Whenever a new policy, benefit program, rule, regulation, or a new tool is introduced to an organization, some type of plan is created to help communicate goals and what will be done to achieve those goals.
While much effort is put into creating plans for some of those typical events or initiatives, we often see that agile adoptions stall because organizations will fail to create a proper sustainable transformation strategy that is appropriate for agile.
Agile is not a one-time event and the planning for an agile transformation shouldn’t be planned in the same way as new policy, program, rule, regulation, or tool and not like a typical project. If so, there will always be a perception that agile has “stalled” because reinventing an organization is not the same as “change management”.
Here are 5 tips to get your agile adoption moving again!
1. Create a strategy that nurtures transformation, not just adoption
Did your organization have a lot of people trained which resulted in a lot of teams doing Scrum, but the full return on investment hasn’t been realized yet? Training is great for foundational knowledge and adopting agile practices is not a bad thing as it helps teams to get into the rhythm of what it feels like to work in an agile way.
Or maybe your organization didn’t start with training at all, but instead with a team of early agile adopters who made “agile” seem easy. Early adopters are usually a group of enthusiast people who are on a development team and are selected or volunteer to be an agile pilot who will adopt the popular Scrum framework.
Training and small pilot teams are a great way to start, but how does an organization address which practices work best for which type of work or team?
Here are more questions to consider:
- Once teams move from training to mastery, what next?
- What conditions are necessary for agile success?
- What’s the plan to address barriers or impediments that prevent people from being agile?
- Does the philosophy of the organization align with agility?
- Which framework or set of frameworks are the right choice for the organization?
Transformation tackles the hard part, and it begins when the organization shifts from agile adoption to creating a system to support agility not just at team level, but all levels in the organization.
It’s important to think about creating a strategy that focuses on all of the above and more.
2. Create an agile vision.
Shouldn’t every product, solution or set of goals start with a vision?
Most organizations fail to establish a vision for what their objectives and desired outcomes are when it comes to agility.
Experts, consultants, and other well-versed agile people know what agile means but what does it mean to the organization?
It’s important to provide some directive to people as it can help create a focal point for not just the next set of early adopters but also those who have crossed the chasm towards maturation.
3. Identify measures of agile success
Define what agile success looks likes, steer clear of vanity metrics and revisit these metrics often.
Successful agility will stall if success is not defined appropriately and not having a set of success metrics can lead to scaling bad practices.
Beware of “perceived” successes since we have seen organizations assume that if a team has adopted a set of practices (typically Scrum) that they are reaping all the rewards that agility brings.
This is not true. Just as adopting a set of martial arts moves will not help a person in a stressful, potentially combative situation. Is it okay to include how many people have been trained or how many teams are practicing a specific framework? Yes, but not as a stand-alone metric of success and only if these statistics matter to an organization.
- Do employees feel safe enough to be transparent about failure?
- Is value being delivered to customers continuously and at a sustainable, predictable pace?
- Are employees and customers happy?
- What else matters?
Consider how your organization currently measures the success of a feature or solution delivered to end customers. It doesn’t simply stop at “we delivered” as its typically a set of metrics that tell the entire story which serve as additional input as to which service, feature or solution should be delivered to the customer next.
Defining measures of success for agility is no different.
4. Leadership needs to model agile behaviors.
Having top-level leadership involved is necessary however it must be more than a directive or one-time “We’re going Agile!” announcement. Change is a team sport and shouldn’t be viewed from the sidelines. Leadership, at all levels, needs to adopt behaviours consistent with the change they expect to see in the rest of the organization.
The easiest way to start is by viewing agility as not a project, but a cultural change where ways of working patterns are established and optimized through frequent inspection and adaption cycles.
5. Bring in the experts
The best economical decision that an organization could make would be to hire a team of agile experts that can help an organization assess their current state and co-create a tailor-made agile transformation roadmap that includes multiple levels in an organization.
We would love to partner with you and share more tips! Drop us a comment if you would like to learn more.
