results.
IN SUMMARY
Takeaway: Measuring success is vital if you’re to implement ongoing and continuous improvements to your processes.
The key to implementing an effective Agile Transformation is understanding exactly what’s involved and having every element within your organisation engaged, fully committed and working towards a common goal. It’s also a constant evolution and to be truly agile, you need to be set up to react positively to any changes, whenever they occur during the process. Fail to do so and you’re increasing the chances of poor performance significantly.
At Leadership Tribe, we have the experience and know-how to make your Agile Transformation achieve everything it should so that you can keep pace with your industry competitors. We have assisted many companies from a variety of industries to implement effective agile strategies tailored to the specific needs of their business.
To find out more information about how we could help you, you can either visit us online at https://leadershiptribe.com/uk, speak to a member of our team on 0207 096 0346 or fill out our contact form here and we’ll be in touch as soon as we can.
